PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM We’re looking for
a few bright(er) ideasHow can Honolulu residents
put their heads together to make
the city a better place to live?
They say great minds think alike, but if so, how disappointing! You'd think -- you'd hope -- that people with mighty brains wouldn't be on the same page, ever. They'd be off the page, out of the box, beyond the borders, out there somewhere.
Brainstorm!
How should Honolulu celebrate its 200th birthday?
Send your ideas and solutions by June 5 to:
brainstorm@starbulletin.comOr mail them to:
Brainstorm
c/o Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin
500 Ala Moana
7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813Or fax:
Brainstorm
c/o Burl Burlingame
529-4750
We all know that the big cauliflower packed in the human skull is pretty much split into two zones (besides the rear-skull stuff that controls breathing, heartbeat and whatnot); one side handles analytical, logical, deductive reasoning; the other is devoted to intuition, imagination, creativity.
To oversimplify further, one half of your brain makes you an artist; the other half makes you a lawyer; one side, the glass of water is half-full, the other side, the glass of water looks mighty good when you're thirsty.
A citizen needs both sides going full throttle to be a functional human being. Unfortunately, most of the people elected to office and those who operate municipal government hail from one side of the brain. (They're the guys who install rumble strips without imagining what they'd feel like to drivers, and at the first signs of whining, panic and shave them down to the height of paint stripes.)
But a government is made up of more than civil-service functionaries; it includes all of us. We all should be contributing. Just a few ounces of brain-juice added up and applied to the right area, and we could be living in a society that is both creative and logical.
Which brings us to the point of this column, "Brainstorm." Once a month, we'll identify a municipal problem that we believe has been overlooked, or a quality-of-life issue that could use a creative solution. The University of Hawaii logo design brouhaha is a prime example of citizens applying themselves, using the creative side of their brains to aid the Mr. Spocks who run the university out of a jam they weren't imaginative enough to ... well, to imagine ahead of time.
Send suggestions and solutions to brainstorm@starbulletin.com. We'll sift through them and our team of staff artists and imagineers will visualize your solutions. You also can mail drawings and such to our address (see above).
The Brainstorm poser for June: The City and County of Honolulu was created in 1905, and Honolulu became a recognizable village about a hundred years before that. What should the city do to mark its centennial and bicentennial anniversaries in 2005? Planning should start now.
Be as creative as you can. Think outside the box. Remember, you just have to be more creative than a politician!
