Opinion

There were many days in 2020 when even I was reluctant to read the news. The pandemic, human tragedy, political battles, conspiracy theories and plenty more made it hard to take another daily dose. 

Submitted by Marie Turner When I saw the cover to the February issue, I laughed out loud. (Should Tourists Be Asked to Sign a Pledge?) Are you kidding? I don’t know what fantasy island you are living on but it’s…

A contradiction of our age is that we have more access to information about politics and government than ever before, yet a smaller and smaller percentage of Hawai‘i’s people find it worthwhile to vote. How to reverse that decline in…

When I moved to Hawaii in 1981, I found it odd that many of the best-regarded or best-selling books about Hawaii were written by outsiders: “Shoal of Time” by Gavan Daws, now a deep-rooted resident but back then not long…

As we step up our efforts to reduce homelessness, we need to work harder to prevent it. One way is to increase the number of people who have enough savings to weather a short-term financial crisis – a lost job, a…

HECO’s Ownership Not the Crucial Factor More important is the utility’s skill and innovation in adapting to disruption in the electricity sector I appreciate the efforts of Hawaii Business and Dennis Hollier to dig deep into the complex issues of…

IT WILL TAKE a lot to pull us out of Hawaii’s housing crisis, but here are thoughts on some partial solutions. ADUs are a good idea, and each county has different rules on what are formally called accessory dwelling units. Honolulu…

Molokai and the battle over GMOs remind me of another island whose people struggled to control their destiny against outsiders. Newfoundland is the poorest of the Canadian provinces, much like Molokai is the poorest of the main Hawaiian Islands. The…

I was at a meeting and listening to one of the most powerful women in Hawaii when something astonishing happened. Her recently promoted male deputy interrupted her. Not once, but several times. Many studies tell me that I shouldn’t have…

For the 18 years I worked in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s newsroom, we never used diacritical marks – the okina and kahako – in Hawaiian words. When I moved to The Honolulu Advertiser in 2004, we used them in the newspaper,…

You may have had this daydream, too: A letter arrives saying there is unclaimed property in my name worth $20 million (it’s a fantasy, so I didn’t scrimp). In my daydream, I collect the money and live happily ever after.…

As Dennis Hollier’s story on page 40 points out, there are many impediments to local farming, but a shortage of farmland is not one of them. In fact, 45.8 percent of Hawaii’s 4.1 million acres are classified as agricultural district…

My wife earns more money than I do. For many men, that would be a humiliating admission, but I’m proud of that fact and of her. And, though most of the credit for her success belongs to her hard work…

As a journalist, I get more chances to meet our leading politicians than the average citizen. But Hawaii is such an intimate and casual place you don’t always need special access to talk story with the powerful – or someone…