60 years ago, for my first job, I became a sugar engineer with C. Brewer in Naalehu within Kau on the Big Island of Hawaii.   Next door 12 miles away was Pahala, where I found my wife, Pearl.   34 miles further was The Volcanoes National Park. Hilo was another 22 miles ( 66 miles from Naalehu ), and at my arrival in this southernmost point of the U.S., there was no television nor radio reception in these two sugar cities.  Not sure if there was any area in the continental USA where this was possible.  The reason was Mauna Loa, which blocked signals.  At night you could with the right equipment listen to some radio static. About the history of this region, not  much happened in Kau until in 1868 when there was  a 7.9 Richter quake  which produced a tsunami devastating coastal villages, and five days later triggering a Mauna Loa eruption ( yellow spot below ), forming an 18-mile fissure, and fountains of 1000 feet, where lava entered the s...

The Ukraine War has stimulated a rise in democracy.  For one, European countries are now united for the first time in a long time.  Combined, their defense ( meaning also offense ) budgets will rise over the next few years to box Russia.  This will lead the USA to somewhat disengage from that continent to focus on Asia and the Pacific.  Hawaii will return to be strategically important. My outing this week was to the 130th anniversary celebration of the Ewa Sugar Plantation.  Brought back memories, for my professional life began as a factory engineer at the Hutchinson Sugar Company in the southernmost community in the U.S., Naalehu. Interestingly enough, this industry has been here for almost 200 years, for the first recorded planting of sugar cane was Manoa Valley in 1825, where I've had an office at  the University of Hawaii for 50 years.  While that effort failed, the first actual sugar plantation was started in 1835 in Koloa, Kauai, where my father ...