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…
I recently read “Flash Boys,” Michael Lewis’ account of how Wall Street has stolen from you, me and our 401ks. I was astonished by the sophisticated corruption, and about how many people and companies thought it was OK to cheat…
We all live with beliefs that are not perfectly compatible. Look deeply and think carefully, and you can find contradictions or at least tensions within your morality and worldview. Excuse me for being presumptuous, but if your whole belief system…
Why do families end up homeless? One big reason is they have no savings, so when a crisis hits – getting laid off or paying a big bill – they don’t have a couple thousand dollars in the bank to…
