Abercrombie takes the initiative on education

Gov. Neil Abercrombie is doing what needs doing, on two fronts.

His announcement last week that a 5 percent budget restriction continues should come as good news to fiscal conservatives (and a lot of people fall into that category now, in the aftermath of the Great Recession). Does the state need a healthy contingency fund, and will this help to build it up? Yes, on both counts.

And he has appointed two Democratic loyalists to the openings on the state Board of Education. One is his former chief of staff, Amy Asselbaye, and the other, Patricia Halagao, was one of those working on plans for an Obama presidential center.

With the Department of Education sure to protest these cuts vigorously, Abercrombie will surely need the BOE to have his back. That’s what the whole appointed school board thing was about, wasn’t it?

Sequestration? Call an Eagle Scout

The Boy Scouts are doing much more than helping elderly grannies cross the street these days. How about that Zane Grzeszczak, for instance?

The 16-year-old, a junior at Pearl City High School, earned his Eagle Scout status heading up a project to restore the USS Utah Memorial on Ford Island. He did it with the help of businesses, contractors and other Scouts pitching in with labor and materials, but Zane was clearly the driving force.

Pretty impressive.

Perhaps the federal government should consider harnessing the power of the Boy Scouts to help it navigate through the current sequestration mess. We could do a lot worse.