It’s the last Sunday in July and time to “flASHback” on the month’s news that amused and confused:
>> City rail officials called it good news when federal overseers said Oahu’s $9 billion transit line will cost yet an additional $134 million and be delayed another year. Whatever helps the train to nowhere get there.
>> The city is trumpeting a new financing model for rail, dubbed P3. It sounds an awful lot like the old model: plunder, profit and prevaricate.
>> The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ended a Hawaii case involving a melon-headed whale bitten by cookie-cutter sharks. This could be a precedent for Donald Trump v. the FBI.
>> The Hawaii Republican Party expelled Big Island state House candidate Bryan Feste for advocating an “all white nation.” Who does he think he is, Jeff Sessions?
>> A measure imposing fines for fraudulently representing pets as service animals became law with Gov. David Ige’s reluctant consent. He’ll have to ask Lt. Gov. Doug Chin to take off his cute little vest.
>> Colleen Hanabusa’s campaign played the gender card in her bid to unseat Ige, saying his defense against her attacks tells women “to sit down and shut up.” It’s a campaign strategy known as Miss Direction.
>> Hawaii this month experienced a “Lahaina Noon,” when the sun is directly overhead and we cast no shadow. You couldn’t tell regular people from the political candidates who never cast shadows.
>> Sixteen percent more people requested absentee mail-in ballots for this year’s primary election, up to 150,000 in total. With each passing election, more voters feel a need to hold their noses in the privacy of their homes.
>> Federal prosecutors accused Katherine Kealoha, wife of former Police Chief Louis Kealoha, of spending more than $20,000 — some stolen from her grandmother — to finance an affair with her secret Big Island boyfriend. Do we classify the crime as white collar, blue collar or lipstick on the collar?
>> China was disinvited from RIMPAC war games but sent a spy ship to monitor the exercises from international waters off Hawaii. The Chinese wanted to make sure no stray bombs hit their luxury real estate holdings.
>> An Oahu family of four making $93,300 or less is now considered “low income” under new federal guidelines. If this keeps up, middle-class comfort will be mosquito netting on our tents.
And a double quote of the month … from Ige and Hanabusa, summing up their race for governor:
>> From Ige: “I’m the only candidate who’s running for governor who really has a real record of accomplishment that you can look at, touch, feel, see.” Thank goodness we don’t have to scratch and sniff.
>> From Hanabusa: “I have always believed that leadership is earned, not self-proclaimed.” Which is why so much of her campaign has been a self-proclamation of leadership.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
