Offending those in power is sometimes a necessary part of my work.
That’s why I like to start the new year fresh by burying the hatchet and offering those whose feelings I may have hurt stirring quotations from the world’s great minds to carry them into 2024.
>> For President Joe Biden: “Inflation is when you pay $15 for the $10 haircut you used to get for $5 when you had hair.” — Sam Ewing
>> For Donald Trump: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” — Groucho Marx
>> For Gov. Josh Green: “Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.” — Charlie Kaufman
>> For Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke: “We didn’t actually overspend our budget. The allocation simply fell short of our expenditure.” — Keith Davis
>> For House Speaker Scott Saiki: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy.” — Ernest Benn
>> For Senate President Ron Kouchi: “If you’re hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You’ll get the same kind of feeling and you won’t have to pay.” — Robert J. Dole
>> For Senate Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz: “Those who believe that power is fun confuse ‘power’ with ‘abuse of power.’” — Andre Malraux
>> For Aloha Stadium Authority Chair Brennon Morioka: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” — Edward Abbey
>> For U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz: “I’m carrying so much pork, I’m beginning to get trichinosis.” — Phil Gramm
>> For U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono: “As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.” — Sir Norman Wisdom
>> For U.S. Rep. Ed Case: “Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.” — Laurence J. Peter
>> For U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda: “If con is the opposite of pro, then isn’t Congress the opposite of progress?” — Jon Stewart
>> For Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi: “Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” — Ogden Nash
>> For City Council Chair Tommy Waters: “All I’ve ever wanted was an honest week’s pay for an honest day’s work.” — Steve Martin
>> For Honolulu rail chair Colleen Hanabusa: “The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.” — Robert Lowell
>> For Police Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan: “The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.” — Richard J. Daley
>> For Maui Mayor Richard Bissen: “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” — John Burroughs
>> For schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi: “School is learning things you don’t want to know, surrounded by people you wish you didn’t know, while working toward a future you don’t know will ever come.” — Dave Kellett
>> For University of Hawaii President David Lassner: “I started thinking about the dangers of drinking on New Year’s Eve. After that, I decided to stop thinking.” — Anonymous
>> For UH football coach Timmy Chang: “If winning or losing is going to define your life, you’re on a rough road.” — Bud Grant
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
