20 Aug 2024

Is now a good time to visit Hawaii?

by | posted in: Adventure | 0

Your business has perhaps never been more appreciated in Hawaii as the state makes a comeback from the tragic fires on Maui in 2023.

Plumeria, used in leis, can be seen and smelled at the Koko Crater Botanical Garden on Oahu. (Mindy Sink, Special to The Denver Post)

“I believe we have become more appreciative of the beauty and significance of this place — and more dedicated to preserving the culture, land and people that make Maui so special,” said Chelsea Livit, director of marketing and public relations at the Fairmont Kea Lani resort in Wailea. “The people of Maui have further embraced the aloha spirit and are eager to perpetuate that aloha with all who visit the island.”

Wailea is about 30 miles from Lahaina, the historic town that was almost entirely destroyed by a wildfire that quickly spread in August 2023. The Associated Press reported 102 people were killed and more than 2,200 homes were destroyed in the fire. While the burn area remains closed, there are some area businesses open that are welcoming tourists: Mala Ocean Tavern, Old Lahaina Luau, and a little removed from the former business district, Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop.

To be sure, this is not disaster tourism and visitors need to be sensitive. For example, the website for Mala Ocean Tavern preemptively asks guests not to speak to their staff about the fire as everyone has been personally affected.

“The better tourism does for Hawaii’s economy at large, the better we can do to help support the recovery of Maui’s people,” said Ilihia Gionson, public affairs officer for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, while acknowledging that visitor numbers are down on Maui this year so far.

Visiting Maui

During my recent stay on Maui, I was able to enjoy the island’s natural beauty from sunrise to sunset each day and could see how it’s possible to support the island’s main economy whether or not I was close to Lahaina.

The Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea is a celebration of Hawaii’s natural beauty and history, with a newly completed renovation that includes Hale Kukuna, an interactive cultural center. There are also enormous wooden sculptures of mermaids, sea turtles, crabs and other local elements, all carved by the hotel’s artist-in-residence, Dale Zarrella. In the cultural center are two special sculptures on display that were carved from monkey pod trees burned in the fire.

The entrance of the Fairmont Kea Lani’s new bar and restaurant, Pilina, where most of the menu is locally sourced in Wailea, Hawaii. (Mindy Sink, Special to The Denver Post)

“Our Hawaiian cultural center is believed to be the largest of its kind at any resort in Hawaii,” Livit said. “If each person who visits Hawaii can go home having learned even just one meaningful thing about Hawaiian culture, that is a win to me. We have an obligation to preserve and perpetuate the culture of this place.”

The cultural center was given a prime spot with a view in the resort’s lobby and it attracts guests of all ages who want to pick up a ukulele, learn to hula dance or, in my case, to play Hawaiian checkers (and learn where to buy the locally-made game boards).

Like at other resorts, there are on-site activities to join daily and a real highlight at the Fairmont Kea Lani for us was a 7 a.m. outrigger canoe boat ride with two experienced guides. The day starts with a brief ritual to honor the rising sun where one of the guides chants before the boat is taken out on the calm, clear water off Polo Beach. The outrigger canoe originated in Hawaii, and guests can learn more about it in Hale Kukuna.

If you’re not staying at this resort, see if there is a daily resort pass available, which will give you access to the grounds — including pools — for a fee one day.

Hawaii has a robust farm-to-table culture and this is on display at the Fairmont’s Pilina restaurant. The Hawaiian word “pilina” can mean “connectedness” and here it is about the relationship with Hawaii, from drinks to food. The menu has a Spirits of the Islands page with an extensive list of Hawaiian rum, vodka and whiskey.

A sunset view when dining at Pilina at Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui in Hawaii. (Mindy Sink, Special to The Denver Post)

“Pilina sources 90% of its program ingredients from the Hawaiian Islands,” Livit said.

If you’re here on a Tuesday, you can go to the Wailea Village Farmers Market and meet local growers and makers such as Maui Cookie Lab, or if you have a car you can drive to Upcountry Farmers Market on a Saturday to sample freshly grown coffee, freshly caught fish, local honey, pineapple and more.

Beyond Maui and giving back

Each of the Hawaiian Islands has its own personality and appeal, and each of them has various ways that visitors can make choices to support sustainability or to give back by volunteering.

The Fairmont Kea Lani, for example, has a “Rooted in Aloha” reforestation initiative that welcomes guests to participate by planting a seedling in the resort’s greenhouse or along the slop of the volcano, Haleakala.

On Kauai, 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay in Princeville has a number of programs that support local businesses and charities, as well as experiences for guests to get involved in making a difference here.

“Working with island purveyors allows 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay to offer an exceptional guest experience, support the local economy and environment, and contribute to the island’s cultural and culinary vibrancy,” said Alexis Eaton, director of marketing, public relations and programming at 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay. She added that guests can leave their gently used clothing as part of their “1 Less Thing” initiative to donate locally, and they’ve partnered with the Kauai Humane Society to let visitors take a dog out for the day.

Spend time watching a sunset over the Pacific Ocean on Oahu. (Mindy Sink, Special to The Denver Post)

Gionson cited the Mālama Hawaii program, which invites visitors to participate in a various volunteer programs on each island. Options include reforestation efforts in Oahu’s Waimea Valley, planting native plants at North Shore Stables on Oahu, join a beach cleanup day with the Surfrider Foundation on Kauai, and snorkel and ocean cleanup with Body Glove Hawaii on the Big Island.

“These opportunities are not just a way to give back to the island, but to meet many amazing people and learn about each island’s personality, culture and communities,” Gionson said.

My travels also took me to Oahu, which is considered the most urban of the Hawaiian Islands with the city of Honolulu and home to Pearl Harbor National Memorial.

On Oahu in Hawaii, there is a botanical garden inside an old volcano, Koko Crater. (Mindy Sink, Special to The Denver Post)

With minimal effort — and a rented car — it’s easy to find local businesses off the beaten track that will appreciate you stopping by or you’ll see fewer people than you do on the beaches of Waikiki. Some of my personal favorites include the Bishop Museum, where you can learn about the culture and history of Hawaii in the former home of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was a member of the royal Kamehameha family; the Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden in Kaneohe, where you get views of the jagged green mountains; Koko Crater Botanical Gardens, where you’ll find blooming plumeria trees and other plants; having a meal at a food truck in Haleiwa on the famed North Shore; and exploring a local neighborhood such as Kaimuki, where there are award-winning restaurants and cute shops.

The more time you spend in Hawaii, the more you appreciate the need to protect what is here. As visitors, we can all make choices in terms where we stay, where we eat and where we shop so that the tourism dollars go directly back to supporting the islands.

5 things you can only do in Maui

When traveling, it’s rewarding to see or do things that can’t be done back home or at other destinations. Consider adding these items to your list next time you’re in Maui:

1. See a blooming Haleakalā silversword plant. You can visit Haleakalā National Park on your own or with a reservation for sunrise visits, or you can book a local tour with an expert. There is always a chance of thick fog that might alter your experience. Please avoid stepping on plants as they are rare. The summit of this volcano is just more than 10,000 feet above sea level — and on a clear day, you can see the ocean below.

Related Articles

Travel |


New Six Flags all-access pass lets people into all 42 parks

Travel |


Speak easy? The ups and downs of travel translation apps

Travel |


What are hush trips? The secret workcations everyone’s whispering about

Travel |


Now’s the time to binge-watch ‘Palm Royale’, then visit Palm Beach hot spots

Travel |


Town of LaGrange preserves 2 centuries of history amid sweetness of Georgia charm

2. See the Ua’a, aka the Hawaiian Petrel, at Haleakalā National Park, where it is believed to have the largest nesting colony for this species. Although the birds have been spotted on other Hawaiian islands, Maui is where the most significant populations live.

3. Eat pie at Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop. Sure, you can eat pie anywhere, but this place is special with mini pies in a variety of flavors — chocolate mac nut, Olowalu lime — that you can’t get back home or even take home with you. You’ll find it on the roadside in Olowalu, not far from Lahaina. They also have sandwiches and salads.

4. Go on a pineapple tour and taste what is considered the sweetest pineapple in the world only available here, the Maui Gold Pineapple. The Maui Pineapple Tour is on a working pineapple plantation in Hali’imaile in the upcountry, so it gives you an excuse to check out this distinct part of the island. You do taste the difference with fresh pineapple!

5. Snorkel in a volcanic crater at Molokini, a partially submerged crescent-shaped islet you can see from the shores of Maui. Yes, you can snorkel so many other places, but this one is unique due to the water quality at this reef. Schedule early to avoid the crowds.

20 Aug 2024

Quick Fix: Za’atar Chicken Salad Sandwich Supper

by | posted in: Adventure | 0

By Linda Gassenheimer, Tribune News Service

Here’s a simple and flavorful sandwich supper idea. I decided to add za’atar seasoning to my chicken salad to give it a Mediterranean twist and used the salad in a sandwich.

Za’atar, a spice mixture popular in many Eastern Mediterranean countries, typically includes dried oregano, thyme, sumac and sesame seeds. You can also find it in jars mixed with olive oil. This can be used in the recipe.

HELPFUL HINTS:

4 crushed garlic cloves can be used instead of minced garlic.
Any type of bread can be used.

COUNTDOWN:

Cook chicken.
Mix cooked chicken with salad ingredients.
Assemble the sandwiches.

SHOPPING LIST:

To buy: 1 bottle za’atar seasoning, 1 jar minced garlic, 3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, 1 bunch celery, 2 tomatoes, 1 bag lettuce, 1 jar reduced-fat mayonnaise, 1 loaf whole wheat bread

Staples: olive oil, salt and black peppercorns

Za’atar Chicken Salad Sandwich Supper

Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer

2 tablespoons za’atar seasoning

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons minced garlic

3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast

1/2 cup diced celery

4 tablespoons reduced-fat mayonnaise

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 slices whole wheat bread, toasted

2 lettuce leaves

2 tomatoes cut into slices

Directions

Mix zaatar seasoning, olive oil and garlic together in a bowl.
Cut chicken into 1/4-inch pieces. Add to the bowl and mix well with the sauce.
Heat a medium-size skillet over medium-high heat and add the chicken and sauce. Toss for 4 to 5 minutes. A meat thermometer should read 165 degrees. Remove to another bowl.
Add celery, mayonnaise and salt and pepper to taste to the chicken. Mix well.
Toast the bread slices and place on a counter.
Divide the chicken into two portions and spread onto the center of 2 bread slices. Add the lettuce on top of the chicken and then 2 slices of tomato. Cover with the remaining bread slice to form the sandwiches.
Cut sandwiches in half and serve on two dinner plates. Arrange the remaining tomato slices on the plates with the sandwiches.

Yield: 2 servings

Per serving: 565 calories (39 percent from fat), 24.6 g fat (3.9 g saturated, 7.5 g monounsaturated), 126 mg cholesterol, 45.6 g protein, 38.2 g carbohydrates, 8.1 g fiber, 631 mg sodium

Linda Gassenheimer is the author of over 30 cookbooks, including her newest, “The 12-Week Diabetes Cookbook.” Listen to Linda on www.WDNA.org and all major podcast sites. Email her at Linda@DinnerInMinutes.com.

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

20 Aug 2024

Tens of thousands remain without power in Puerto Rico, a week after tropical storm swiped the island

by | posted in: News | 0

By DÁNICA COTO

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Tens of thousands of customers remained without power across Puerto Rico on Tuesday, a week after Ernesto swiped the U.S. territory as a tropical storm. Authorities pledged to restore electricity to everyone by the weekend.

The National Weather Service issued yet another excessive heat advisory, warning of “dangerously hot and humid conditions.”

More than 40,000 out of nearly 1.5 million customers remained without power in the afternoon. All schools should have electricity by late Tuesday, officials said, and noted that some 80% of emergency medical clinics, which exclude hospitals, have power.

The northeast coastal town of Luquillo, popular with tourists, reported the highest number of outages, with 30% of clients without power. The towns and cities of Fajardo, Río Grande and Yabucoa were also affected.

Juan Saca, president of Luma Energy, a private consortium that oversees the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, said the company was “working 24 hours a day,” but that alongside the outages blamed on the storm, there’s a deficit in generation.

Up to 70,000 clients could be temporarily left in the dark late Tuesday, and another 90,000 were already hit Monday by a manual reduction in power to Puerto Rico’s grid.

“It’s very annoying, I don’t want to minimize that,” Saca told reporters, stressing that those outages are brief.

Luma has come under fire ever since it took over transmission and distribution in June 2021 as Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority struggles to restructure more than $9 billion in debt.

Recently, a growing number of officials, including those seeking votes during an election year, have called for the government to cancel Luma’s contract.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi has backed Luma’s work and its swift response in the wake of Ernesto. “In the span of three days, already 96% of the population had electric service,” he said Monday.

During the storm, which spun past the island last Tuesday and Wednesday, a peak of 750,000 clients were without power. Officials blamed trees that fell on power lines and high winds.

However, anger has persisted across an island of 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate and where few can afford generators or solar panels.

“With all the damage caused by the storm, and LUMA Energy’s inefficiency in powering with precision and agility, Puerto Rico urgently needs other, more reliable energy sources,” said Jesús Hernández Arroyo, president of the island’s House energy commission.

Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau questioned why the average outage duration per customer increased by 9% from fiscal year 2023 to 2024, for a total of 1,448 minutes.

Julio Aguilar, Luma’s director of reliability and distribution automation, said at Tuesday’s news conference that weather and other things can contribute to a rise and fall in outages within one year, and that it takes five years to establish a base and metrics.

“The improvements are happening,” he said “They will be seen.”

Puerto Rico’s power grid remains fragile after Hurricane Maria razed it in September 2017 as a powerful Category 4 storm, though the grid already was crumbling before that, due to a lack of maintenance and investment.

20 Aug 2024

Most Black hospitals across the South closed long ago. Their impact endures

by | posted in: Society | 0

By Lauren Sausser, Kaiser Health News

MOUND BAYOU, Miss. — In the center of this historically Black city, once deemed “the jewel of the Delta” by President Theodore Roosevelt, dreams to revitalize an abandoned hospital building have all but dried up.

An art deco sign still marks the main entrance, but the front doors are locked, and the parking lot is empty. These days, a convenience store across North Edwards Avenue is far busier than the old Taborian Hospital, which first shut down more than 40 years ago.

Myrna Smith-Thompson, who serves as executive director of the civic group that owns the property, lives 100 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee, and doesn’t know what’s to become of the deteriorating building.

“I am open to suggestions,” said Smith-Thompson, whose grandfather led a Black fraternal organization now called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor. In 1942, that group established Taborian Hospital, a place staffed by Black doctors and nurses that exclusively admitted Black patients, during a time when Jim Crow laws barred them from accessing the same health care facilities as white patients.

“This is a very painful conversation,” said Smith-Thompson, who was born at Taborian Hospital in 1949. “It’s a part of my being.”

A similar scenario has played out in hundreds of other rural communities across the United States, where hospitals have faced closure over the past 40 years. In that regard, the story of Mound Bayou’s hospital isn’t unique.

But there’s more to this hospital closure than the loss of inpatient beds, historians say. It’s also a tale of how hundreds of Black hospitals across the U.S. fell casualty to social progress.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 benefited millions of people. The federal campaign to desegregate hospitals, culminating in a 1969 court case out of Charleston, South Carolina, guaranteed Black patients across the South access to the same health care facilities as white patients. No longer were Black doctors and nurses prohibited from training or practicing medicine in white hospitals. But the end of legal racial segregation precipitated the demise of many Black hospitals, which were a major source of employment and a center of pride for Black Americans.

“And not just for physicians,” said Vanessa Northington Gamble, a medical doctor and historian at George Washington University. “They were social institutions, financial institutions, and also medical institutions.”

In Charleston, staff members at a historically Black hospital on Cannon Street started publishing a monthly journal in 1899 called The Hospital Herald, which focused on hospital work and public hygiene, among other topics. When Kansas City, Missouri, opened a hospital for Black patients in 1918, people held a parade. Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou included two operating rooms and state-of-the-art equipment. It’s also where famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer died in 1977.

“There were Swedish hospitals. There were Jewish hospitals. There were Catholic hospitals. That’s also part of the story,” said Gamble, author of “Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945.”

Nurses attend to patients in this historical photo of the children’s ward inside Wheatley-Provident Hospital, a Black hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. It opened in 1918, but, like most Black hospitals, it closed following the federal campaign to desegregate hospitals in the 1960s. (Missouri Valley Special Collections/Kansas City Public Library/KFF Health News/TNS)

“But racism in medicine was the main reason why there was an establishment of Black hospitals,” she said.

By the early 1990s, Gamble estimated, there were only eight left.

“It has ripple effects in a way that affect the fabric of the community,” said Bizu Gelaye, an epidemiologist and program director of Harvard University’s Mississippi Delta Partnership in Public Health.

Researchers have largely concluded that hospital desegregation improved the health of Black patients over the long term.

One 2009 study focusing on motor vehicle accidents in Mississippi in the ’60s and ’70s found that Black people were less likely to die after hospital desegregation. They could access hospitals closer to the scene of a crash, reducing the distance they would have otherwise traveled by approximately 50 miles.

An analysis of infant mortality, published in 2006 by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that hospital desegregation in the South substantially helped close the mortality gap between Black and white infants. That’s partly because Black infants suffering from illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia got better access to hospitals, the researchers found.

A new analysis, recently accepted for publication in the Review of Economics and Statistics, suggests that racism continued to harm the health of Black patients in the years after hospital integration. White hospitals were compelled to integrate starting in the mid-1960s if they wanted to receive Medicare funding. But they didn’t necessarily provide the same quality of care to Black and white patients, said Mark Anderson, an economics professor at Montana State University and co-author of the paper. His analysis found that hospital desegregation had “little, if any, effect on Black postneonatal mortality” in the South between 1959 and 1973.

Nearly 3,000 babies were born at Taborian Hospital before it closed its doors in 1983. The building remained vacant for decades until 10 years ago, when a $3 million federal grant helped renovate the facility into a short-lived urgent care center. It closed again only one year later amid a legal battle over its ownership, Smith-Thompson said, and has since deteriorated.

“We would need at least millions, probably,” she said, estimating the cost of reopening the building. “Now, we’re back where we were prior to the renovation.”

Related Articles

Health |


Here are some State Fair health tips from the official first aid provider

Health |


What Elmo — and his human friends — learned by asking Americans about their mental health

Health |


How little Denmark got homegrown giant Novo Nordisk to lower Ozempic prices

Health |


Small-town patients face big hurdles as rural hospitals cut cancer care

Health |


COVID-19 is on the upswing in the US

In 2000, the hospital was listed as one of the most endangered historic places in Mississippi by the Mississippi Heritage Trust. That’s why some people would like to see it reopened in any capacity that ensures its survival as an important historical site.

Hermon Johnson Jr., director of the Mound Bayou Museum, who was born at Taborian Hospital in 1956, suggested the building could be used as a meeting space or museum. “It would be a huge boost to the community,” he said.

Meanwhile, most of the hospital’s former patients have died or left Mound Bayou. The city’s population has dropped by roughly half since 1980, U.S. Census Bureau records show. Bolivar County ranks among the poorest in the nation, and life expectancy is a decade shorter than the national average.

A community health center is still open in Mound Bayou, but the closest hospital is in Cleveland, Mississippi, a 15-minute drive.

Mound Bayou Mayor Leighton Aldridge, also a board member of the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, said he wants Taborian Hospital to remain a health care facility, suggesting it might be considered for a new children’s hospital or a rehabilitation center.

“We need to get something back in there as soon as possible,” he said.

Smith-Thompson agreed and feels the situation is urgent. “The health care services that are available to folks in the Mississippi Delta are deplorable,” she said. “People are really, really sick.”

©2024 Kaiser Health News. Visit khn.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.