You knew state Senate confirmation for Gov. Josh Green’s Cabinet nominees would be nasty from the unusually hostile reception they got at their first budget hearings before the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Read more
It’s the last Sunday in March and time to “flASHback” on the month’s news that amused and confused: Read more
To understand the tone-deafness of our elected officials for the realities facing their constituents, look at the effort by Mayor Rick Blangiardi and the City Council to massively increase their salaries. Read more
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Who knows when the University of Hawaii will ever play football in a new Aloha Stadium, but the tangled project is serving endlessly as a political football. Read more
Having helped introduce the “Dilbert” comic strip to Hawaii readers in the 1990s, I took no pleasure in seeing its creator, Scott Adams, self-immolate in a racist tirade that caused the Honolulu Star- Advertiser and many other newspapers to discontinue the strip. Read more
It’s the last Sunday in February and time to “flASHback” on the month’s news that amused and confused: Read more
I wrote last week arguing for term limits on state legislators: “Some amass money and power over decades, lording over state agencies like personal fiefdoms — often acting out of favoritism or grudge.” Read more
Predictably, state House members put on their dancing shoes and moonwalked around the call of their government reform panel for term limits on state legislators. Read more
There appears to be broad agreement among the public and political leaders that the record 10 million visitors to Hawaii in 2019 was near the maximum we can comfortably handle, and that we must better manage tourism to preserve our quality of life. Read more
News of incomprehensible violence driven by psychopathic grievance has become so commonplace in our country that we’re almost numb to it. Read more
Most disturbing is a suggestion by City Council Budget Chairman Calvin Say that the high assessments were the result of pressure from lawmakers or public worker unions to increase the revenue pool for collective bargaining pay raises. Read more
It’s a new year, and we at Volcanic Ash continue our tradition of starting fresh by offering public officials we may have offended in 2022 inspirational quotations from the world’s great minds to lift them to greater heights. Read more
Before we forget 2022, let’s review its most befuddling news “flASHback” style: Read more
Nobody wants to read about political foibles on Christmas morning, so instead I share with you some of my favorite quotations about the holidays: Read more
The last time I went into a McDonald’s I was greeted not by a person to take my order, but by an ATM-like device where I selected my burger, charged it to my credit card and was directed to an unmanned counter to pick it up. Read more
Hawaii has relied on federal prosecutors to expose widespread official corruption that’s tarnished the state and all four counties, with local law enforcers contributing little to cleaning out the rot. Read more
A fair summary of David Ige’s eight years as Hawaii’s governor is that he didn’t promise much and didn’t deliver much. Read more
It’s the last Sunday in November and time to “flASHback” on the month’s news that amused and confused: Read more
I disapprove of such behavior and know when to put my phone away, but if you’re thinking this will be a tirade against technology and antisocial youth, you would be wrong. Read more
Josh Green’s election as Hawaii’s next governor was an impressive show of strength by any measure. Read more
State legislators appear more primed than ever to legalize recreational marijuana in their upcoming session, and it could shape up as a big oversell. Read more
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