Nothing fishy about underwater assault

The undersea altercation between an environmentalist and a fisherman at odds over the aquarium-fish industry in Hawaii could easily have been deadly. Big Island police must investigate this conflict between scuba drivers as a serious crime.

Video of the incident shows the fisherman swimming quickly toward the environmentalist and ripping her air-supply regulator out of her mouth. A less experienced diver may have panicked and drowned.

The fish collector’s defenders say the environmentalist was harassing the fisherman, scaring away the reef fish that he gathers and sells for use in aquariums. Activists want to end that practice, which they say damages fragile marine ecosystems.

In any case, it should be obvious that disrupting a scuba diver’s air flow while under water is potentially deadly.

Next generation of architects invited to participate

Howard Hughes Corp. recently invited some of the doctoral candidates from the University of Hawaii School of Architecture to build models depicting their ideas for a specific parcel. Surely the company had a public relations purpose in this exercise, but it’s at least possible the millennials’ concepts could be picked up in some form.

Maybe they’ll be the designers of the future urbanscape. But first, there’s the little matter of getting jobs and being paid for their work, not to mention paying off their student loans.