Well, there’s nothing like a massive hurricane like Florence to distract the American public from what Congress is doing. Thursday afternoon as we all watched Florence take dead aim at poor old Wilmington, N.C., Republican and Democratic representatives and senators stealthily reached a ...

We are always amazed when smart people turn to criminal — or even just malicious — endeavors. Probably there is no better example of wasted brains than computer viruses. Most of the darn things don’t make a cent for their inventors — they just disrupt other people’s lives. But we ...

At a time when health care and its costs are center stage in the United States, it is interesting to note that a medical establishment that is so opposed to “socialized medicine” seems intent on making it inevitable. Take a look at these news stories and see why it is hard not to reach ...

As this is written Tuesday morning, Maui County is under a tropical storm warning. Although Olivia has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, its components may do significant damage to Maui County. Tuesday morning it appeared that the storm was 385 miles northeast of Kahului ...

(This editorial appeared Sept. 12, 2001, in The Maui News.) Maui County awoke to a new, more frightening world yesterday. The United States had been attacked by a skilled, well-prepared, unidentified enemy using commercial jetliners as weapons. An eerie quiet settled over Maui as the ...

Tuesday will mark the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and the dramatic crash of United 93. We are now several wars and thousands of service people’s lives removed from that tragic day. The controversy and the bitterness go on. It is strange ...

This coming Tuesday marks the 17th anniversary of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. Nineteen al-Qaida infiltrators hijacked four commercial airliners, slamming two into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in ...

In recent days we have written several editorials about the lack of civility in politics today in the United States. Whether it was rehashing how both left and right now use Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” to disrupt the political and corporate elite or the use of bully tactics to ...

Did you ever get the feeling someone’s watching you? Ever get the feeling someone is following you? Well, someone is. As Jack Paar once put it, “Even paranoid people can have enemies.” Now the folks keeping tabs on you are not necessarily enemies — unless you count people who are ...

In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote the book “Rules for Radicals,” a guidebook for grass-roots organizations to get the better of government and corporations. Known as the “father of modern American radicalism,” Alinsky was not bothered by using any means to attain his end. He referred to ...

For most, the nature of labor has changed radically in the last couple of decades — even on Maui. Calluses have been exchanged for carpal tunnel syndrome. Bending backs have been exchanged for sitting in desk chairs and standing behind counters. In the last half-century, Maui has gone from ...

A few years ago we wrote about some of the strange, funny elections of our youth in 1950s New Mexico. Back then, New Mexico was a one-party state. Even though it had not been a state during the Civil War, there were many residents whose ancestors had favored the South. The prevailing sentiment ...

If you are like most people who use a computer, your email is probably riddled with all kinds of pieces forwarded by friends or acquaintances. Much of what is routinely forwarded is political in nature and, by reading these notes, you can pretty much determine what side of the political ...

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are largely — and deservedly so — credited with assuring that black Americans could not be denied the right to vote. Today marks the 61st anniversary of Congress’ passage of the first bill since the reconstruction era that ...

The death last weekend of Sen. John S. McCain brought an end to the saga of a true American hero. Duty. Honor. Country. Those three words represented the ideals McCain himself said he wished to live and be remembered by. McCain was born into a military family. His grandfather and father ...

The wording of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution is simple and straightforward: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by ...

Saturday marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Neil Armstrong. As regular readers know, we are big fans of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Folks like John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, and Armstrong, first man to set foot on the moon, were our ...

As this is written Wednesday morning, Hurricane Lane has been downgraded from a Category 5 storm to Category 4. Basically that means the associated winds have dropped from about 155 mph to 140 mph. Still dangerous, still threatening. For days now, we have watched Lane march inexorably west ...

One of the seldom mentioned benefits of getting old is that at some point you realize that all the indiscretions and vices of your youth have already come home to roost and there is not much else you can do to hurt your body further. Oh, sure, you can forget to take your 16th pill of the day ...

As reluctant, but very active, members of what has been described as the aging of America, our family is concerned about the medical system. We marvel at what today’s medical establishment can do. Between the wife and us, there are more new hips, knees and shoulders than you can shake a ...