Sounded good in the beginning, yeah? But then, as happens so often with bold talk and big plans, reality set in.

This house is a wreck. We're taking it down. Bulldozing the whole thing and starting up fresh from the ground up. Build it over — clean, strong, new.

So we sign on, sign up, buy into the battle cry.

BUT ...

Well, OK. Maybe that's a little drastic. We'll just termite-tent the thing and add new paint.

AND THEN ...

Shoots, when you really look at all the stuffs you gotta do and all the costs and hurdles and whatnot, well, how about we just rake a little under the mango tree and put up new curtains? Good enough. At least it's a start.

So goes the Duke Aiona drug war, which went from "we gonna clean this whole place up! Melt da ice!" to "No more drinking at UH football games."

Sigh.

Not that it's a bad idea. It's just such a small idea.

Yeah, it's gotten ugly at times in Aloha Stadium.

Sloppy drunks beefing in the stands, rolling down the cement stairs, throwing stuff at the opposing team and flipping the finger at the television cameras give reason enough to want to keep the games clean and sober. Add to that the financial liability and moral responsibility should game-time partying result in a drunken-driving fatality, and arguments in support of alcohol in the stands are hard to stand by.

But it's uglier out on the streets, in state-run housing projects, in public schools, at no-man's-land beach parks. That's where the problem lies. That's where the focus should be, not on another van-cam type distraction.

If our lieutenant governor wants to play Dean Wormer and straighten up the Animal House action at UH games, go for it. But let's not lose sight of what really needs to get done and the potential for change that comes in the strategically wielded power of that fifth-floor office.

Fostering decorum at football games doesn't do much to keep the crack addicts from ripping off our houses. It doesn't do much to keep mommies from cooking up a little meth when they should be making mac and cheese for their hungry kids. It doesn't get users into treatment. That's what we need our government leaders to fix. That's what all that heartfelt public testimony was about.

Public behavior has become more brazen and crude in what used to be a town where people didn't like to draw attention to themselves. In popular culture, bad is good, bawdy is powerful and trouble is something you pursue and later brag about. People will argue for their right to get lit and act up in public. Imua, Lt. Gov. Aiona, for taking a potentially unpopular stand for public decency and prudence. Somebody had to say something.

Fine, but the house is still a wreck. We can't focus on the curtains and forget the foundation.