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Housing on familiar track

This week’s news that the median price for single-family Maui homes topped the $1 million mark for the first time reminded us of an analogy a friend often used in the 1980s to describe island real estate. He said it was a train moving ever forward. Wage-earning homeowners could get off anytime they wanted. Cash out, pay the bills and take the profit. The problem was the train promptly chugged from the station and left them behind. Those former owners would never be able to jump back on at the level of property they sold. Not on Maui at least. That is one reason why so many folks ...

Too ready to fight

A Southwest Airlines flight attendant loses two teeth after allegedly getting punched out by a woman who became verbally and physically abusive while refusing to obey standard in-flight instructions. Other passengers say it started over mask-wearing. On Maui, a Lahaina man who reportedly reminded a father and son from Florida to wear their masks as they stood in line at Panda Express was left bleeding from a cut over his eye when things suddenly turned physical. Both recent incidents underscore a disturbing trend of aggression that appears to be rising in America. The Federal ...

AK-47 not protected

A headline in Saturday’s Sandusky Register made a notable distinction: “This AK-47 not covered by the Second Amendment.” The article by Register reporter Brandon Addeo was a deeper dive after the arrest of a Vermilion man. The weapon, which was customized to have automatic firepower, was found in the man’s home along with other weaponry. About 10 days earlier, the man sped from a traffic stop after telling the police officer who stopped him that he was a ìsovereign,î a person not subject to the laws of any government—local, state or federal—a person subject to nobody’s ...

Bankruptcy as an escape hatch

More than 450,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses in less than a decade. Though the synthetic and powerful opioid fentanyl now is the leading cause of opioid overdose deaths, the epidemic had its roots in prescription opioid addiction. That, in turn, had its roots in a marketing strategy for prescription opioids that falsely claimed that the drugs were not addictive, and encouraging doctors to consider pain to be as important a condition as the underlying cause. That strategy, in turn, was developed by Purdue Pharma, developer of the powerful opioid painkiller ...

Capitol rioters lame excuses

Some of the defendants facing charges in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol deserve points for creativity. Among the defense arguments emerging in court documents: “I got caught up in the mob” and “Trump told me to do it.” But the “mob” and the individuals charged in the insurrection are one and the same, and breaking the law just because you think a higher authority with a well-known penchant for dangerous rhetoric said you could doesn’t make it right. The attempt to brush aside criminal behavior with such lame excuses turns the concept of personal responsibility on its ...

Push for racial equality

One year ago, a Minneapolis police officer squeezed the life out of George Floyd a minute at a time as the handcuffed 46-year-old Black man lay sprawled on the pavement. Onlookers were powerless to stop it, fellow officers unwilling. Those minutes galvanized a movement, crystallizing the grief and rage from countless similar incidents that came before. This one death spurred millions across the nation and the world to march on behalf of a simple but too often ignored truth: Black lives matter. A year later that movement has gained strength, sustained by a widening coalition of those ...