Hawaiʻi sells paradise — But look at what happened at Kona airport
A recent SFGate story described a travel nightmare at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport (KOA) — one that reveals more than just an unlucky delay. The article recounts how an early January delay forced passengers on a flight to Anchorage to spend the night sleeping where they could on airport grounds after losing their takeoff window. A bit of a backstory here – KOA has been managing runway cracking issues ...
When Federal Chaos Reaches the Islands
Driving into the office on Wednesday, January 14, it looked like it would be one of those rare idle days — the kind where you finally clear out the backlog, return a few calls, maybe get ahead of something for once. No fires. No emergencies. No “drop everything” emails waiting in the inbox. Just another quiet workday. It wasn’t. The day started with an email from a program officer at ...
Goodbyes and hellos: Who explains Hawaiʻi politics now?
Hawaii State Capitol, Beretania Street, Honolulu, HI PC: "Hawaii State Capitol, Beretania Street, Honolulu, HI - 52221001099" by w_lemay is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Over the past several weeks, a series of articles in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Honolulu Civil Beat marked a quiet but consequential shift in who is interpreting Hawaiʻi politics for the public. Two farewells and one arrival point to a change not simply in political ...
Continuing the work: Politics Hawaii blog 2025 in review
With the end of the year now upon us, Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman issues this last article in 2025 with thanks to all of the readers, supporters of the blog, as well as all who have commented on the articles posted this year. With the way Hawaiʻi, the United States, and world politics evolved in 2025, the blog continued to write on the “World through a Hawaii perspective – ...
How power communicates at the capitol
On Sunday, the 14th of December, Civil Beatʻs Deputy Ideas Editor Richard Wiens penned an article about “The Silence of The Senate” and how leadership is “not talking”. Reading the piece, it became clear that while the article identifies the silence—something any observer of the Hawaiʻi Legislature readily recognizes—the deeper analysis of why that silence exists was largely absent. This writer understands why. Hawaii State CapitolPC: Charles O'Rear, Public domain, ...
