No, not the Year of the Rat, this is the Year of the Transition. I think I’d rather have a Year of the Rat.

It’s not the end of the year yet, but with six weeks to go, I think it’s safe to look back and reflect on what’s been happening. Actually, that’s always appropriate. My observation is that Hawaii has been affected by strong vectors that have put things into transition, things that affect all of us and each of us.

Transition, at least in my view, is like interesting in the Chinese sense. By transition, I don’t mean good changes - I mean those special “interesting” changes, not really good at all. It’s also confirmation that all things are somehow connected to all other things, especially in an island state, by very few degrees of sanguinity. You can look at the effects and if you think about it you can find the cause or causes.

We know the effects - Hawaii hasn’t been having a very good year. The Superferry was killed in an untimely death. So was Act 221. The Civil Union bill, a symbol of civilized policy, went down in flames. Lots of people lost their jobs, lots of people were furloughed, excuse the expression, lots of government programs were terminated, what was a mediocre education for our kids has now turned notably worse.

We’re stuck in a controversy on rail while we have no money to fix the streets. Property taxes are going up and we’re getting nickled and dimed in a million ways on both state and county levels. With all that, we still haven’t found a way to balance the budget or deal with a billion dollar deficit. Given the meager tax collections and the caution of an election year, things promise to be equally dire in the 2010 session.

The K-12 schools are a mess, and the University is falling apart. The orchestra is over the side and lots of non-profits are in crisis. The city administration is spending its time rooting for our mayor’s campaign. The Lingle administration is in its last days of a double feature that wasn’t worth waiting up for.

The sun still shines and the trades still blow, but the tech industry hasn’t attracted much investment and the country doesn’t think much of our style these days. Occupancy is down, not only in Waikiki but all over the state. Lots of companies are failing. The papers are thinner and TV news is now consolidated.

Our social safety net is stretched thin and in many ways dysfunctional. There are more foreclosures and bankruptcies. The homeless line the beaches and the kids don’t know what to do with their time after mini-school. More of them get into trouble. The ones who do well invariably leave town, leaving us even less well prepared for the future.

Many of these processes have been in play for years, but in this year, 2009, they seem to have moved faster with fewer moments of relief. That’s why I call it the Year of Transition – we’ve been transitioning from bad to worse. It’s visible, and it has had a disruptive ripple effect on everything around all of us. People behave differently and perhaps not as nicely when they’re feeling the pinch, real or perceived.

What vectors put all these things in motion? We really need to know so we can try to do better. The obvious one is the meltdown in the national economy, just about a year ago. It’s taken a toll all over, and Hawaii is by no means exempt. Despite recent stock market gains, we haven’t seen the end of it.

A related factor is that Hawaii wasn’t prepared for it. We relied, and do rely, on a mono-economy dependent on tourism, incredible as that may seem in a world of vigorous competition among the destinations. We didn’t see or plan for it, and we didn’t do very well when it happened, except to indiscriminately slash and burn programs, leaving government unable to cope with what’s left.

We’ve transitioned right into the barrel on this, and it’ll be a while before we will know the extent of the damage or be able to properly reorganize our economy or pay for our schools and infrastructure, which are all inextricably intertwined. When will our middle class and small businesses be able to recover?

When will the jobless get jobs again? When will the business barometer signal fair weather again? Right now, the rest of the year of the rat looks like more of a downward spiral. Maybe the next legislature will be able to get things going, to finally diversify the economy and reinvigorate our children. Bets anyone?

See what you think. Has this been an ordinary year, or is it a combination of vectors and transitions leading to a wakeup bell that will ring louder than before? How loud will it have to be? And finally, when we will roll up our sleeves and transition the other way instead?

The thing about transitions, like sea changes, is that while you’re in them you may not know where they’re taking you or when you’ll arrive. You only know you’re going to a different place. In this case, I think we can be relatively sure that that place won’t be as good as where we’ve come from.

Next January is the year of the Ox, the start of yet another transition. Surely this time we can do better.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.