Some 50 Muslims were slain in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday as they gathered to pray at two mosques. The accused killer is an avowed white supremacist who streamed the massacre live on social media. The shooter apparently wore a body camera to record the atrocity. What is most ...

Today is St. Patrick’s Day 2019 — the day for the wearin’ o’ the green. March 17 has been celebrated for centuries in honor of an Irish saint who helped Christianize that land in the fourth and fifth centuries. He supposedly used a shamrock to explain the Christian concept of the Holy ...

For virtually our entire life, the Republican Party has been portrayed as the fiscally responsible party, concerned about yearly deficits and the ever-mounting national debt. It is interesting then to note the direction deficits — and, therefore, the national debt — is moving. In fiscal ...

Eighty-six years ago today — March 12, 1933 — newly inaugurated President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the first of his famous “fireside chats” to the American public. Over the course of the next 12-plus years while serving as president, Roosevelt gave 30 such radio addresses. They ...

There is a palpable excitement about Southwest Airlines beginning service from the West Cost to Hawaii. There may be even more anticipation about the carrier providing interisland service. Many folks are dreaming about the days when Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines beat each other’s ...

For some of us who are old enough to remember it, the specter of inflation perhaps raising its ugly head again is frightening. First, the tax cuts passed by Congress last year and signed into law by the president are projected to create trillion-dollar deficits for at least the next few years ...

’Tis the season. No, not for Ho Ho Hos and mistletoes, but W-2s and tax-time blues. What is distressing is what the working poor pay. It is a pathetic exercise to watch someone who is trying to do everything right prepare his or her taxes. For example, let’s look at one real-life example ...

Eighty-six years ago Monday — March 4, 1933 — Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as America’s 32nd president. The Great Depression was devastating the country. Millions were out of work, lines were around the block at soup kitchens. Fortunes had been lost and confidence in the ...

Whenever one reads a newspaper or watches a news story about devastating events, the only constant seems to be the response by the American Red Cross and its volunteers. One of the great honors of our adult life was the opportunity to serve on the board of directors of the American Red Cross ...

Usually the words “government” and “efficient” don’t go together easily in a sentence (or, for that matter, in life). That’s why we were happy again this year when we received the registration renewal notification for our car from the Division of Motor Vehicles and Licensing and ...

There is no question that the whole world benefited in the 1980s from the ability of The Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev and the United States’ Ronald Reagan to be brutally frank with each other, while still being committed to the shared idea of a reduction in nuclear arms. What began as ...

At the time this nation was founded it was common for the colonial government to jail printers who dared to publish ideas that opposed official policy. It was called sedition. To prevent that from happening in the newly formed United States of America, the First Amendment in the ...

Quite a few news organizations have slogans that are intended to reflect their goals or missions. Some, like ours, are fairly innocuous — “Maui’s Newspaper Since 1900.” Pretty simple, we focus mainly on life here on Maui. Others are more ambitious. The New York Times — “All The ...

Monday is Presidents Day. The Presidents Day holiday has taken on a peculiar kind of piquancy, particularly if your taste runs to passionate politics. Presidents Day came about because two U.S. presidents who raised passions for different reasons had birthdates close together. George ...

For 88 years the term St. Valentine’s Day Massacre referred to the murder of seven gang members during Prohibition in a fight over control of organized crime in Chicago. On Feb. 14, 1929, hoodlums working for Al Capone killed the seven members of a rival gang. It was considered a bloody, ...

Well, Thursday is Valentine’s Day and we’d like to share a thought or two. For those of us who were born married, Valentine’s Day is sort of the acid test of the relationship. “Please, don’t get me anything. I don’t need anything. We can’t afford anything this year.” Yeah, ...

The email was right there in the regular in-box on the computer. The program had not flagged it as spam. It was innocuous looking. It read: “Card Security Notification Email “Dear Customer, “The security of your account is very important to us. Please follow the reference below to ...

For someone who is not a “techie,” an amazing — but a bit scary — demonstration made us wonder who besides Big Brother is watching. Basically, the demonstration showed us how a smartphone can spy on you. And we’re not talking about needing National Security Administration smarts to ...

Well, it’s Super Sunday. Later today, most of us (and the rest of the United States) will watch the Super Bowl to see who prevails — the Los Angeles Rams or perennial contender New England Patriots. It is the 53rd edition of what traditionally is the most watched television event of the ...

We write here often about how we believe the health care system in the United States is completely out of control — and needs to be dramatically changed. We wrote a couple of years ago about the cost of a generic Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) for arthritis. From that ...