 Welcome to Think Tech on Spectrum OC 16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Cynthia Sinclair. And I'm Anna Jimenez McMillan. In our show this time we'll review the most recent top five Think Tech talk shows and staff pick. We'll check out the elements of the best of the best and get a handle on the public issues and the guests involved. Think Tech produces more than 35 talk shows every week in our downtown high tech green screen studio. Our Think Tech talk show offerings are very diverse and their coverage is also very diverse. Covering things you might never have otherwise known. Every week Think Tech chooses its top five Think Tech talk shows from the week before based on the number of views each of them has had on the internet. This time the winning shows were as follows. Number one, from the series Beyond the Lines hosted by Rusty Kamori, it's called two time Olympic silver medalist Lindsey Berg, Beyond Volleyball. Lindsey shared why she became one of the world's best volleyball players winning the silver medal twice in two Olympics for Team USA. She also shared valuable insights about leadership, creating a team culture of excellence and finding greatness. You were back right now on your trip because you got inducted into Punahol's Hall of Fame. I did, I was, thank you. I was surrounded by some greats as well. Super special to have a high school that is so much tradition in sports and academics to have that honor. And it was great. My whole family came. My sister surprised me with my niece. Obviously, my grandma is one of my biggest support and she's still here. Yeah. Came and kicked it with us. It was amazing. I had everyone, my friends that I went and played with in Punahol. It was really special. What did you learn from your Olympic experience? I have so many stories and I've been through so many ups and downs that all the downs actually turned into more important lessons and experiences when I was in the down of something that seemed to be so great, say, to the outside world. I can't even say there's one thing. I think perseverance though. Oh yeah. You hear about being an Olympian and someone's like, oh, they're an Olympian but the life is not very glamorous. The amount of hours that we put in a lot of sports in the Olympic world don't get paid. We're fortunate that we do have an opportunity to go overseas and make a living in a professional league but when we were in Colorado Springs, there were wrestlers that had to be in the top three of their weight class to even have a place to live. You become friends with them even though you're competing but the competition is just when you're on the court. There's no reason people that you have so much in common with to share your life with each other and it's something really special that you really can't get anywhere and that's what sport does for people. I took being a captain very seriously. I got to a point where I knew my skill level was kind of what my skill level was gonna be. So how can I enhance my whole game in another way that wasn't gonna be physical of how I sat, how I jumped, can I serve better? This type of thing. So I took it very seriously is how can I be the best teammate I can be and the best leader I can be? How do I get the most out of rest of you as my teammate? Can I just say something really specific or bark something really quick and you're not gonna take it personal and you're gonna do it? The other person, maybe I have to, you know, blame it a little bit on myself which I'm okay with as a captain. Take some responsibility but then maybe also say, but if you do this it might help us both. So let's both do this. So I practiced. I practiced my communication. I practiced my body language of what worked for my teammates. It's like, I want this person to be the best they can be next to me. So how can I bring that out of them? Number two from the series, Taking Your Health Back hosted by Wendy Lowe. It's called Growing Healthy. You can do it. Helping Hawaii grow healthy. I've got part of the solution. Wendy introduced the tower garden explaining what it is, how it works and why it's part of the solution to optimal health. Taking your health back is easy when you're ready to take that step. About seven years ago I was introduced to a concept of growing and it's called the tower garden. And so on this slide here this is what I started growing on my balcony. Mind you, no experiencing growing no even passion or desire to grow anything. But what happened was this opportunity came to me via a company the tower garden company and we were test marketing to see what it would be like if people like me were being given a tower and see how easy it is to grow or not to grow. So I flew mine into Hawaii. I started with the little seedlings and I'm gonna show you in a little bit how simple all this is. Start with a little seedling after two weeks of germination we put it into the tower garden and then it grows on its own or about three weeks in the tower it's ready to consume. That's the same tower a few weeks later and see how mature all that lettuce came. And so as we grow you're supposed to cut and eat and that is right there. It represents non-gmo seeds. I don't use any pesticides. It sits in the tower and there's a little pump that turns on and off 24 times a day feeding it all the nutrients in the water. And so I basically don't have to do a whole lot and that's why my job is so simple because I travel a lot. I wanna say raising produce and veggies on the tower garden is a little easier than even raising children. I don't wanna compare them but it does, it is. And what I get from it is I get very great results of great food that I get to consume daily. This young man, he's Chef Mooney and he's a dear friend. He is right in the heart of New York in Manhattan. On a rooftop, six stories up he has a restaurant on a basement called Bell Book and Candle but he believes in the towers so much on the sixth floor he has 30 towers and that's some of the one tower that I'm showing you there but he produces his tomatoes, his strawberries, all of his different greens that he uses downstairs in the basement. All he does is he harvests his every day, hoists it down a dumb waiter down to the basement floor and then he prepares it for his lunches and his dinners. Everything coming from the sixth floor rooftop. The neat part is when Hurricane Sandy came through all you gotta do is take the water out of the 20 gallons, take it downstairs, put it under cover. Hurricane blows over, damages all the, whatever it does damage to, the crops in the fields, et cetera. When the storm blows over, walks it back upstairs, puts the water back in, still producing. Number three from the series Konichiwa, Hawaii hosted by Emi Hanamizu. It's called Chiyo Flynn Piano Studio Instructor, pianist and composer. In this all Japanese broadcast host Emi Hanamizu interviewed Chiyo Flynn, pianist, composer and instructor. Learn from Chiyo Flynn how she shares her Aloha spirit through her piano and daily blog. Hello everyone, I'm Emi Hanamizu and I'm from downtown in Honolulu, Japan. Hello, I'm Emi Hanamizu, host of Hawaii. Today's broadcast host is Chiyo Flynn Piano Studio Instructor. Chiyo, thank you for coming to the studio today. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Chiyo is also my piano instructor. She teaches piano for a long time in Hawaii, and also produces four CDs. She also continues to do charity concerts at the hospital in Kewakini every month. She also has the power to be a professional writer. She has been writing a blog for a long time, and she has been posting a lot of things about Aloha Street and other places. Thank you very much for sending us information about Hawaii. No problem. Thank you very much. First, would you like to tell us about the way you teach piano to your students in Hawaii? The way I teach piano is of course, but the children who were not able to play piano at all, after all, they practiced hard and continued to play. They became able to play piano, and as I mentioned earlier, every month, at the hospital concert, the children played for me, and the patients were very happy, so I feel really happy when I see them. Number four from the series, The Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection, hosted by Gwen Harris. It's called Talking Story with Michael Paolo, Hawaii's own smooth jazz saxophonist. Michael discussed how he got his start in a musical family and how to keep smooth jazz alive here in Hawaii. I didn't start until I was 15. I went to St. Louis High School there, and I decided to play, join the band on a whim, because it was an elective course. In high school, you could choose physical education or band, right? So the first semester, I chose GE, and I got tired of running, because that's all they did was run. Forget this. So a lot of my friends, I mean, you should take band because it's an EGA. The teacher was very lenient. So I said, okay, so I signed up for band, and fortunately, I didn't start on the saxophone. He put me on the oboe. Oh, wow. Make a charmer instrument, and it was terrible, right? But I had to play it in a Tiffany band. I learned how to play it. Finally, I got so fed up, I said, look, if you don't let me play something else, I'm gonna quit. Oh, wow. So anyway, he said, well, we're kind of showing the instruments. If you can borrow an instrument from somebody you know, I'll let you play, right? So my uncle had a saxophone, and my dad's younger brother, so I called him up, I said, hey, can I borrow your saxophone? I want to, you know, chowder and play in a band. And he said, yes. And so that's how I got started. So I got a saxophone, I played it, and I fell in love. When we talk about jazz and we talk about smooth jazz, people, some people don't really know the difference. So when we talk about contemporary jazz, smooth jazz, and our alternative jazz, what is the difference? And how did you get into playing smooth jazz and contemporary jazz? Well, jazz is such a broad, broad idiom. You know, I mean, and it's not to the point where basically if you improvise over a music bass, you can call that jazz, because jazz is all about improvising, right? So in musical styles today, I mean, you get the old style, you had swing, you had bebop, you know, you had fusion, and then you had hip hop, and then you had R&B, and then all these different idioms and contemporary jazz, you know, in these phases, people, they had to come up with some kind of name just to market it, but in that way, right? So we went from new adult contemporary jazz to smooth jazz to some quiet storm. I mean, all the formats, they tried to identify, you know, what the instrumental music of the day was. So basically just a label that they could market. So today, smooth jazz has become a melding of really pop, R&B, and jazz. Number five, from the series Talk Story with John Wahe'e, hosted by John Wahe'e, it's called Hawaiian Nationalism Equality for All with guest Poka Lanui. The former governor and his guest, Poka Lanui, discussed Hawaiian nationalism, and what should or should not be done for people who want to live in Hawaii, but not necessarily be a citizen of the U.S. The thoughts are important, and they go through racial lines. They go through national lines. The wisdom that comes down from ancestors or from any place, from even children, has to be seen for the weight of the wisdom itself. So Abraham Lincoln said something very important that we should take heed to. There's another kupuna who also said something, and that was kuyo. When he said, we cannot continue to act like crabs. We gotta kick the bucket over so that we all can get out. N.T.P. Lahee, another kupuna, would instruct. She would say, you know, what you need to do is distinguish between reality in fact and reality by agreement. I got it. Oh man, that is a very heavy statement. I mean that is a really heavy statement. And so for me, I'm sure it in you. No, no, no, no. So I asked her, explain. And she said, Hawaiian. What is a Hawaiian? No. And I said, well, a Hawaiian is a person who descends from ancestors who were in Hawaii prior to 1778, the arrival of James Cook. Right. And she says that's reality by agreement. Now tell me about the Hawaiian in reality in fact. I says, well, what you mean? She says, does a Hawaiian cry? Does he laugh? Does he love? Does he hate? Does he hunger? Who is he really? Yeah. So you look into the essence, the reality in fact, not by the agreement of how we choose to define a Hawaiian by his religion or his geography or his racial ancestry. I had to go through the doorway of indigenous peoples' rights because we were so far behind in terms of Hawaiian nationalism that people simply wouldn't consider idea that Hawaii was an independent nation or is an independent nation. But we went through the doorway of indigenous peoples and the discrimination against indigenous peoples. So I eventually became elected as a... Well, even the United Nations in those days, the United Nations itself didn't really have, didn't really dealt with that issue. So... And our staff pick from the series Hawaii Together hosted by Kalei Akina. It's called Akina and Yamachika Talk Taxes with guest Tom Yamachika. It's legislative season again, so taxpayers beware. Tom Yamachika discussed some of the latest proposals to raise taxes on Hawaii residents. Find out what makes sense and what doesn't. You'll discover what the legislature is up to in terms of proposed taxes on Hawaii residents. Well, what does the foundation do, Tom? We try to educate people and politicians alike on what the tax laws they are trying to vote on actually accomplish or what they actually do. So sometimes, you know, taxes are the tough subject, so sometimes people know what they're voting on. Sometimes they're just following others and we wanna make sure that they're educated enough to exercise their independent judgment and, you know, vote purposefully as opposed to just blind. As originally enacted when the half percent search card on our general excise tax took place, you know, ostensibly to fund the rail, one point that, you know, wasn't really talked about too much was the fact that the state was skimming off 10% off the top, presumably for administrative costs, but it turns out that what they skimmed off was far more than any administrative effort would require because they skimmed off 25 million a year and that is comparable to the entire budget on top to bottom of one whole department of taxation. So in order for them to administer just one measure, they were going to be collecting enough money to fund the department all over again? That's right. That's why we kind of stepped in and said, this is excessive guys, something's wrong here and, you know, we filed suit and suit wound its way to the Supreme Court of Hawaii. We argued the case a couple of years ago and we're still waiting for the decision. Now, there's another issue that often thorny and it has to do with transient accommodation, vacation rentals. And I think a lot of times the public doesn't realize the difficulty is because we're dealing with different jurisdictions, we're dealing with the state and we're dealing with the counties and they're not always in harmony. What's going on in terms of some legislation being considered in this area? For the last several years, there have been constant bickering between the state and the counties because, you know, in the old days when the transient accommodations tax was established, the counties persuaded the state to give them some of the money. So, in I think the early 2000s, the state began giving them a percentage of the TAT collections and that money grew over time and the tax rates grew over time. And, you know, finally in 2013 or so they said, well, we really want a revenue source that is stable and predictable. That was the wrong thing to say because they then gave them a fixed number that didn't rise with the GT collections and the rate went up too. So that's when our transient accommodations rate went up to nine and a quarter. You can always find the links to these shows in our daily email advisories. If you don't already get our daily email advisories, you can sign up to get them on thinktickhawaii.com. These are only samplings from the top five and the staff pick from across our 35 weekly talk shows. There are of course many more. To see these top five and staff pick shows that are in their entirety, go to thinktickhawaii.com or youtube.com slash thinktickhawaii. Great diversity, great community, great content at Think Tech. If you have questions or comments about these or any of our shows, please let us know. And yes, it's okay to share them with your friends and colleagues. Thanks so much for watching our shows and for supporting our efforts at Think Tech. And now let's check out our Think Tech schedule of events going forward. Think Tech broadcasts its talk shows live on the internet from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. And some people listen to them all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on thinktickhawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to thinktickhawaii.com slash audio. And we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit thinktickhawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get our daily email advisories. Think Tech has a high tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to see it or be part of our live audience or if you want to participate in our shows, contact shows at thinktickhawaii.com. If you want to pose a question or make a comment during a show, call 808-374-2014 and help us raise public awareness on Think Tech. Go ahead, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at thinktechhi. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in this country. We want to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech, but first we want to thank our underwriters. Okay, Anna, that wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech. Remember, you can watch Think Tech on Spectrum OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it just like Anna does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit thinktechhawaii.com. Be a guest, a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important Think Tech episode. I'm Cynthia Sinclair. And I'm Anna Jimenez-McMillan. Aloha, everyone.