Women in office boost our ranking

Hawaii is rarely No. 1 in the nation for positive issues — it’s usually for the worst traffic or high housing prices.

So it was encouraging to hear that Hawaii elects women to the U.S. House of Representatives at the highest rate of any state in the nation, and ranked seventh highest for the percentage of elected offices that are held by women.

Representation2020 gave Hawaii a “gender parity score” of 30.2 out of a possible 100 points, which is more than triple the state’s 8.9 score in 1993.

The goal would be to reach 50, which signifies when a state has reached gender parity. Only New Hampshire has achieved that status.

With women making up more than 50 percent of the population, there should be more of them in the state Legislature. Only eight members of the 25-member Senate and 14 members of the 51-member House are women.

See the parting of the Pahoa lava

One of Hawaii’s most popular tourist attractions in the future very well might turn out to be a stretch of Cemetery Road in Pahoa on Hawaii island that was overrun by lava last October.

That’s because work has begun on chipping away the lava that covers the road.

When the work is finished, motorists and others will be able to once again travel on the road while flanked on either side by walls of hardened lava ranging from 8 to 15 feet thick.

Kind of like the legendary parting of the Red Sea.