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Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Never doubt the wrestling skills of a duck..."}]

Smile 26 9 24

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026</title>

Never doubt the wrestling skills of a duck...

Daily Smile: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026

 Never doubt the wrestling skills of a duck...

[{"type":"text","text":"Gourd vibes only..."}]

Smile 26 10 12

<title>Daily Smile: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026</title>

Gourd vibes only...

Daily Smile: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

Business & Tourism

For Zeidalyn Templado, God is the center of her life 

, which launched online in March 2026 out of ‘

Templado, 21, is currently a business major at the University of Hawaiʻi

set to graduate next fall. She told Aloha State Daily that growing up, she thought she wanted to be a nurse or go into the military until her stepdad called her an entrepreneur and her auntie nurtured that spirit.

She sold desserts on the side during high school and through Covid, which was around the same time she started going to church. After her family moved to the Mainland, she found closeness to God to be her saving grace, bringing “indescribable peace,” especially in tough times, she said.

“I pray a lot and worship is important to me, but [people often ask] what does a bikini business have to do with Jesus?” 

Templado explained. “This business is a reflection of my relationship with Him, and I do try to make sure to show that through how I treat my team of ambassadors and customers with kindness. 

We include a Bible verse on the back of every tag, and I’ve recently started putting stickers in the packaging, as well.”

“I just want to give God all the glory; I have this success because of Him.”

The biz is named after her 8-year-old sister, Aevlene Aiana, who lives in California with her mom, she said.

“Having my sister witness my first bikini launch with the name inspired by her makes me grateful to show her how much she means to me!” 

 “I hope to continue to show her that you can do anything you put your mind to with the help of God and her family.”

Aiana Swim features “pieces made with intention, creativity and care for the planet,” she said on 

, noting that 10% of sales go back to animal care in Brazil, where small batches are manufactured. She added that the manufacturer’s values align with hers, providing fair wages to their workers and using only PETA-Approved Vegan, cruelty-free textiles, while reducing fabric waste. The biz’s packaging is also biodegradable and compostable.

 designs her own prints inspired by her island home.

Her latest collection, which first dropped to hundreds of shoppers on an email list late last month, features a 

 with pink hibiscus print and white tiger stripes. The swimsuit pays homage to her childhood dog, Tiger, who died earlier this year. The shop’s site is now open to the public, while supplies lasts.

While TikTok videos have helped shape parts of the business 

— such as her approach for new releases that emphasize exclusivity  — 

Templado credits God, her family and team of ambassadors for helping to grow the band.

she’s looking forward to creating more collections, increasing inventory, and doing more fashion show and pop-up events.

“Every time I see the name Aiana Swim, I’m reminded of family, inspiration and the hope of building something meaningful that can make a difference,” according to Templado. “Every purchase not only supports my dream of building an environmentally responsible brand but also helps me support myself and my family through college. Aiana Swim is more than swimwear, it’s a dream rooted in family, faith and purpose.”

Aiana Swim Zeidalyn Templado

<title>Aiana Swim’s latest drop makes a splash</title>

UH West Oʻahu student Zeidalyn Templado just released her second collection of swimsuits featuring hand-drawn designs inspired by the Hawaiian Islands, including a print that honors the memory of her childhood dog. She shares the story behind her brand and the greater purpose that drives her.

Aiana Swim’s latest drop makes a splash

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

As Hawai‘i weathers a stronger-than-average hurricane season, the state’s emergency management apparatus says its disaster response plans remain reliable.

Among the many duties of the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency, or HIEMA, is the maintenance of various emergency response plans for the state and its agencies. And after two hurricane impacts this year so far in Lala and Lowell, HIEMA Administrator David Lopez told Aloha State Daily those plans are holding up.

“There’s always room for improvement,” Lopez said. “Right on the front end from our team, communication is always a place of improvement … Mutually supporting plans, the ability to try to anticipate what’s going to happen, having things set up preemptively so that we can move material and equipment … the better we are at writing the detailed plans, then we understand our capabilities and then, of course, our gaps or where we need to improve those plans.”

HIEMA's hazard mitigation plan includes a vulnerabilities assessment for each type of major disaster that could impact the state, including earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, terrorist attacks and, pertinently for Hawai‘i's summer of 2026, hurricanes. That assessment predicted that, based on the historical record, "the state may expect to experience a hurricane event that lead s to a [Federal Emergency Management Agency] declaration once every 11 years."

If that data remains accurate, Hawai‘i has had a hard 11 years, as FEMA has issued major disaster declarations for three hurricanes that impacted Hawai‘i since 2015, two of which were issued this week for Hurricanes Lowell and Lala — the third was for Hurricane Lane in 2018.

The plan also includes estimates of potential damage to facilities and infrastructure within storm surge inundation areas for up to a Category 4 hurricane, which can bring winds of up to 156 mph. Statewide, the total replacement cost of all state buildings within a Category 4 storm surge is about $26 billion, $17 billion of which is on O‘ahu alone. Broadening the scope of that assessment to general building stock, the total replacement cost rises to more than $58 billion, with $51 billion on O‘ahu.

Lives threatened by a Category 4 hurricane — that is, the estimated population within a Category 4 storm surge — were estimated to be about 142,000 in 2023, about 10% of the total state population, although the hazard mitigation plan notes that, ultimately, the entire population is vulnerable to hurricanes in some way.

While a direct impact Category 4 hurricane is among the worst possible hurricane scenarios for the state, the plans for responding to the disaster largely follow the same principles irrespective of scope, Lopez said. 

HIEMA’s plans establish an order of operations for addressing critical infrastructure following a disaster. In the case of a serious hurricane striking O‘ahu, Lopez said the first priority would be port restoration, clearing debris and making repairs to get the ports operational again as soon as possible.

After the ports, Lopez said debris clearance work expands to “every place that’s affected,” opening up ingress and egress routes for people who may be trapped.

“Generally speaking, the utilities follow the roads, and so then your utility repair starts branching out from there,” Lopez said. “So you’re thinking about critical infrastructure, hospitals, what are you trying to get open again to help people, and then power and utilities coming in behind that. So it’s a huge, huge coordinated effort.”

While this is happening, Lopez said shelters will open, as well as associated food distribution plans, and potentially search and rescue operations.

Lopez emphasized that the core of the state’s emergency response efforts rely on “mutually supporting plans,” where each state or county agency has its own plan developed and implemented in tandem with each others’.

“For instance, the airports by federal law have to do a certain level of planning, disaster planning and recovery planning,” Lopez said. “So we incorporate how they do things into our dealing with them … each of the state facilities are required to have what’s called a COOP plan, or a continuity of operations plan … and HIEMA help develop, manage them and ensure they’re updated.”

Each of those plans is part of a nested hierarchy of additional plans: Lopez said a hospital will have its own emergency response plan, along with a refueling plan, and a plan for sourcing alternate power, and likely more besides.

The decision on when to activate plans is just as important as the plans themselves. In the case of impending hurricanes, Lopez said HIEMA and other agencies start monitoring storms closely once they pass the 140th meridian west — also called the 140th parallel — about 1,000 miles east of the state.

Once a storm passes that longitude, HIEMA and other agencies make daily calls, including daily briefings from the National Weather Service, to determine how to respond.

“We talk to our state partners on the same call, our county partners, and each of their administrators, civil defense or emergency management administrators on the call,” Lopez said. “We listen to what they have to say, what they’re doing, do they need anything and if so how much, of what kind, and then what do we do to get it in place before they need it, or is it best to put it in place before or after? Because, you know, if you put something in place before, you run the risk of losing it.”

But once the storm passes, HIEMA’s work doesn’t end. In fact, Hawai‘i’s busy storm season has put tremendous strain on the agency’s resources, Lopez said: “We’ve had Kona Lows, the threat of [Hurricane] Fausto, and then we had Lala which beat up the Big Island … and now we have Lowell.

“And also, too, Maui still has some residual effect from the fires with housing and taking care of people, so now we have just about the whole state in some type of response or recovery,” Lopez said.

Lopez noted that HIEMA has been working on developing an updated vulnerabilities assessment for the state, analyzing the resilience of the state’s various systems — the most recent such assessment was made in 2016. However, he said HIEMA is a “small agency,” and probably won’t have the time or resources to work on that for the rest of the year as crises pile up.

In cases where resources are tight, Lopez said it’s the responsibility of the “unified coordination group” — a collection of state leaders and potentially federal officers — to allocate those resources most effectively.

“The general principle is ‘how can we use the resources to take care of the most amount of people and get the greatest amount of help for the most amount of time,’” Lopez said.

And, of course, Lopez said HIEMA’s work doesn’t stop with the storm season.

“We can be hit by anything anytime, from a tsunami to a volcano eruption, or even a man-made type disaster,” Lopez said. “Although the impacts of any of these storms is over, the recovery piece goes on for years … We’re three years after Lahaina and still trying to improve the position of those people. Probably a year or so more from now, we’ll probably see those people who were damaged the most [during the Kona Lows] getting back into some type of home close to what was pre-disaster.”

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<title>How Hawai‘i prepares for a Category 4 hurricane</title>

Back to back hurricanes had us wondering what would happen if the big one, a Category 4 hurricane, hit the state. A state assessment predicts that such a storm would threaten 142,000 lives and cause as much as $58 billion in property damage. HIEMA Administrator David Lopez walks us through how the agency would respond.

How Hawai‘i prepares for a Category 4 hurricane

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Columnists

Palmer Luckey is an inventor who co-founded Anduril, one of the fastest-growing military contractors. He’s a darling of the podcast and panel circuit. He’s well spoken and insightful, and he often says provocative things. He did so on a recent panel, when he 

 using oxytocin as part of marriage counseling to raise America’s birth rate.

Luckey had been asked what he would do if he were starting a company today. “I would try to end the tragedy of divorce with oxytocin doping for marriage counseling,” he said. “We understand mammal pair-bonding pretty well. There’s a lot of people who want to stay together. Most of the people who don’t want to stay together should stay together, especially for their kids.”

 this idea stems from his obsession with natalism and the birth rate in America. For him, natalism is in part a civic duty. The nation survives only if Americans have many children.

Of course, oxytocin is real medicine. Doctors use it to induce labor. The body releases it when a mother nurses her baby. There may be some place for it in marriage counseling. Some people do have health conditions which leave them short of critical hormones.

The problem lies in reducing humans to biology. That is a frequent temptation among technologists like Luckey. These are the types that speak of human behavior only in terms of incentives and chemical reactions. But not all human problems can be reduced to chemistry. Nor are they all subject to better social engineering.

Luckey is not a random crank. He’s intelligent, and he’s behind two major innovations. First, he designed an early virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. Second, he helped build a business model that has challenged the grip of the prime contractors at the Department of Defense. It promises to save money for American taxpayers.

His company, Anduril, is at the cutting edge of autonomous weapons systems. This tech is used not only for national defense abroad, but also at home. Luckey has helped design drones that detect and fight wildfires on their own. And Palmer Luckey is only 34 years old.

He’s a self-taught polymath, able to speak well on a range of subjects. He’s affable and funny. But his style is a curious mix of seriousness and flippancy about problems like the birth rate. He can speak plainly about waste in government procurement one moment and comment on meme culture the next.

In his ironic detachment, Luckey is decidedly a millennial. His signature outfit is the aloha shirt. In recent years he’s taken to rocking a mullet and goatee. Anduril makes drones that 

 gear that appeals to the fashion tastes of Gen Z.

Yet for all his charm, intelligence, and success, Luckey is not yet wise about procreation. He has missed the root of America’s birth-rate crisis. We have lost sight of what the human person is and what human life is for.

The birth-rate crisis is especially acute in Hawai‘i. We have doubled our population in the past half century, yet we have fewer school-aged children now than we did 50 years ago.

Luckey is not the only tech natalist. Elon Musk has had at least 14 children with four women. They include the pop musician Grimes and Shivon Zilis, an executive at his brain-implant company, Neuralink. He recently parted with Zilis, with whom he has four children.

 last year that Musk has offered large payments to the mothers of his children in exchange for signed NDAs. Ashley St. Clair, who has a child with Musk, said she was offered $15 million plus $100,000 a month to keep quiet about the baby. She refused the offer. According to the Journal, Musk also asked the influencer Tiffany Fong to have his child.

Natalism is a frequent talking point for Musk. He shows much less regard for traditional institutions like marriage, or for fathers being present in their children’s lives. At a certain point, that requires the commitment of time. It’s hard enough as a working father of four, and I don’t have the burden of running Tesla and SpaceX. Luckey at least wants marriages. Musk seems to have little use for the nuclear family.

Both men represent eccentricity backed by capital. There have always been men with odd ideas on how to reform the world. But rarely have they had the capital and reach that they do today. The industrial titans of a century ago had to build the tools for turning wealth into influence. Today’s billionaires make their fortunes early in life. They find Super PACs, family offices, and foundations already waiting.

The wealthy have long shaped public opinion, but usually through other institutions. In the early days, it was newspapers. Then it was think tanks. Now it’s whole networks of groups, run through family offices. Their job is to translate the will of the billionaire into lasting wealth and influence on the ground.

Think of Bill Gates, MacKenzie Scott, or Pierre Omidyar. They have built or bankrolled such networks to promote their philanthropic and political agendas. Philanthropy and politics are merely two names for the same goal of shaping society. The main thing that separates them is the tax code.

Modern billionaires also have a unique ability to shape public discourse, because they can use social media platforms to appeal directly to their followers. This influence is reinforced by celebrity culture, which lavishes attention on whichever figure captures the public imagination.

Musk is the subject of a new, nearly four-hour 

. He controls X, the social media site once known as Twitter. Luckey is less famous, with a cult following that skews nerdier than Musk’s mainstream audience.

But influence need not be widespread. If Luckey sways other tech billionaires, that’s enough.

How billionaires define problems and deploy capital to solve them matters, because they can build institutions that last. Think of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, or the Carnegie Corporation. Fast forward a century, and the Musks and Luckeys may still have their thumb on the scale of the national debate.

So it matters that they get to the root. The birth rate is not the problem; it is a symptom of the problem. At the root is a misunderstanding of man’s nature and man’s purpose.

Luckey professes faith in Christ, and he has spoken of man as 

. Man is also marred by sin, and redeemable by Christ. Musk calls himself a cultural Christian, which is to want the fruit without the tree.

Man was commanded from the beginning to be fruitful and multiply. Redeemed man is called to labor on Christ’s behalf to make earth like heaven.

Without belief in God, it’s hard to convince people that children are a blessing and not a burden. Children are not to be sought as a means to national competitiveness. Rather, they are to be prayed for.

Oxytocin may indeed help repair some marriages, but it cannot keep a vow. To treat a husband or wife as a chemical robot with no will — merely controlled by hormones — is to degrade them.

Wanting more children, as a parent, is a good thing. Wanting a nation to be fruitful is also a good thing. But it’s possible to want the right thing for the wrong reason. If we want a fruitful America only to prevail in a contest with China, our labors on behalf of that goal cannot please God. If we want a fruitful America only so we can stop mass immigration, our labors on behalf of that goal cannot please God.

If Luckey wants to lead America to a more fruitful future, he can begin with what he already confesses. Man is made in God’s image. Such creatures can’t be dosed into faithfulness. They have to be called to it, and their children are answers to prayer before they are anything else.

Baby in crib i Stock 648255842 16x9

<title>Palmer Luckey’s oxytocin doping plan won’t fix the birth rate</title>

Asked what company he would start today, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey said he would end divorce with “oxytocin doping.” ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why the birth rate is a symptom, and why children are to be prayed for, not engineered.

Palmer Luckey’s oxytocin doping plan won’t fix the birth rate

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Oʻahu-based ʻukulele virtuoso Taimane is embracing spooky season with her upcoming performance at Hawaiʻi Theatre Center. The show features music from her new album, “Liʻula,” along with Polynesian and contemporary dance and aerial performances.

 on Thursday, Oct. 22, will start with some of her greatest hits, combined with some fresh Halloween medleys “because we really want to enjoy spooky season,” she said. That will be followed by a 20-minute intermission, and then a release party for 

“What that means is we're going to perform every song from the album, but we're really going to delve into the experience for people,” she said.

There will be fog machines, plus aerial acrobatics from the Kakaʻako-based dance school 

Kealoha, the first poet laureate of Hawaiʻi

, will also share spoken word that brings the night’s moʻolelo to life.

One of the tracks on the new album is “Nightmarchers,” which fits the spooky theme of the evening.

“We're going to do another one called ʻWaimānalo Blues,’ which is a classic that most people know, but I've twisted it,” she said. “Throughout the second half of the song, we change it into a minor key, which makes it more of a spookier sound.”

in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi that means twilight, dusk, mirage or hallucination. The album is currently 

 in two categories: “Category Change: Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album” and “Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album.” 

Taimane is known for using an ʻukulele to play everything from Johann Sebastian Bach to Led Zeppelin, as well as richly imaginative music she pens herself. 

On Oct. 7, she released a music video for “Aloha ʻOe / Until We Meet Again,” which is inspired by “Aloha ʻOe” and is part of her album “Liʻulā.”

Her performances combine dance and ʻukulele to capture the audience’s attention.

“I actually started dancing ballet even before I had the ʻukulele — which was 5 years old,” Taimane said, 

adding that she also did Tahitian dance as a young girl. 

Taimane grew up enjoying seeing theatrical productions, including in Las Vegas. 

Now, she is in the Iona Contemporary Dance Theatre.

“For me, yes, dance is definitely just an aspect of putting together a show,” she said.

But so is having a great crew, who makes the lighting and fog possible, the ʻukulele virtuoso added.

“It’s all of these different aspects that create an experience for a person, and so that's what I'm trying to share with people,” Taimane said. “Not just dance and the music but a storyline and really taking them to another place, like ʻLiʻulā,’ the album.”

 Listen to Taimane’s music on Apple Music, 

Taimane

<title>Spooky season with Taimane at Hawaiʻi Theatre</title>

The ʻukulele virtuoso will play her newest album “Liʻulā,” along with some of her greatest hits, and Halloween medleys at Hawaiʻi Theatre later this month.

Spooky season with Taimane at Hawaiʻi Theatre

My Favorite Local Saying

, a museum in Waipahu, for recently highlighting three Pidgin words that stem from Hawaiʻi's plantation era — pau, kau kau and bumbai. The origins of each were interesting — from the Hawaiians, Chinese and English, respectively.

"Ever wonder why words like pau, kau kau and bumbai sound so familiar in Hawaiʻi?" the museum wrote in an Oct. 3 post on Instagram. "These everyday words carry stories of the many cultures and languages that came together during Hawaiʻi’s plantation era. What began as a way for workers to communicate across communities became part of the way generations of local families still talk today."

To submit your Favorite Local Saying, visit us 

Hawaiis Platation Village 2025

ASD's Christian Shimabuku shares his favorite expression — "No shame" — which can be used in social settings and at work.

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My Favorite Local Saying: 'No shame, take the last malasada.'

Nancy Partika shares her favorite saying from "small-kid time."

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My favorite local saying: When 'Wot da frick!' skirts the swear jar

<title>My favorite local saying: Pidgin words from Hawaiʻi's plantation era</title>

Words such as pau, bumbai and more carry stories of the cultures and languages converging at that time. "What began as a way for workers to communicate across communities became part of the way generations of local families still talk today," writes Hawaiʻi’s Plantation Village.

Daily Smile: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026

ASD Staff

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Daily Smile: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026

Authors

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