Help arrives for animal victims of typhoon

Typhoon Haiyan has inflicted misery on millions of people in the Philippines. The human victims’ four-legged friends are suffering, too.

Humane Society International has been on the ground since shortly after the Category 5 storm struck with peak intensity on November 7, rescuing stranded pets, providing them food and water and trying to reunite them with the families who were forced to leave animals behind during the evacuation. Weeks after the storm, the Philippines remains in profound need of help.

Although the primary emergency response focuses on helping people, and rightly so, it’s nice to know that there are folks looking out for dogs and other animals, too.

Young voter with Twitter account = transparency

How about that new bipartisan caucus that lawmakers are creating? It’s supposed to lure young voters through an agenda of making government more accessible and transparent.

Founders of the Hawaii Future Caucus plan to work on "common-sense" legislation furthering these goals. Sounds fine.

However, the quickest route to a more visible and reachable government may be simply to dispatch these young voters into lawmaking chambers with their Twitter accounts and smart-phone videocams.

Did you want to know what the Kauai mayor had to say, for example, about the pesticide controversy there? It was all captured on YouTube.

Do-it-yourself transparency, that’s what the millennial generation has contributed — so far.