HOW HAWAII BECAME A STATE

Again, Hawaii sidestepped Hurricane Lowell, or the other way around.  In any case, there were some damages.  Here is a video, titled, Chaos in Hawaii...Powerful Hurricane Lowell Wreaks Havoc, Devastating Kauai,  And another.

As the Silver Whisper approaches Hawaii, a story on how we became the 50th state in the Union.  The following came through my e-mail, and I have no idea who wrote it.  I'll use italics when I refer to the write-up and add a few graphics.  Thank you, whoever you are. 

For six decades, Washington's answer was NO. Hawaii was not American enough.

Senators said the reasons out loud. Hiram Fong remembered them all his life: "It was said that we were Communist-infiltrated, that there were too many orientals here, that we would not be good Americans." Mississippi's James Eastland put it even plainer. Statehood would mean "two votes against all racial segregation." For the men who ran the Senate, that was reason enough to keep an entire people waiting.

The man with the keys was a Texan named Lyndon B. Johnson.

He knew something about kids who were told they didn't count. At 20, he taught school in Cotulla, Texas - a classroom of Mexican-American children who came to school hungry. Decades later he told Congress about them: "But now I do have that chance - and I'll let you in on a secret - I mean to use it."

By the 1950s, Johnson ran the Senate. Nothing passed without him. And for years, the gate to statehood stayed shut, because the men guarding it were the men of his own party, his own region.

Then Hawaii's delegate, John A. Burns - a man allowed to speak in Congress but never to vote - agreed to a deal with Johnson that looked like surrender back home. Let Alaska go first. Let Hawaii wait one more year. Burns bet his career on a Texan's word.

The Texan kept it. (John Burns became governor of Hawaii in 1962.)

March 11, 1959: the Senate that had said no for sixty years said yes, 76 to 15. The next morning the House followed, 323 to 89. Honolulu let go - car horns, ship whistles, Dixieland bands in Waikiki, teenagers dancing on the lawns of Iolani Palace. The Star-Bulletin printed its front page in red, white and blue.

And on August 21, 1959 - sixty-seven years ago today - the proclamation was signed. Hawaii was the fiftieth state. On Sand Island, a bonfire burned into the night.  That date indicates when this essay was written--21August2026.

Three days later came the moment the South had feared. Hiram Fong, son of a Kalihi plantation laborer, was sworn in as the FIRST Asian American in the United States Senate. Beside him in the Capitol that same week stood Daniel Inouye, told to raise his right hand for the oath. He raised his left. He had given the right one for America, in Italy, in 1945. There was a gasp in the chamber.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act reached the Senate floor. Hawaii's votes: yes, and yes.

They kept Hawaii out because Hawaii would vote for freedom. Then Hawaii did.

A year later, President Johnson signed the immigration law that ended the old Asian exclusion quotas - a law Hawaii's own Hiram Fong co-sponsored - and split families across the Pacific could finally send for their own.

Every kupuna who was here in 1959 kept a piece of that year. The horns going off in the middle of ordinary errands. The red-white-and-blue front page somebody's grandmother folded into a drawer and never threw away.

October 18, 1966, 3:40 in the afternoon. Johnson stood on a 21-acre campus in Mānoa, at the East-West Center - the meeting place he had called for in 1959, inspired, he said, by John Burns. And he did something presidents almost never do. He confessed. For two decades, he admitted, he had seen America's destiny only in Europe and looked away from the Pacific. "One consequence of that blindness was that Hawaii was denied its rightful part in our Union of States for many, many years."

Then: "I began to work and fight for Hawaiian statehood. And I hold that to be one of the proudest achievements of my 25 years in the Congress."

Of all the laws that carry his name, that is the one he chose to say out loud in Honolulu.

The East-West Center still stands beside UH Mānoa today, with 65,000 alumni around the world. Lyndon Johnson died at his ranch in January 1973, and the state he fought for was thirteen years old. Some doors open because the man holding them shut finally looks at who has been knocking. Johnson looked. Sixty-seven years ago today, Hawaii walked through.

Our day began with the best lunch we've had on this trip.  A simple first course, with rosé wine and Becks Beer.

Then came the main courses, ramen and seared foie gras.

The seared foie gras was incredible.  Surprisingly enough, the onion rings were equal, for they stayed crispy throughout the meal.

Ever have a foie gras ramen?

As I was having the foie gras ramen, I had a thought.  Someone should open a luxury ramen shop,

• Of course provide the the standard types which are the most popular,
• However, have ramen linked to international cuisine:  French, Italian, etc.
• At the high end, foie gras and truffles.
• 
  I checked with Google AI:

Ginza Hachigou achieved legendary status by winning a Michelin Star for its innovative, French-influenced approach to traditional Japanese ramen. The restaurant is famously intimate, seating only six guests at a time at an exclusive counter. [1, 2]

• Very popular.  See the long line?
• Menya Sakura in Singapore also is famous.

Well, on to our two enrichment speakers.  First, Stephen Coggeshall on What is Artificial Intelligence

Next, Kevin Soden on Seven Secrets for Aging with Style and Grace, something I'm trying to do.

So I looked into the suject.  Read this article.  What caught my attention was the following paragraph?

While these stereotypes may tell us more about how celibacy, morality, and religion play out in the collective American imagination than they do about nuns themselves, there is something else that makes these women stand out from the rest of the American population: their remarkable track record of aging successfully. American Catholic nuns experience greater physical and emotional well-being at the end of life than other women and are 27 percent more likely to live into their seventies.

The average age of a 15 Craigside resident where I live is around 85.  I asked Google AI, what percent of Americans reach the age of 85. 

    Women:  39%

    Men:  21%

For men especially living at 15C, how lucky to be alive and relatively well in Hawaii.

I'll continue the rest of day tomorrow with Lovena B. Fox and an Osso Bucco dinner.

One final newsworthy note:

Brent crude futures breached $100 a barrel today for the first time since late July after Iran and the U.S. struck tankers in the biggest wave of attacks on shipping since the war began, threatening to worsen the ongoing impairment of energy supplies from the Middle East.

Front-month Brent crude futures were up $3.04, or 3.1%, at $100.95 a barrel as of 1:39 p.m. EDT (7:39 a.m. Hawaii time), after touching a high of $101.58. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up $2.75, or 3%, at $95.78 a barrel, its highest level since early June.

That calculus has been shifting of late with the resumption of strikes. Iran said today it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. sank five Iranian oil tankers, in a sharp escalation of the six-month war.

Since the Iran war began on February 28, Brent has surged as high as $126.41 a barrel, a peak reached on April 30, but it had only briefly touched $100 a barrel in late July after retreating below that threshold in late May.

Meanwhile, consumers have been paying the equivalent of more than $100 a barrel for their oil in the form of refined fuels such as gasoline and diesel for most of this year, as conflicts created a global refining crunch that sent fuel prices soaring even relative to crude. U.S. gasoline prices are currently averaging about $4.22 a gallon, while diesel prices are at a record, and closing in on $6 a gallon.

It has been 193 days since the USA and Israel blitzed Iran on 28February2026.  No doubt, the administrative strategy was that if Iranian leaders could be assassinated (and a little more than 50 have been killed, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), the people would revolt, and the U,S could come in to help them overthrow the government.  

• Well, this did not happen.  
• Gasoline prices have increased.
• Was $2.98/gallon 194 days ago,
• Today, between $4.10 and $4.15/gallon.
• Except if you live in Hawaii, regular gas is $5.39/gallon, premium $5/91/gallon and diesel $6.94/gallon.  And that is only for Oahu.  All the other islands are at around $7/gallon.
• MID-TERM ELECTIONS?  Only 55 days to November 3.

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