In the weeks leading up to Super Bowl 2014, Bruno Mars’ selection for the iconic halftime show was viewed as high risk. As Rolling Stone magazine opined, “people questioned whether he even had enough catalog to fill the time slot.”

Nobody’s questioning anymore, now that the Hawaii-born Mars (born Peter Hernandez) has taken that big stage twice in three years. On Sunday, it was Mars who, with Beyonce, brought the real juice to the show. Most reviews had the R&B stars rolling over the curtain-raising act, Coldplay.

Mars has been in the top 10 on most lists rating Super Bowl extravaganzas. If any doubts are left, they were dispelled Sunday.

Legislators resist being consistent toward UH

When is autonomy not autonomy? Why, when it’s applied to the University of Hawaii, of course.

It seems that state legislators just can’t help but try to micro-manage the UH, even though semi-autonomy was codified decades ago to protect academic freedom from state government and political interference. It was meant to give UH more budgetary freedom, the right to keep tuition revenues and some relief from government red tape.

Good luck with that. For UH, it’s been a continual struggle for independence, given its yearly budget requests before the Legislature, and yes, its own administrative gaffes over the years. A current bill to let lawmakers veto any tuition increases and new construction OK’d by the UH’s policy-making Board of Regents, is just more big-footing into the university’s kuleana.