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Can we all get along?

In a stunning upset, Georgia voters have sent two Democrats to the U.S. Senate and given that party control of the Senate by the narrowest of margins. The Rev. Raphael Warnock became the first Southern Black Democrat to be voted into the U.S. Senate by defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and Jon Ossoff appears to have eked out a narrow win over first-term Republican David Purdue. The wins for the two Democrats would be a significant and welcome development, ensuring that President-elect Joe Biden won’t have to deal with a Republican-controlled Senate as he seeks to ...

Gasoline on a political fire

We love you? Called on to diffuse the occupation of the United States Capitol Building on Wednesday, President Donald Trump began his taped remarks by pouring gasoline on the fire. He ranted how the election was “stolen” and once again promoted his discredited conspiracy theories. All he had to do was order everybody to go home. Surely that is what the people around him were expecting him to say. Go home. He got there eventually, but first he needed to let the armed protesters pillaging the building know how he really felt. He said he loved them and they were special. His ...

Standing up for democracy

As soon-to-depart President Trump flails about attempting something — anything — to change the election results from November, we should note a pillar of democracy that has stood strong. Our judicial system. Judges and Supreme Court justices on both the state and federal levels have given precious little oxygen to the president’s nonsensical claims of election malfeasance. They have weighed evidence, considered legal arguments and, in case after case, shut down the president. That’s far from a partisan verdict, by the way. Many of these judges were appointed by Trump ...

The science of gratitude

What does it mean to be grateful? At its root, it’s a dual action, a combination of appreciating the good things in life and recognizing that someone else is responsible for them. Last year has provided no shortage of things to decry. There’s no need to list them here, but for evidence of the year’s negative impacts on the American psyche, see the spiking anxiety depression rates around the country. Suicide, too, has become an even greater concern — the pandemic and its economic fallout in particular have pushed many to the brink and beyond. But getting back to gratitude, ...

Hope for a new year

Following on the heels of such a troublesome year, the bar has been set pretty low for 2021. The world’s not asking for home runs. For most of us, a return to normalcy will do just fine, thank you. During last Saturday’s drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination clinic for frontline health care workers at UH-Maui, several senior doctors were debating whether the coronavirus pandemic had reached the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. Either way they sliced it, it sounded a heck of a lot better than last spring’s beginning of the beginning. We had such high hopes for 2020. ...

Top opinion issues of 2020

The elections: Yes, all of them. By far, the single most galvanizing topic of the year from local readers on The Sentinel’s opinion page was the presidential election. From how people viewed the President Donald Trump’s day-to-day performance, to his oversight of the response to COVID-19, to allegations of incompetence from conservatives and liberals alike about Trump and his opponent Joe Biden (the eventual winner), the letters rarely were civilized or gracious. It reflected much of the divisions nationwide and overshadowed down-ballot races as well. Assumptions, conclusions and ...