john fink

It’s stunning to look around this big world and see just how many independent countries have been led by elected women. India, Israel, Iceland, Japan, Finland, Mexico, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Thailand, England, North Macedonia, Latvia, New Zealand, Samoa, Barbados Republic of Congo, Namibia… the list goes on and on. 

Over 81 countries in the past 100 years. Guess which voting democracy is missing from this list? Us. The U.S. Scan this growing list of countries that have been led by women and one thing that they all have in common is… nothing! From countries considered egalitarian and/or liberal-leaning to those possibly categorized as homogenous, patriarchal, or even mysognyistic in many ways, the voters in these countries have decided that yes, women are absolutely capable of running their countries. But not here.

Hilary Clinton was the first American woman elected as a major party candidate, and she won the popular vote (2016), but that’s another story/issue. While too young to actually serve (at age 33), Victoria Woodhull is considered to be the first official, female presidential candidate… in 1872. And please don’t talk about required qualifications of candidates as one can quickly point out clowns, cretins, criminals, and charlatans who’ve run this democracy over the past 245+ years. All men, all the time. Three million more people voted for Donald Trump in 2024 than did so in 2020. Over six million fewer people voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 than voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Millions opted not to vote. Let the “why?” debates continue by overzealous analysts and pundits who revel in post-mortem election dissection. Hindsight is 20/20. 

Regardless of your personal sociological or political bent, one thing remains absolute. Women presidential aspirants are 0 for forever in the United States. It’s a bit perplexing based on so many major social, economic, and political changes and gains we’ve seen in America since 1920, when women first got the national right to vote. 

Strong, smart, major party-supported women have been elected and/or selected to myriad prestigious leadership positions throughout the years in the U.S., but the U.S.A. CEO glass ceiling has thus far proven shatterproof to those who’ve pressed up against it.

Recent elections in Mexico and Japan saw first-time women winners. We’re in a non-election year- but looking over international results over the decades was an eye-opener. Someday, one day, a deserving distaff leader will break through here.

Think about it…

Today, let’s go from the sublime to the ridiculous (for some of you). Let’s laser focus on something that many of us can control, as opposed to that vast wilderness of issues and items we simply cannot be in charge of. Ready? Try to schedule/eat lunch at 11:30am.

There are myriad reasons for this not-so-profound concept, so let me dazzle (or bore) you with but a handful of plausible reasons to change your middle meal habits (if possible). First of all, there’s normally less traffic at 11:30 locally as opposed to noon time and beyond. That’s good. Arriving at 11:30am normally ensures that the establishment you choose to eat in is less crowded and also quieter. That’s nice. Wait staff and the kitchen crew will be more relaxed since the onslaught of 12pm+ customers will not have arrived yet. You’ll probably therefore get better and quicker service, hotter entrees, and more smiles. All good.

And when you head back to work (perhaps at 12:30 or so) most noshers will have just recently arrived at their chosen lunch places, and thus the roads might again be a little saner. Also, since you’ll arrive back at work when most people are otherwise engaged (with food), it’ll should be quieter at work; perhaps you can get more done before the afternoon barrage begins. Just saying…

And this mid-day culinary change might cause you to reconsider what time you eat dinner. Again, it’s different for everyone, but if you can/choose to dine at 5:30p or 6p, you might just go to bed with a stomach that’s less full- which is a good thing. And since there might be some light/twilight left outside after an earlier dinner, you might opt to walk for 5-10 minutes before you plop down in your nightly, rote couch potato ritual. 

While some of this might seem silly I can assure you that, having carved this concept into reality during my busiest working years, it can have some real merit. Sure, life often interferes with our plans, but when you can control something and decide that a manageable choice has its rewards- why not go for it? There are many overwhelming issues, intrigue, and items that surround us, so when you can be in charge, even if it seems mundane or trivial, maybe give it a try.

Just some food for thought (literally) to chew on.

Think about it…

A simplistic refrain we hear far too often is: “the keiki are our future”. Duh… Who else could be?! Yet surveys and statistics would indicate that adults- at many levels- need to do a better job to help ensure that those keiki have opportunities to thrive- not simply survive- in school, to propel them as they invariably enter the local work force as adults.

A UH West O`ahu survey just offered significant insight into how UH college kids (throughout the entire UH system) have food, housing, and clothing insecurities that exceed national norms for college students. 60% of those queried here “…suffer from at least one type of severe food insecurity”. 20% stated they have “…no safe place to stay or sleep”. And 25% indicated clothing insecurity.

That equals layers of constant mental consternation. How can students possibly perform at peak levels when their very basic needs are not being met? There are obviously myriad reasons for these issues (not to mention students’ additional concerns about health, hygiene, safety and transportation), but more nuanced work needs to be done to help alleviate these very real world concerns.

Good news- 80% of UH students surveyed felt “…respected by peers” while 75% “…have a high sense of belonging”. UH’s campus communities seem relatively strong, and UH does offer student basic needs services. Some students won’t seek help or aren’t aware where to go for it. But advice and recommendations are available.

And we know about food insecurity concerns at our public, pre-college schools. While schools cannot make up for home issues beyond their control, efforts are underway to provide more nutrition- a school meal is often the best meal a kid gets daily. Apparently, renewed efforts are under way to retrofit and update local classrooms lack of quality air. Hard to believe breathable air still remains a major issue… after 40 years.

Recent Department of Education’s numbers indicate that chronic absenteeism hovers at 24% in public schools in 2024/25, triple the chronic absentee rate (8%) back in 2019/20. Hard to teach kids who continually skip school (again, the reasons vary).

We now have over 90 public, pre-K schools statewide, with at least 50 more set to open by mid-2026. That’s phenomenal! Incremental gains to help mitigate on-going issues would surely add to the belief that concrete efforts are constantly being made if “the keiki are our future”. They must be.

Think about it…

Do you have a “third place”? If not, you might find one. The term was first presented by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, “The Great Good Place”. He stated that the “third place” is a social place outside of home (“first place”) and work (“second place”).

A golfing buddy (weekend golf is a “third place” for me) sent me a Smithsonian magazine article extolling the value of such social get-togethers. What’s great about a third place is that you get to find it, create it, join it, and/or choose it. Your call. Home is obviously preeminent, and work is hopefully something you (normally) look forward to, but a third place can be a wonderful, balancing, safe haven of fun, relaxation, learning and/or repetitive joy.

Swimming at the beach with a group, walking, golfing, coffee-ing at your favorite nook or pupu-ing at your hot spot at an appointed time weekly or monthly- you pick ‘em. 

A friend of mine once organized a local “Ben Franklin Society”, where people would simply meet up, sit around, and “fly a kite”… basically, discuss commonly-decided upon topics of interest for a couple of hours quarterly.  Perhaps your “third place” gathering could be more zen-like. Sitting on a hill looking out over the ocean or hovering down by the seashore- in silence. Simply breathing while watching and hearing the waves while enjoying the solitude with a like-minded group of devotees.

Libraries, chess groups, sewing classes, churches, parks, Mah Jongg, board game bunches, reading clubs, cooking groups, Twister consortiums… the lists and possibilities are endless. And this third place might be even easier to evolve locally, where people often tend to get along from the get-go. Just think back to some of the fun times you’ve experienced outside of the house or the office. Can you proactively recreate those moments regularly? Would you like to?

It’s about quality- not quantity- of time, purpose, connection, and intrinsic value. Everyone showing up to equally participate and be a part of a purposeful community. Of course, time is an issue for everyone. But purposeful thinking might help you to create that additional space and a haven where you can feel fulfillment and camaraderie.  

“Work” invariably ends someday; “home” morphs over the years as people (and pets) move on. Having a third place where you can go and find fulfillment? Chance ‘em.

Think about it… 

According to the latest report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hawai`i once again leads the nation in longevity (as of 2021). We live an average of 79.9-years here while the U.S. norm is 78.4 years (as of 2023). Women outlive men by 5.3 years…  subject matter for another day.

While some doubt almost anything coming out of the CDC these days (a serious mistake), the longevity statistics may indicate there’s something “special” about Hawai`i, which many of us believe. The next five highest life expectancy states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota; nice weather is surely not the ultimate determinant.

Hawai`i slipped into the #2 spot of most expensive states to reside in (behind California). The irony here is that we live longer than anyone elsewhere… it’s just tougher here to make a go of it, and you don’t need to make it to 80-years old to realize that. Men live 1.3 years longer here vs. the national average, while women live two years longer (note: state stats are from 2021; national stats are from 2023). Maybe we’re smarter, healthier, stronger? Lucky you live Hawai`i, indeed. 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: “The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.” However you want to look at the longevity numbers, the social fabric of Hawai`i surely plays a role in our quality and quantity of life. Concepts like aloha, ‘ohana, living pono, laulima, akahai, ha’aha’a… the list goes on.

These are not just words, but social mores that transcend day-to-day existence. It’s what makes life here seem so worthwhile for so many. One can wax poetic about local intangibles which lessen the onerous cost burdens that many deal with daily.

50% of people who moved from Hawai`i in 2023 went to either California, Texas, Washington, Arizona, or Florida, according to the State of Hawai`i Data Book. They all undoubtedly had good reasons to leave. But losing people with local roots makes it harder to sustain that which makes Hawai`i so unique and so special. The solutions to allow people to thrive here, not just survive, must be a top priority for those in charge. 

The Vulcan salute (from “Star Trek”) implores us to “live long and prosper”. Prosperity is subjective; richness is not solely related to one’s monetary wealth. Here’s to the quality and length of life in Hawai`i.

Think about it…

A quarter century… that’s about how long I’ve been doing this “Think About It” thing- 18+ years (twice a week) on KHNL/KFVE, and now six years in MidWeek. For this piece, I was a bit stunned when I went back through my “TAI” archives and looked for stories I did about the lack of breathable air in our public school classrooms.

It was almost 15-years ago. A very pregnant substitute teacher I met told me that she almost fainted in classroom that day due to the extreme heat. I opined, and a benevolent local retailer immediately provided 25 portable fans to her school. Parents regaled me with their schooldays tales of heatstroke suffering- 30+ years earlier.

As I perused the middle era of the 2,200 or so editorials I’ve written/aired, I realized just how many stories- though ancient- still (sadly) resonate today. So if you go on vacation or visit a black hole in space, no need to take your phone for news updates; nothing much changes…

I didn’t even go back to the beginning of the “TAI” era (2/2/2001); I just checked a few editorials from 10-15 years ago, and voila- same old, same old. I found my “Not Cool At All” editorial about the profound lack of school air quality from February 7, 2011. I begged for no more hot air from legislators touting “the keiki are our future” (not if they can’t breathe or think). This specific topic was committee-ized and studied for decades.

By May, 2016 (five years later), $100 million was (finally) approved by state legislators to cool up to 1,0000 classrooms through a “Cool Classrooms Initiative”. Yippee! Yet the Office of the Auditor’s Report No. 25-09 which came out last month (yes- August, 2025) revealed “…a stark picture of wasted money, poor planning and unmet promises”, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Stunned folks probably heard about this while trespassing on the Stairway to Heaven trail, or avoiding rebar while swimming at the Waikiki Natatorium, or “Not-atorium”, as I labeled it in a July 28, 2014 piece, which followed lamenting in a May 26, 2014 piece;  another plea appeared on May 6, 2013, and another on… well, you get the dilapidated picture.

The overall AC/air reparations failure at local schools (perhaps AC stands for “All Clueless”?) hammers home why many taxpayers get flustered and (sadly) give the “ainokea” hands up gesture decade after decade.

Think about it…

The unemployment rate locally is 2.7%, the lowest it’s been in five years. Job markets tend to ebb and flow. Sometimes there’s a solid market for college graduates; other times, not so much. But one way to “game” the system appears to be gaining popularity in China, according to the British Broadcast Company (BBC).

Some Chinese college graduates are not getting paid to go to work, they’re actually paying to go to a pseudo-workplace! With youth unemployment at 14% in China these days, young adults pay daily fees to go into a mock office run by (ready for this) Pretend To Work Company. They sit around with other like-minded unemployed folks, work at computers, play video games, drink tea, and go to meetings. You may have experienced a co-worker who “pretends to work”; that’s now a real thing in China.

This poser workplace does offer an opportunity, perhaps under the heading of “misery loves company”, to search for real work, hone social skills, take pictures at a desk, try one’s luck as an influencer, and feel connected… to something.

Pretend To Work’s owner (himself formerly unemployed) promoted his new venture in April, and by May all his available workstations were full. There’s now a waiting list for people to not work. 40% of attendees are recently-graduated students, while others are freelancers, between jobs, lost in the downsizing digital world, ride-share or truck drivers, or even self-proclaimed online novelists.

Perhaps the socialization aspect offsets the pressures and stigma of not being gainfully employed. But it’s all shibai. The Pretend To Work owner claims he provides “dignity” yet acknowledges that his set up is “…complicit in a gentle deception”.  Indeed. Some “workers” say they are fine-tuning their A.I. skills. Of course! They’re already adept at fakery. 

Workplace relationships can be vital for connecting and providing a sense of belonging, but let’s hope this phony workplace trend doesn’t catch on. Socializing and teamwork are great, but sleight of hand and trickery are not good lessons to be learning or leaning on- even when feeling desperate. Commiserating is one thing, but fake work?

If an employer hired someone and then found out that his/her résumé or pictures of that person “working” at an assumed former job were fake, well… that probably wouldn’t end well. This pop-up job façade might be the one time where you can sincerely say, “DO give up your day job”.

Think about it…

The U.S.A. represents a mere 4.2% of the world population, but we’ve sure been garnering beacoup worldwide headlines as of late. One thing seems certain- the times they are a-changin’ (courtesy Bob Dylan, 1964). New York Times columnist David Brooks recently declared that “…civilization was ‘fun while it lasted’ ”, a witty, yet glum world view that some undoubtedly find far too accurate.

With that in mind, in a country where need gets far too often overruled by greed in so many areas (thanks, social media, for the boost) and where inanity and insanity are terms that often come to mind, check out a few news stories to help distract you- for a moment- from the obfuscation and looney tunes reality we find ourselves in these days…

You might’ve seen the August 1 story of the truck that spilled its innards out on a Pennsylvania highway. The contents? Hot dogs. There were minor injuries, but the written news accounts of the incident were great, with story lines including priceless quips like: “Pennsylvania commuters wurst nightmare”, and “Crews were stuck with a job they did not relish — rolling up the scattered tube steaks for disposal.” I found reports I read to be rather frank. Pardon the bun… 

How to slow down incessant poaching that’s decimated various endangered, horned species for decades? The Associated Press reported that a South African university has launched a campaign where it injects radioactive isotopes into rhinoceros horns! The radioactive substance is (apparently) harmless to the animals but can be detected by wary customs agents. Hmmm, how does one passively obtain a roamin’ rhino’s obeisance in the wild? Gotta be tough tranquilizing a tough-skinned, two-ton, wandering herbivore. But good for them- proudly poo-pooing persistent, petty poachers…

A black hole espied more than five billion light-years away in the Cosmic Horseshoe (sounds like a 1960s band) is apparently 10,000 times heavier than our own Milky Way’s black hole. Wow, man. Not sure what I just said there, but it seems astounding. While some consider local construction projects or even discussions on said projects here to be the universe’s largest black holes… you ain’t seen nothing yet. Our rinky-dink Milky Way black hole is 4.3 million times larger than our sun; this new one is the size of 36 billion suns! It may be the most massive black hole ever discovered, and I can’t wait to visit…

Think about it…