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Kady Pascual

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Just let the music take control!"}]

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<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Skanking 101</title>

Today’s social media find comes from @HowsDisGuy, with a lesson some of you really need to take.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Skanking 101

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Sterling Higa

Crime & Courts

Columnists

On the last day of August, a woman pulled two kitchen knives from a shopping bag on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan and used them on two people, 20 seconds apart.

One was a 68-year-old man coming up from the subway at 41st Street with his wife. He survived. The other, a block north, was Erin Piacenti, a young mother on her first day back at work from maternity leave. She died.

Pamela Cisneros walked on toward a police substation with the knives still in her hands. For four minutes officers told her to drop them. She would not. Then she was dead, shot by police.

By evening, everyone who read the news knew why. Cisneros was mentally ill. Her family said so, her old Facebook posts said so, police sources said so, and the newspapers said so with a kind of relief, because it meant the event had an explanation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"I want to look at that explanation."}]

Cisneros had written on Facebook last November that the end times had come. Among her signs, the 

 reported, she listed “the diminished love of people to the point of stabbing others for no reason.”

She wrote that Satan, knowing his time is short, wants to take as many souls to hell as possible. That’s why some people hear voices telling them to kill.

Nine months later she stabbed two strangers. I am not going to diagnose her from her posts; enough people are doing that. But she showed concern about hearing voices, and she wrote that those voices come from the devil.

In Plymouth, Massachusetts, a jury spent seven days deliberating over Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury nurse who strangled her three small children in January 2023 and then tried to end her own life. Her lawyers said she suffered postpartum psychosis and that a voice told her to do it. On Friday the judge 

. Eleven jurors were ready to acquit. One was not.

The public debate is over whether hearing that voice excuses her. What strikes me is how little fight there is over the premise. The pundits agree that mental illness produced the voice. The only question is whether Clancy is responsible for heeding its instruction.

But if she did hear a voice, was it caused by mental illness?

Every human culture before 1800 had a name for a voice that tells you to kill your children, and the name was not “symptom.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The Gospels are almost casual about this."}]

When the crowds came to Jesus at Capernaum, Mark says they “brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons,” and he healed the one and cast out the other.

Casting out demons was not the exclusive province of Christians. Outsiders also got into the trade. In Ephesus, seven sons of a Jewish priest named Sceva went about expelling spirits in the name of “the Jesus whom Paul proclaims,” having seen that the method worked. One spirit answered them: “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” Then it beat all seven of them out of the house, leaving them naked and wounded. Nobody in Ephesus was arguing about neurotransmitters.

And once, the disciples failed. A father brought his son, seized since childhood by a demon that threw him into fire and water, and men who had cast out demons before could not cast out this one. Jesus told them why. “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” And then Jesus commanded the spirit to leave. It did.

If these stories seem fantastical, it is because we live in a disenchanted world. Nearly every culture has made room for the supernatural, but ours prefers to reduce everything to chemistry. We hold to this explanation with a faith that would shame a monk. The chemistry cannot be seen. And the cures built on it do not reliably work. But we persist.

Consider the pills for depression. A whole class of drugs works by tinkering with serotonin, a chemical in the brain. These SSRIs help many people, modestly. They also carry a federal warning that they can increase suicidal thinking.

 that psychiatric drugs are among the leading causes of death for the elderly across the West. His critics say he overstates the case, but there is a case.

The drugs are a gamble, and everyone involved knows it. So their television commercials end with a voice reading from a long list of side effects. The list includes 

: the drug may “increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some people 24 years of age and younger, especially within the first few months of treatment or when the dose is changed.”

A drug that can either cure depression or cause suicide is like a ball dropped into a spinning roulette wheel. Parents who place their faith in such drugs and the doctors prescribing them are gambling with their children’s lives.

Lindsay Clancy and her former husband are both suing the professionals who treated her for depression in the years before she killed her children. Insurance companies will likely push the defendants to settle out of court. And whenever the courts are done with Clancy, everyone will go back to business as usual.

But she claims she heard a voice, and I believe her.

Her mistake was to obey that voice, and she should bear the consequence of her heinous crimes. Scripture never once lets the tempter assume the guilt of the tempted.

Christians have erred in two directions. Many stopped believing in demons a generation before the psychiatrists did, and now define “mental health” exactly as the world does. Others tell a bipolar woman to pour her lithium down the sink and come to the Wednesday deliverance service instead.

None of this is an argument against medicine. In some cases of mental illness there is a real chemical issue. A person is deficient in some vitamin or mineral, and a supplement fixes the problem. Sometimes a neurotransmitter runs high or low, a receptor stops answering, and the mind begins to hear things. Some medicine works. But not all cases respond to medical treatment.

The trouble comes with the diversity of human response. Not everyone whose brain misfires hears a voice. Not everyone who hears a voice hears it say 

Chemistry alone cannot account for these differences. And a focus on invisible brain chemistry leads us to ignore what’s right before our eyes.

Human sinfulness is enough to account for mothers who murder their children. But this does not mean the devil is absent. Scripture says that he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

Blaming the devil would not be accepted as a defense in court, but blaming neurotransmitters is. That tells us where our superstitions lie.

Getty Images 2292483717 16x9

<title>Pamela Cisneros, Lindsay Clancy, and the voice that said ‘kill’</title>

A woman pulled two kitchen knives from a shopping bag on Seventh Avenue and used them on two strangers. By nightfall everyone knew why, and no one argued. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on the explanation for mental illness that every culture but ours took for granted.

Pamela Cisneros, Lindsay Clancy, and the voice that said ‘kill’

Lopaka and Tanya Kapanui

Lopaka Kapanui and Tanya Kapanui

Hawai‘i History

Hūnānāniho Beach Park sits along the Waimānalo shore, but many people know the place by its nickname, “Sherwood Forest” or simply “Sherwoods.” At the end of a narrow lane just across from the Polo Club, this pocket of land is covered with tall ironwood trees that are not native to Hawai‘i. While the ironwoods provide welcome shade for beachgoers and campers, they’re a relatively recent addition.

Long before the towering trees were planted, this stretch of the Waimānalo shoreline was already home to generations of Native Hawaiians. Historic photographs from the early 1900s show an open beach with very few large trees. Very different from the dense forest that later became famous.

Perhaps the most sobering reminder of Hūnānāniho’s past lies beneath the sand. Archaeological evidence shows Waimānalo to be one of the earliest permanent settlements on O‘ahu. Radiocarbon dating from nearby excavations places occupation between A.D. 1040-1219, with documented home sites, imu, stone tools, midden deposits, shell fishhooks, and burial grounds containing iwi kūpuna, the ancestral remains of Native Hawaiians.

Hūnānāniho was known to Hawaiians as a pu‘uhonua, a place of refuge or sanctuary. Anyone who violated a kapu or fled a losing battle and could successfully reach the grounds of a pu‘uhonua was granted protection from harm or execution. A pu‘uhonua is recognized as a sacred place where kāhuna would perform cleansing rituals and offer prayers for affected individuals. Through these solemn practices, they were absolved of their transgressions and were allowed to return to society.

In 1917, the Waimānalo Sugar Company sold around 1,500 acres of beachfront property to the U.S. Government, after which Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s Executive Order established the Waimānalo Military Reservation. What followed were sweeping changes to the landscape, including the destruction of archaeological sites, the grading of natural dunes, and the construction of an airfield.

In 1933, the reservation was renamed Bellows Field, honoring 2nd Lieutenant F.B. Bellows, who was killed in an airplane accident. The military expanded the facility during World War II to train Air Force personnel for combat. In the 1950s, the military discontinued recreational use of the area, and by the 1960s, it became known as Sherwood Forest, likely named after the famous den of thieves due to high crime rates.

When the military no longer required portions of the property, the land was returned to the state and, eventually, to the city and county. The park was officially named Waimānalo Bay Beach Park until 2021. After a years-long battle to prevent the city from building athletic fields at the park, the Honolulu City and County voted to restore the park’s original name, Hūnānāniho. 

Hawaiian place names have mana, and they often convey the cultural significance of a place. The literal translation of Hūnānāniho is “hidden teeth,” but Hawaiian names often have a deeper meaning. Waimānalo cultural practitioner Kalani Kalima shared an explanation given by Kumu Hula Frank Kawai Hewett that Hūnānāniho means to keep something so sacred and personal that it is hidden, as one’s teeth. 

Today, beachgoers come to Hūnānāniho for its soft sand and shaded shoreline, unaware of the history beneath the sands. While the daytime hours are spent in fun and frolic, the area can quickly become something else entirely.

A few years ago, Rich and his friend, John, crashed a beach party in Kailua, just looking for a good time. After everyone started heading home, the pair snuck a few beers and made their way to Sherwood Forest. Sitting on the tailgate of John’s truck, the young men were facing the beach, sipping their beer and talking story, when Rich noticed some fishermen’s lights bouncing along the shoreline. Not thinking much of it, Rich began texting another friend to see if he’d come and join them until he realized John had become quiet.

When Rich finally looked at John, he noticed his friend’s face was pale, and he was staring at something on the beach. Turning his head in the direction John was looking, he noticed that the lights he saw weren’t flashlights; they were fire, like torches. Then he noticed a long line of them, with dark figures walking beside them.

“Every hair on my body stood up,” Rich said, “and even though I already knew, I asked John, ‘What is that?’”

John started coughing, leaning forward and holding his throat like he couldn’t breathe. Not knowing what else to do, Rich started pounding on John’s back as if he were choking on something.

[{"type":"text","text":"Finally, John sat up and whispered, “Night marchers!”"}]

Rich grabbed John’s arm and helped him to the passenger’s side of his truck and shoved him in, and then jumped in the driver’s seat. He put the truck in gear and sped out of the tiny parking lot, realizing the cooler and some other things had slid out of the bed because the tailgate was open.

They drove to a friend’s house, and someone there told them the moon phase was Kāne, the night when the huaka‘i pō are said to walk the earth. Although it’s been years since that happened, Rich said that he and John never forgot it, and they always make sure to check the moon phase when they go out at night.

Sherwood Sunrise

<title>Beneath the Sand at Hūnānāniho</title>

Waimānalo is one of the earliest human settlements on O‘ahu, dating back as much as a thousand years. For Native Hawaiians, it was a pu‘uhonua, a place of refuge. Later the area hosted a sugar plantation then a military airfield. In 2021, the City and County of Honolulu restored Waimānalo Bay Beach Park's traditional name, Hūnānāniho. Some say that's not the only presence from the past that walks the beach when the moon is just right.

Beneath the Sand at Hūnānāniho

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

 recently soft opened in Honolulu. The biz doesn’t have an official sign yet, but it’s located on one end of the 

The business is known for its flavorful gourmet burgers made with wagyu patties. Created in collaboration with 

, winner of London’s Slider Decider competition in 2015 and 2016, Dragon Burger is known for its flavorful gourmet burgers made with wagyu beef patties and innovative sauces.

Dragon Burger initially did a pop-up in Fukuoka, Japan in August 2017. After positive customer feedback, the brand opened in Tofukuji, Kyoto the following month. 

The yuzu kosho burger is the business’s signature burger. It includes yuzu mayo, a sweet chili sauce, spring onions, cheddar cheese and pickled radish. Yuzu kosho, a popular Japanese condiment made with fresh yuzu citrus zest, contributes to the burger's savory flavor. 

The shiso flame features spicy mayo, spring onions, cheddar cheese, shiso leaf and onion chili paste.

We’re told that the business will add more burgers — like the wasabi (crispy onions, wasabi mayo, onions, cheddar cheese, wakame seaweed and Karashi mustard) and classic (sweet mustard, onions, onion miso, cheddar cheese and Karashi mustard) — to the menu in the upcoming days.

Customers can opt for the business’s Kyo chips ($6), or fries, plain or with sauces like yuzu mayo, spicy mayo and wasabi mayo (additional $1). The wasabi mayo comes highly recommended.

Dragon Burger is currently open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 to 8 p.m. daily. Both this biz and the business next to it, Bonbori — a ramen spot from Hokkaido — will be celebrating their grand opening on July 25.

Open daily, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 5 to 8 p.m.

Dragon Burger yuzu kosho burger 072026

<title>Kyoto’s Dragon Burger is now open in Honolulu</title>

The Japan-based burger spot — known for its gourmet wagyu patties and innovative sauces — just soft opened at Midtown Eats food hall at The Park on Keʻeaumoku. The menu is limited for now; the business will celebrate its grand opening on July 25.

Kyoto’s Dragon Burger is now open in Honolulu

For five weeks this summer, the largest naval exercise in the world is anchored off our islands. Thirty-one nations sent forty gray hulls, five submarines, and aircraft that cross our sky from June into July. The drill has a storyline, and the storyline involves an enemy fleet. The Navy is too polite to say whose, but everyone watching knows it is China.

It is a strange thing to watch a wargame from your own lānai, stranger still to do it while the shelves are full and the children have soccer practice. But RIMPAC poses a question that has nothing to do with the Navy. What do you trust to keep you safe?

A generation ago, a clever man thought he had the answer. The Soviet Union was folding and the Cold War was ending. Francis Fukuyama wrote that liberal democracy had become the final form of human government. The argument was over. The West had won, and the rest was paperwork.

The headlines have not cooperated since then. Iran is run by clerics who believe history bends their way. After American and Israeli bombs fell this spring, they closed the Strait of Hormuz.

In Venezuela, a long experiment in socialism had already emptied the shelves. Two earthquakes forty seconds apart killed close to a thousand people, and the digging is not done.

China keeps spending, patient and sure of itself, buying ports and roads from Africa to the South China Sea. And in Washington, the government that supposedly won the argument at the end of history can barely pass a budget.

Each of these countries has made a wager. Tehran trusts its missiles, Caracas trusted its strongman, Beijing trusts its ships, and we trust ours. Every government asks for a single arrangement of power to last forever.

From the middle of the Pacific, all the news can feel like someone else’s weather. Prices have climbed here too — gas, eggs, the usual. But the stations still pump and the warehouse stores still stack the pallets high. Ours is a rich country, with land and oil to spare. We are heirs to ordered liberty and markets freer than most, though never quite as free as their champions liked to claim.

A man may enjoy fine weather, but he gets into trouble when he begins to believe he arranged it.

This December marks 85 years since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One morning, a great many certainties vanished, and Hawaiʻi was plunged into a World War. We are not the quiet edge of the map. We are the middle of it — the center of somebody else’s plan.

The families on base do not need a columnist to tell them this. They read it in the deployment calendar. They know something the rest of us can easily forget at Costco: Our safety has always leaned on somebody’s fleet.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ our God. The fleet in our harbor is a great strength, but a poor god. We shouldn’t ask it to be one because it cannot do the job.

This is bad news for two kinds of people. It is bad news for the man who reads the headlines, buys a bunker, and decides that because nothing lasts, nothing is worth building. And it is bad news for his cheerful cousin. He mistakes American power for the kingdom of God and salutes the flag as though it were an altar. The God who rules the Strait of Hormuz and controls the fault lines under Caracas also governs the loading dock at Costco.

So build the things that survive war. Not the bunker, but the congregation, the friendship with a neighbor across the fence, the school for your children’s children. Build the small, local groups that can catch a falling family before the federal government has heard them fall. That is not retreat. It is a readiness that does not depend on chariots.

The ships will be at sea tomorrow, training in the same water that smoked in 1941. The clever man was wrong, though not in the way the frightened expect. History is not finished, and it is not finished because it is going somewhere — toward an end already chosen, by Someone who is not nervous. So we watch the gray hulls with thanks and without fear.

Destroyers in Pearl Harbor i Stock 2022

<title>RIMPAC 2026: Hawaiʻi, China, and the Question Underneath</title>

The children have soccer practice while, a few miles offshore, 31 nations rehearse a war. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on what Hawaiʻi trusts to keep it safe.

RIMPAC 2026: Hawaiʻi, China, and the Question Underneath

This new spot serves up frozen Greek yogurt.

Avenue in March. It’s open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The biz faces 

Avenue and is located close to International Market Place.

The biz offers self-serve frozen Greek yogurt with Hawaiʻi-inspired flavors. You can choose from flavors like mango, ube, original tart and Big Island Lehua honey. There are also rotating flavors like guava, lilikoʻi and lychee.

The yogurt costs $1.35 per ounce. Customers are invited to pick a bowl, choose their flavors and add toppings. Complimentary yogurt samples are available.

The toppings bar includes fruity options like strawberries, blueberries and pineapples, along with chia seeds, almonds, granola, coconut flakes and macadamia nuts.

Although this is Greek yogurt, it isn’t extremely tart and features a creamy consistency. Customers can enjoy a 10% 

Aloha Greek Yogurt yogurt bowls 051126

<title>New frozen Greek yogurt spot in Honolulu</title>

Aloha Greek Waikīkī opened recently on Kūhiō Avenue. The business offers self-serve frozen Greek yogurt with Hawaiʻi-inspired flavors like ube, mango, liliko‘i and pineapple.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Skanking 101

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Skanking 101

Authors

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

More in Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

Enter for a chance to win tickets to see Disney’s live action adaptation of the animated film ‘Moana’

Hawai‘i Scene on Social meets Hawai‘i Skies

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Neighborhood weather updates

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Island vibes

Most read