U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono has drawn bouquets and brickbats at high-profile hearings, this week with Attorney General William Barr. It’s how little Hawaii gets noticed.

The late Sen. Daniel Inouye created the template, in the Watergate and Iran-Contra hearings. “Up until then, I was totally unknown, other than Hawaii,” Inouye once told the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. “After Watergate, I began receiving not just tens of letters but hundreds and thousands of letters.”

Wonder what Hirono’s letters say?

La Mariana to sail on for 20 more years

La Mariana Sailing Club, a longtime slip operator that has survived two tsunamis and more than six decades in the restaurant-tiki bar business, has survived another test. Last week, it convinced the state Land Board, which had been poised to issue a request for bids on a new lease, to instead extend La Mariana’s for 20 years. The company prevailed by pointing to a law that lets the state extend a lease so that a lessee can recoup expenses for substantially improving a property. La Mariana is still on the hook for a sizable loan to cover the cost of repairs done after a 2011 tsunami.