Happy days here again?

Amid all the doom and gloom about the economy, it was nice to see more than one article on the lead page of our Money section yesterday highlighting developments that bode well for Hawaii.

» Disney Cruise Line will start cruises to Hawaii from Los Angeles on April 29, bringing as many as 2,700 guests during its first visit to the islands.

» Polynesian Adventure Tours/Gray Line Hawaii, owned by Norwegian Cruise Line, is spending $3 million for a new sightseeing attraction featuring seven open-top, double-decker tour buses that will employ 60 people.

» Honolulu’s unemployment rate fell to 5.2 percent in February, down from 5.4 percent in January, tying the city with Portsmouth, N.H., for the eighth-lowest rate of 372 metropolitan areas the U.S. Bureau of Labor surveyed.

» Hawaiian Airlines announced it has started selling tickets for its new daily nonstop flights between Osaka, Japan, and Honolulu.

Is it safe yet to be encouraged?

And speaking of Disney …

It’s also nice to see that the Happiest Place on Earth will soon have a presence in the Most Beautiful, what with the Disney resort up at Ko Olina and the new cruise line.

And think of it: Many former politicians can consider themselves well qualified to audition for all those cushy jobs. After all, many of them will have ample training to play the part of Mickey or Minnie Mouse. Or, more appropriately, to channel their inner Goofy.