I like to start a new year fresh, letting bygones be bygones, smoothing feathers I may have ruffled the year before.
In that spirit, I continue the tradition of offering our leaders wisdom from minds greater than mine to inspire them into 2018.
Anybody offended should be thankful they’re important enough to be on the list.
>> For President Donald Trump: “He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.” — George Bernard Shaw
>> For Gov. David Ige: “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” — Mario Andretti
>> For Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui: “A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.” — Earl Wilson
>> For Attorney General Douglas Chin: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.” — W.C. Fields
>> For Sen. Brian Schatz: “I didn’t think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.” — Bart Simpson
>> For Sen. Mazie Hirono: “The best protection any woman can have … is courage.” — Elizabeth Cady Stanton
>> For Rep. Colleen Hanabusa: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” — Yogi Berra
>> For Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: “We need a 12-step group for compulsive talkers. They could call it On Anon Anon.” — Paula Poundstone
>> For state Senate President Ron Kouchi: “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.” — George W. Bush
>> For House Speaker Scott Saiki: “The higher you climb on the flagpole, the more people see your rear end.” — Don Meredith
>> For House Republican Leader Andria Tupola: “Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!” — Matthew Arnold
>> For Mayor Kirk Caldwell: “The best way to compile inaccurate information that no one wants is to make it up.” — Scott Adams
>> For City Council Chairman Ron Menor and cohorts: “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” — Thomas Brackett Reed
>> For Honolulu rail CEO Andrew Robbins: “Did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it ‘Riding The Gravy Train.’” — Pink Floyd
>> For City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro: “He is suffering from delusions of adequacy.” — Walter Kerr
>> For Police Chief Susan Ballard: “I tried being reasonable. I didn’t like it.” — Clint Eastwood
>> For Louis and Katherine Kealoha: “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.” — Abraham Lincoln
>> For Superintendent of Education Christina Kishimoto: “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” — Albert Einstein
>> For University of Hawaii President David Lassner: “Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.” — George Lorimer
>> For University of Hawaii football coach Nick Rolovich: “If you have everyone back from a team that lost 10 games, experience isn’t too important.” — John McKay
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.