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[{"type":"text","text":"The Three Stooges..."}]

Smile 26 3 5

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, March 5, 2026</title>

The Three Stooges...

Daily Smile: Thursday, March 5, 2026

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

The City and County of Honolulu and an 83-year-old woman who sued the city over $600,000 in fines are trying to reach a settlement.

, Wilhelmina Rise resident Sandra May sued the City and County of Honolulu in federal court after she racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines by incorrectly listing a rental property as available to short-term tenants.

May, who her lawyer said “struggles to utilize any kind of technology,” intended to list her rental unit only for periods of 30 days or more, but had accidentally listed it as available for shorter periods on multiple occasions. The third time this happened, in 2024, the city informed her that her lapse would incur daily $10,000 fines until she corrected it, which she did 59 days and $590,000 later.

An additional $10,000 lien the city placed on May’s property brought the total amount she owed to an even $600,000.

May’s attorney Loren Seehase told Aloha State Daily in May that the city did not tell May of any way to challenge or appeal the fines, leaving her no choice but to challenge them on U.S. constitutional grounds: specifically, as a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which protects against excessive fines.

On Monday, however, attorneys for the defendants — which, along with the city, included Dawn Apuna, director of the county Department of Planning and Permitting, and the department itself — submitted a statement to the court informing it that the case will likely be dismissed.

According to that statement, May and the defendants “have agreed to a stipulated fine amount” and are in the process of drawing up a settlement agreement.

Nonetheless, the city’s attorneys argued that May’s claims were unwarranted, and arose from a misunderstanding of DPP’s fine process. According to their statement, DPP must review a fine for appropriateness and make any corresponding reductions before collecting it.

“This fine review process ensures that the department is able to consider any facts that were not within its knowledge at the time of issuing the order,” the statement read.

In this case, May’s administrative appeals have not yet been reviewed, and the city Zoning Board of Appeals has yet to determine whether the fines are appropriate.

An answering brief the city filed in the case earlier this month draws from this line of reasoning: the brief repeatedly argued that May’s claims were premature and that she had not exhausted all the remedies available to her.

However, that brief did also confirm that any listing for a rental offered for less than 30 days can violate the city’s short-term rental ordinance, regardless of whether the unit was actually booked for a short term.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Sandra May rentalsign 610x407 16x9

<title>Octogenarian, city, seek settlement in suit over $600,000 fine</title>

A federal lawsuit between Sandra May and the City and County of Honolulu over an improper rental listing is likely to end out of court.

Octogenarian, city, seek settlement in suit over $600,000 fine

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Columnists

 the president give a speech on one half of the screen while on the other half a panel of news anchors explained what he was saying and why it was wrong.

NBC and ABC would not broadcast the speech live on their networks. They streamed it instead. This is not the first time networks have declined to broadcast a presidential speech. Some did the same for Biden and Obama.

There was a time, within living memory, when a journalist waited for a speech to end before telling the country what to think of it. The waiting was a small courtesy, but it rested on a large assumption: that the people watching could be trusted with the raw facts and come to their own conclusions. The split screen quietly withdraws that assumption.

This paternalism is nothing new. Walter Lippmann explained it a century ago in his book 

. The world, he argued, is too vast and too tangled for ordinary people, who see it only through crude pictures in their heads. So a trained class must organize what the public perceives, and manufacture its consent.

Lippmann was only cribbing Plato. Plato’s guardians governed the city by a noble lie — a useful myth, administered for everyone’s good. The split screen is not a lapse from journalistic principle. It is the core journalistic principle, the one the trade was actually built on, surfacing for a brief moment.

And Lippmann was not wrong about everything. No one reads the actuarial tables behind an insurance bill. No one audits the Fed on a lunch break. Every one of us takes nearly everything on trust, from some mediator. The question was never whether we would be shaped. The question is who does the shaping, and by what light.

Be generous toward Lippmann: he was a philosopher, or at least he fashioned himself one. He had read widely in history and philosophy and could write a decent argument. And he shared his ideas with the public, in books and columns. A man could disagree with Lippmann and know exactly what he was disagreeing with. But when the critic Edward Said 

 Lippmann’s long career, Said saw America choosing in Lippmann “the style of reassuring authority over any concrete message or social vision.”

The modern pundit class is self-assured, but less reassuring. On social media, the thinking has grown thinner with each generation. A few news personalities have published books, though with ghostwriters at work it is hard to tell who has substance. The distance from 

 to 2026 is vast. But in asking mass media of any age to make sense of the world, we may be asking too much.

. A man may know every fact about the world and still not know what he must do about any of them. The gulf is not crossed by more facts, better sourced. For most of human history it was crossed by revelation, and the crossing was kept by the church. The clerics could tell a people what the events of the world meant, because they had a Word from outside the world to measure them by.

Said writes that Lippmann’s career was not 

— not the treason of the intellectuals. In reaching for that diagnosis, Said had the right crime and the wrong defendants.

Mass media could take the place it did because of treason by the clerics. The media did not storm the sensemaking chair. It found the chair empty and sat down, and it has held the office ever since without ordination. Christ had a brief comment on such arrangements: “if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

How did the chair come to be empty? Somewhere along the way, the gospel got trimmed down to a private transaction — a boarding pass off a sinking ship, redemption with no bearing on Monday morning. Pulpits learned to tell a man how to be saved but not how to live, and congregations stopped asking.

An unreformed people will be formed by programming. The need for oughts does not lapse just because the supply does. So the evening news obliges. Each event arrives pre-narrated as the most important thing in the world. It is chosen from an endless mass by editors who do not say, and are rarely asked, why they chose it.

Which returns us to Lippmann. In 1937 he published 

, his blueprint for ordering the world justly.

That same year, Lippmann’s wife of 20 years 

, on grounds of “extreme cruelty, a violent, ungovernable temper.” This cleared the way for him to marry the woman he had been having an affair with, the wife of a close friend. Lippmann could draft a good society, but he could not manage a good household. That is not a scandal peculiar to Lippmann. It is the ordinary condition of blind guides, who are blind to their own blindness first.

The reformer’s instinct at this point is to imagine a better press — humbler, chastened, rigorous at last. But there is no press reform that survives contact with the humans who would staff it. The split screen is not an editorial policy that can be revised. It is pride, and pride is not fixed by better hiring. The media is fallen because humans are fallen, and the Lippmanns of the world will always volunteer to run the media — cheerfully, and with the best of intentions, which is rather the problem.

The remedy is not a better press but a smaller appetite for it. Think for yourself. The speech is 

And take your oughts from the One who is not clay. On the other half of the screen, the speech goes on — muted, waiting for someone to decide the country can be trusted to listen.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

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<title>NBC, ABC and the Trump speech: The century-old idea behind the networks’ decision</title>

The anchors couldn’t wait for the speech to end. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why the press acts like a priesthood — and why no reform will fix it.

NBC, ABC and the Trump speech: The century-old idea behind the networks’ decision

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

Aloha Spirit

When the 32nd Annual Made in Hawai‘i Festival, presented by Hawaiian Airlines, returns to Honolulu next month, organizers say it'll be the biggest festival yet, with more than 800 vendor booths spanning nearly 300,000 square feet across two nights and two full days.

Tickets for the festival go on sale Aug. 1.

, the days and times of the festival have changed from past years due to construction at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, where the event will be held.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The event is set for Aug. 20 to 23:"}]

Limited pre-sale tickets for Thursday and Friday will be available through select sponsor links with limited public tickets remaining. You can buy tickets at 

In addition to the hundreds of vendors, the festival also will feature live entertainment, chef demos, fashion shows, tastings and more, an announcement Monday said. But there's plenty of other changes to note this year, too.

[{"type":"text","text":"According to that announcement, here's what's new in 2026:"}]

MIHF is produced by the Hawai‘i Food Industry Association, or HFIA.

“For more than 30 years, the Made in Hawaiʻi Festival has served as the state’s premier showcase for locally made products, connecting thousands of residents and visitors with Hawaiʻi’s most innovative producers, artisans, and food and beverage companies,” the 

 notes. “What began as a platform to support local businesses has evolved into one of Hawaiʻi’s most anticipated annual events and a critical economic driver for hundreds of companies statewide.

 drew approximately 70,000 attendees and generated approximately $10 million in sales in 2024. The festival saw about 70,000 visitors over three days 

 and vendors reported sales just under $10 million, Heu previously told ASD.

With the changes this year, Heu told ASD that organizers are "optimistic" that they'll see similar numbers this year.

ASD attended the festival last year and caught up with a handful of the small business owners who set up shop. 

Aloha State Daily is an ‘Ohana Sponsor for the Made in Hawai‘i Festival. Stop by our booth to say “aloha,” play some games, win prizes and learn more about the work we do.

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

MIHF 2025 DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS AC 45

<title>Here's what's new at the 32nd annual Made in Hawai‘i Festival</title>

Hawaiian Airlines presents the 32nd Annual Made in Hawai‘i Festival returns to Honolulu in August and organizers say it'll be the biggest festival yet, with more than 800 vendor booths spanning nearly 300,000 square feet across two nights and two full days.

Here's what's new at the 32nd annual Made in Hawai‘i Festival

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Someone get Chad Blair a paper bag, because the poor man is hyperventilating.

 published Sunday, Blair, Civil Beat politics editor asks, “Are Hawai

i’s Elections Safe From Donald Trump?”

[{"type":"text","text":"Oh no! The Orange Menace! Everybody panic! Now ... what’s the danger?"}]

The article starts misinforming readers in the subhed, before Blair really gets rolling:

“The president and his minions are doing everything they can to limit voting nationally.”

Yes. Limited to citizens. You know, like real countries do. Any other implication is shameless fearmongering.

[{"type":"text","text":"The subhed continues: “So far, they are failing ‘bigly.’”"}]

Did you see that? They turned Trump’s catchword against him! Hah-hah! Take that, Orange Man! You just got served!

“Failing” is a dishonest way of saying “being viciously opposed by Democrats, who, for some reason, seem absolutely rabid about getting rid of any safeguard against non-citizen voting."

Blair, in lockstep with Democrats and Democrat-friendly media, tried to depict Trump’s speech as nothing more than a rerun of his complaint that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him.

To believe that, you’d have to ignore the entirety of the speech or the 

(Sidenote: U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda’s office emailed me a press statement denouncing the speech in exactly the same tone as Blair. I replied with one question: “Has the representative read the evidence posted by the White House?” No reply. No reply at all.)

The speech and the evidence include problems dating back years before 2020 and years since. They included revelations about intelligence officials and federal law enforcement withholding information and evidence from a duly elected sitting president out of sheer political partisanship. They included the revelation that a quarter million foreigners are registered to vote — not back in 2020, but right now. They included revelations that China has hacked and stolen the voter records of 220 million Americans.

If you’re content to believe, as Blair would have you believe, the speech was nothing but a 2020 complaint, you owe to yourself to look at the documents.

Blair fearmongers for about Trump’s efforts, about the purported dangers of the SAVE Act currently before Congress, so much so that a point-by-point rebuttal would be tedious for me to write, miserable for you to read, so let me make one simple, factual historical point:

Everything Trump is aiming for, everything the SAVE Act is aiming for, was literally and without controversy Hawai‘i’s routine election law from 1970 to 2019.

Anyone but me remember that? Blair certainly seems to have forgotten. At 58, most of my entire life here in the Islands included elections held in person as the default, and everyone had to show ID.

[{"type":"text","text":"No one had a problem with this."}]

In case you’ve forgotten, that voter-ID regime was set up in 1970, via 

 of the Hawai‘i state Legislature under Gov. John A. Burns, when Hawai‘i was just as much a blue state as it is now. It was set up by Democrats following national trends toward good government reforms, modernizing and overhauling our elections for greater trust.

Hawai‘i threw that all away in 2019, ostensibly on the grounds that moving to an all-mail election would improve Hawai‘i’s lousy turnout.

As I pointed out on this subject last year

, Hawai‘i’s 2024 turnout of 60% in the general election was the lowest in our entire history of statehood.

Too bad the bill didn’t include language that says, “If mail-in elections fail at this goal, we revert to the normal procedure.” So we seem stuck with this shabby substitute for a real election until some future Legislature gets that old time good-government religion again.

There are so many problems with all-mail voting that it’s a shame an experienced pundit like Blair can’t step out of his Trump Derangement System long enough to use the Civil Beat platform for good.

[{"type":"text","text":"To cite just one example: The Post Office itself."}]

Reminder, from 2022, right here in the Islands: “

Many mailed ballots in Hawaii’s primary election weren’t tallied due to missed deadline,

” wrote the Star-Advertiser, adding, “More than 3,000 Hawai‘i voters suffered a pitfall — voting too late — in this year’s primary election. County election officials report that 3,125 ballots cast by mail in the Aug. 13 contest didn’t count because they weren’t received in time.”

, your 2026 mail-in ballot must be received by 7 p.m. on Aug. 8, the day of the Primary Election and by 7 pm. November 3, for the General.

Pop quiz: What’s the last day you can put your ballot in the mail; and be confident it will arrive in time?

You don’t know, do you? No one does. No one can. Hawai‘i's lawmakers took one look at our formerly solid and concrete elections in 2019 and said, "You know what this system needs? An element of uncertainty!"

And that’s before you get to the fact that postal workers are in a union and that union endorses candidates. It’s a body of people who, at least when it comes to presidential elections, openly announces it has taken a side. This should have disqualified the Post Office from being our default ballot handler. Well, except that oddly enough, that union endorses the same Democrats who totally want the ballots to arrive by mail.

(Thought experiment: In an alternate reality, postal workers are fervent Republicans, and the Democrat response to the idea of all-mail elections is … what? Can anyone guess? What would Alternate Reality Chad Blair have to say about the safety and security of handing all our ballots to "Trump's minions?")

I don’t have to prove this openly declared partisanship has resulted in rigged elections. It’s enough to say that it plainly 

, and our election laws must be based on minimizing risks, not ripping out the seatbelts, turning off the air bags while declaring, “Meh, I’m sure everything will be fine.” 

Every code of professional ethics bans not just impropriety, but the mere appearance of impropriety. And, friends, this 

Blair and other likeminded voices are working overtime to tell us Trump is undermining people’s confidence in elections. No. The Hawai‘i state Legislature did that for me all on its own when it replaced real elections with a direct-mail marketing survey in 2019. And you don't even get a sticker for voting anymore! What's the fun in that?

None of these people are addressing the critical issue here, bigger than even the voter ID issue, though they are related. As I’ve 

, the defining element of an election you can trust is the not the ballot so much as ballot booth. The booth is where “one person, one vote” happens. The booth is where you can vote your individual conscience, not matter what kind of pressure might be coming at you to vote one way or another.

Hawai‘i threw away the booth as the normal, default setting for voting. We’ve been faking elections ever since. We get “comfort,” in the words of the Office of Elections, instead of confidence; “convenience,” in the words of Legislature, instead of security.

Those are fine descriptors … for an airport business hotel. They have no business being the defining qualities of an election.

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team

Mail in ballot i Stock 1761900294

<title>Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's election amnesia</title>

A Civil Beat op-ed this weekend freaked out over Pres. Trump's election security speech and the SAVE Act. Memories have gotten pretty short in the Islands; however, because voting in person and showing ID to vote were uncontroversial good-government reforms that Hawai‘i Democrats themselves put in place in 1970. These reforms governed our elections reliably until Democrats changed the laws again in 2019.

Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's election amnesia

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

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many individuals developed new hobbies like cooking or baking. For husband and wife Caameron and Monica Nakasone, the pandemic was a catalyst for creating their own coffee beverages.

“When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and we couldn’t go out and visit a café, we took it upon ourselves to learn how to make a delicious brew at home,” Monica Nakasone says. “This sparked our passion for coffee and our admiration for the craft.

“Everyone either baked or did coffee (during the pandemic),” she adds. “We went down the coffee route and fell in love with the craftsmanship.”

i, the couple was living in Oregon at the time, as they both went to college at the University of Portland. They spent many weekends visiting specialty coffee shops, according to Nakasone.

“After we graduated from the University of Portland, we found ourselves living in Oregon for 12 years,” she says. “When Covid hit, we started researching how much craftsmanship really goes into specialty coffee, and how small variables could change the flavor. We started figuring out what we loved about coffee and what flavors brought us joy.”

ahu to be closer to family, they also decided to pursue their dream of opening up a coffee shop together. Their specialty coffee shop, called 

, is inspired by the Pacific Northwest, according to Nakasone.

“We take pride in sourcing our coffee beans and teas from Portland shops that we would frequent and found joy in visiting, and we are excited to share them with the community here in Hawaiʻi,” Nakasone says.

Third Space Coffee opened about two weeks ago; it’s located on the third floor of the 808 Center in a shared space with Cake M. The business’s logo features their dog, Kuro, with a cup of coffee, according to Nakasone, who says the café’s name stems from its goal to be a “third space” for the community.

“Our mission is to be a place to spend time that’s outside of work or home, where anyone can come in, enjoy a memorable cup of coffee, and return for the hospitality and warmth they felt from our shop,” she says. “Third Space is the culmination of our gratitude and appreciation for the communities that supported us, our experience living in the Pacific Northwest — a region known for its multitude of coffee roasters and coffee culture — and our passion for specialty coffee.”

The café offers a variety of coffees, teas and specialty beverages. The signature drinks are inspired by some of the couple’s favorite places and features about Oregon.

“They pay homage to where we first experienced a particular beverage,” Nakasone explains. “For example, The Bluff — an iced London Fog, topped with our marionberry cold foam — is a reference to the University of Portland, where we first had a London Fog. Some of our other popular drinks include the Cedar Hills — a brown sugar vanilla, honey and cinnamon latte — and Mount Hood, our cold brew topped with marionberry cold foam, and the St. John’s.”

The St. John’s is a brown sugar cardamom latte. All of the café’s syrups and cream cheese flavors are made in house, with the exception of the caramel sauce, according to Nakasone.

“I had never heard of a London Fog until we moved to the Mainland,” Nakasone says. “We try to incorporate some of our favorite flavors — like marionberry — from the Pacific Northwest.”

Teas include options like iced hibiscus punch tea, Rose City Genmaicha and Portland breakfast. The café also features bagels from Big Time Bagels, and housemade baked goods like chocolate chip cookies ($4.75) and Spam-cheddar and gochujang scone ($6).

“We are proud to share that all our baked goods — with the exception of our bagels — are made in house,” Nakasone says. “The scones are my husband’s recipe. The Everything bagel with our housemade pizza cream cheese ($8) is a fan favorite.”

Third Space Coffee is open from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays to Sundays (closed Mondays).

“We are a small team of two who find joy in crafting a cup of coffee and sharing our take on it with others,” Nakasone says. “This is our way of bringing some of the Pacific Northwest and some of our favorite things to Hawai

Open 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays to Sundays

Third Space Coffee owners 071626

<title>This Pacific Northwest-inspired coffee shop is open on Oʻahu</title>

Hawaiʻi locals Caameron and Monica Nakasone moved back to Oʻahu from Oregon about two years ago. Their new café, Third Space Coffee, features some of their favorite flavors from the Pacific Northwest; the shop is in a shared space with Cake M in the 808 Center.

Daily Smile: Thursday, March 5, 2026

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Daily Smile: Thursday, March 5, 2026

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