The lights came on in the rearview mirror: red then blue then red again on a Wednesday in Kailua-Kona, and the thump of his heart could be felt throughout his whole body before his foot found the brake. Under the seat was a loaded handgun and unspent rounds. In a bag was 15.7 grams of […]
Commentary
Posted inCommentary
Olin Lagon: Credit Hawaiʻi’s Mauna For Teaching Us About Tsunamis
Sometimes you make a connection that floors you. This is one of them. In July 2025 I was at a conference at the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore. Former Governor John Waiheʻe was speaking, and he did what he often does. He had the room leaning in as he wove together hard-won insights […]
Posted inOpinion
Jeta: Saving Hawaiʻi’s Hongwanji – And Bon Dances – Isn’t A Quick Fix
When Lydia Morikawa and her 10-year-old son Ronin joined a video call with me to discuss traditional Japanese music and bon dancing in Hawai‘i, Ronin – like any other boy his age – made a series of silly faces and hand gestures. “It’s not shave ice and andagi. Those are perks,” Morikawa reminded Ronin when […]
Posted inOpinion
Makana Eyre: Rapa Nui’s Ruin Wasn’t ‘Ecocide.’ Stop Blaming The Victims
This is probably a familiar story to you: the people of Rapa Nui, famous for carving the great moai, caused their own demise. If you grew up between the 1990s and 2010s, you probably heard some version of it in the classroom about the remote isle that Europeans called Easter Island. As the theory went, […]
Posted inOpinion
The Public Could Gain Free Access To These Government Records
A few years ago, state prison officials kept getting sued because they were holding inmates past their scheduled release dates, sometimes for many months. It was a continuing problem not only in Hawaiʻi but throughout the country. One local reporter asked the corrections department to run a computer search of its offender tracking database and […]
Posted inOpinion
Beth Fukumoto: Hawaiʻi Voters Wanting Change Didn’t Get It Tuesday
Across the country, election night produced an inspirational list of firsts: the first Native American woman elected governor, the first Black woman elected governor, and Texas’ first Latina governor. In Hawaiʻi, it produced mostly business as usual. The national firsts came as Democrats won control of the U.S. House and the Senate and flipped at […]
Posted inBlog
The Sunshine Blog: How Low Can We Go?
Numbers game: There may be a few voters out there still trying to cure their signatures with state and county officials, but this year’s general election results are pretty much official and the news is not good when it comes to participation. Voter turnout statewide in Tuesday’s general election was at its lowest point since […]
Posted inCommentary
The Ala Wai And The Value Of An Idea That Didn’t Get Built
In his recent Civil Beat commentary, Amarjit Singh argues that the Ala Wai Canal needs more than floodwalls. Flood protection, water quality, sediment, aging canal walls and the canal’s single ocean outlet he writes, belong together as one integrated watershed challenge. He also calls the Army Corps of Engineers flood-risk plan as “serious, data-driven and […]