Another quiet New Year’s Eve?

New Year’s Eve on Oahu ain’t what it used to be. Thanks to the city ban on all fireworks except firecrackers with permits, now in its second year, the upcoming occasion promises to be but a shadow of its former self, in terms of noise, smoke and, of course, fire calls.

For some, that’s a good thing. For others, it’s more like the old B.B. King blues song, "The Thrill Is Gone," as shown by the 1 percent decline in permits issued for firecrackers, to 8,564, compared to 8,656 last year.

The window to buy the $25 city permits closed Friday; the period to buy the fireworks started Wednesday and goes through New Year’s Eve; and the time to legally set them off runs from 9 p.m. New Year’s Eve to 1 a.m. New Year’s Day. Somebody has to scare those evil spirits away.

In a way, Inouye showed great patience

Those of us who have followed the late senator’s career and coverage by the Washington press corps are perhaps amused, perhaps flummoxed, by the rampant mispronunciation of Daniel K. Inouye’s last name. The Hawaii approach, with the emphasis on the second syllable, is the correct one, his office confirms, rather than D.C. convention, which sounds like "in a way."

Staffers insist that their practice was to grin and bear it: Inouye was simply too polite to keep correcting all the reporters and Capitol Hill staffers for all these decades, they said. That, and exasperated, perhaps?