ASD icon blue inverse lighter

ASD Staff

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"How to protect yourself against black bears..."}]

Smile 26 11 5

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026</title>

How to protect yourself against black bears...

Daily Smile: Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026

 How to protect yourself against black bears...

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Government & Politics

Columnists

On Tuesday, Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress. President Donald Trump will serve his final two years as a lame duck. Pundits often argue that lame duck presidents turn from frustration at home to adventurism abroad. If they are right, the next two years will be turbulent ones for the United States.

Democrats have impeached Trump twice before, and they seem likely to do so again. They will resist his domestic policy agenda. But a President besieged at home still sits at the table with other heads of state. He still commands the American military abroad. Foreign policy may offer an arena in which he has room to move.

Though Trump campaigned to end foreign wars, he has not been gun-shy. Our country faces the prospect of world war on at least three fronts.

All this talk of geopolitics may seem remote to people living on a mid-Pacific archipelago. But despite its apparent isolation, Hawaiʻi is central to the conflicts between great powers.  

Military lease terms depend on the needs of American empire in the Indo-Pacific. “Force posture realignments” mean billions of dollars and thousands of defense personnel coming to or leaving our state. Protests over proposed telescopes make for great spectacle, while Hawaiʻi’s key role in the great power race to control outer space is invisible to the naked eye.

A certain naivete precedes periods of great conflict. On the eve of World War I, European intellectuals looked forward to global peace. A similar irenic mood followed the “Great War,” before its deadlier sequel. British appeasement of Germany in the 1930s presupposed that peace was possible despite the territorial ambitions of the Nazi regime. And, of course, few people believed that Imperial Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor until the USS Arizona was underwater.

Since the Cold War began, folks in Hawaiʻi have sensed that we’re under the gun. Nuclear submarines docked in Pearl Harbor have their missiles trained on other great powers, and those great powers have their missiles aimed back — at us.

Nuclear annihilation is a quaint fear. Today, AI swarms are sent every day like kamikaze bombers. They burrow into computer systems, ready to cripple hospitals or to shut off the power or water supply. Bots are tilting social media algorithms to sow discord and foment unrest. Total warfare now reaches into the mind.

In Ukraine, drones swarm in the sky, leaving fiber optic cables strewn in their wake. The filaments are thin, nearly invisible — much like the relationship of Hawaiʻi to the grand strategies of rival empires.

Hawaiʻi was left off the map of the classic board game, Risk. But such global conflicts cannot help but consume us.

We are left to pray for our leaders, from the president and those who sit in Congress to our legislators and council members closer to home. We pray for their wisdom, and that they may receive and heed wise counsel.

May God keep our nation from war and protect our state from conflicts which threaten to engulf it.

Destroyers in Pearl Harbor i Stock 2022

<title>After the Blue Wave: Lame duck and foreign war?</title>

Hawaiʻi doesn’t appear on the Risk game board, but every front in a world war runs through Pearl Harbor. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why a president boxed in by Congress may look for room to move overseas, and why that should worry a mid-Pacific archipelago.

After the Blue Wave: Lame duck and foreign war?

Cheryl Tsutsumi

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi

Aloha Spirit

Dr. Martina Kamaka grew up in a family whose ties to Hawaiian music and dance trace back more than a century. Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Kaiali‘ili‘i Kamaka, founded the renowned ‘ukulele manufacturing company Kamaka Hawai‘i in 1916. Her great-aunts sang and danced at the Kodak Hula Show and Royal Hawaiian Hotel for years. The tradition continues; for example, a cousin, Chris Kamaka, is a professional musician, and a niece, Skyler Kamaka, danced hula as Miss Hawai‘i 2012. 

But it was health care that captivated Kamaka from an early age. In middle and high school, she devoured books about famed nurses Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton. She shadowed nurses at St. Francis Hospital as a summer volunteer but discovered she was more interested in what the doctors were doing.

Today Kamaka is a professor in the Department of Native Hawaiian Health (DNHH) at the University of Hawaiʻi’s John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). Her epiphany about the merit of lāʻau lapaʻau (medicinal plants) came about when a misstep at home caused a partial tear of a left calf muscle in 2008.

“The pain was horrible; I couldn’t walk,” she said. “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time as I was supposed to leave for the Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors’ Congress at Waimea Plantation Cottages on Kaua‘i the next day.”

Kamaka knew such injuries usually take at least a few weeks to heal. How was she going to fulfill her role as the conference’s primary organizer? Inspired by the words of a visiting lāʻau lapaʻau practitioner, she called a cousin who is also highly regarded in that field. He came to her house, prepared a poultice of laukahi (plantain) and salt, and secured it to her leg with a ti leaf and an Ace bandage.

“He said, ‘Leave it on for three days, and you'll be good,’” Kamaka said. “I went to the conference using crutches. After three days, I took the poultice off, and, oh my goodness, I could walk without pain! I even danced hula two days later! Prior to that, I didn’t use a lot of Hawaiian medicine, but because of that experience, I became more passionate about it.”

In 2005, when JABSOM’s new campus opened on 10 acres of the Kaka‘ako waterfront, Kamaka was a member of the team that created a māla lāʻau lapaʻau (medicinal garden) there. Twenty-one species of native and Polynesian-introduced plants used for healing are now growing in that 3,300-square-foot oasis.

Kamaka takes first-year medical students into the māla to discuss its history and introduce each plant’s medicinal properties. For one workshop, she partners with Dr. Dee-Ann Carpenter, an associate professor in the DNHH who received some lāʻau lapaʻau training and teaches students the protocols for gathering plants.

“They make simple medicines in the māla,” Kamaka said. “For example, they grind ‘alaea [iron-rich clay] and dried ʻōlena [turmeric] with a mortar and pestle, then add freshly squeezed lemon juice and honey to make a medicine that alleviates colds and coughs.

These types of cultural experiences are eye-opening for students because many of them are not from Hawai‘i, and most local students’ exposure to Hawaiian history and culture is limited.

Watching over the garden is an ahu (altar), built by fitting stones together without mortar. Large stones were collected from throughout Hawai‘i, from its lowest point (Kamaʻehuakanaloa, an active submarine volcano off the southeastern coast of Hawai‘i island) to its highest point (Maunakea volcano on Hawai‘i island). 

Some of the small stones filling the center of the ahu were brought by indigenous visitors from their homelands in Asia, the South Pacific and the Americas.

The four cornerstones honor the physicians who were instrumental in establishing the DNHH in 2003: Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell, Dr. Ben Young, Dr. Naleen Andrade and Dr. Marjorie Mau, the founding chair of the department, which focuses on the health status of Native Hawaiians.

Prior to Western contact, historical accounts indicate Hawaiians were robust, spared from diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis largely because they were isolated from the rest of the world. Hawai‘i’s first settlers must have been hardy indeed to have made long transpacific voyages of well over 2,000 miles from places such as Tahiti and the Marquesas.

Kamaka’s own stint as the medical officer aboard the November 2014 Waitangi-to-Auckland segment of Hōkūleʻa’s Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage supports that. The 150-nautical mile leg lasted a month because the canoe frequently anchored in ports along the way for tours and educational presentations.

“Even though it was a coastal sail, living on a canoe, exposed to the elements, is challenging,” Kamaka said. “Common things I treated included stomach problems, skin and respiratory infections, and joint and muscle injuries.”

Doctors Mau and Carpenter had split a previous two-month journey from Tahiti to Samoa on Hikianalia

 Hōkūleʻa’s companion canoe. They added a kit of salves and tinctures containing ingredients such as ‘ōlena and nīoi (red pepper) to the Western apothecary aboard the canoes.

“That lāʻau lapaʻau kit proved to be so popular it had to be replenished for my part of the voyage,” Kamaka said. “My fellow crew members also preferred to use it rather than the Western medicines.”

As the coordinator of the DNHH’s Cultural Competency Curriculum Development program, Kamaka is the lead instructor for courses covering topics such as Hawaiian history, Native Hawaiian health disparities and introductions to traditional healing practices — lāʻau lapaʻau, lomilomi massage and ho‘oponopono (conflict resolution).

“I think it’s important for students to be aware that these practices are happening in our community and that they can tap into those resources for patients, if that’s appropriate,” Kamaka said. “I like to tell them the land where JABSOM stands used to be Honolulu’s dump. There was a huge incinerator there, too. But what was once a repository for garbage is now a place of peace, beauty, inspiration, enlightenment and healing. It’s a wonderful metaphor.”

Mālama the Māla

Workdays at the garden are open to the public and usually held on the fourth Thursday of each month from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Upcoming dates are June 26, July 24 and August 28. Advance registration is recommended.

In addition, groups can arrange a māla tour or service-related activity. Led by JABSOM students, faculty and/or staff from the Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence, a division of the DNHH, the experience ranges from 30 minutes to three hours, depending on the request. There’s no cost, but tax-deductible donations to the University of Hawai‘i Foundation-Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence fund are appreciated.

Email nhcoe@hawaii.edu for more information and to sign up for tours and workdays.

The Healing Power of Plants

Here are four commonly used lāʻau lapaʻau in JABSOM’s māla.

‘Uhaloa (sleepy morning)
Its leaves are used to make a tea to treat respiratory infections such as asthma and colds. The bark is chewed to alleviate sore throat.

‘Ōlena (turmeric)
‘Ōlena has anti-inflammatory properties. Freshly extracted juice is used topically to clear sinus and external ear infections.

Pōpolo (black nightshade)
An eyewash is made from its leaves, which can also be chewed or brewed into a tea as a remedy for respiratory infections.

Kukui (candlenut tree)
Poultices using its leaves can reduce swelling and bruises. The sap at the top of the nut’s hull has antifungal properties. Oil from the nut is a moisturizer that can soothe eczema. The nut can also be used a laxative, and, interestingly, consuming the flowers can stop diarrhea.

Kamaka 2 16x9

<title>Uncles and Aunties: Dr. Martina Kamaka brings Hawaiian practices to medicine</title>

Dr. Martina Kamaka comes from the Kamaka family noted for music but medicine has been her muse since childhood. Now she is a professor in the Department of Native Hawaiian Health at the University of Hawaiʻi’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. Part of her kuleana is the māla lāʻau lapaʻau (medicinal garden) of native and Polynesian-introduced plants used for healing that grow in a 3,300-square-foot oasis — which you can visit yourself on an upcoming public work day in the garden.

Daily Smile: Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026

ASD Staff

Reporter

More in Daily Smile

Daily Smile: Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026

Daily Smile: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026

Daily Smile: Monday, Nov. 2, 2026

Daily Smile: Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026

Most read

Daily Smile: Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026

Authors

ASD Staff

Reporter

More in Daily Smile

Daily Smile: Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026

Daily Smile: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026

Daily Smile: Monday, Nov. 2, 2026

Daily Smile: Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026

Most read