If all goes according to plan, the remaining few weeks of school before winter break will be the final weeks of distance learning. Of course the next six or so weeks may not go according to plan, and we should be ready to adjust to new realities as they continue to unfurl.

But assuming there is no surge of new cases from now until January, the phasing out of distance learning is a good thing.

The stressors, challenges and distractions that come with distance learning impact all aspects of student life: academics, social and emotional development, psychological well-being. And students aren’t the only ones affected. Families are strained, teachers are exhausted.

These are easily justifiable sacrifices in a pandemic – stress and developmental delays can be addressed much more effectively than death – but they are sacrifices nonetheless. Distance learning is not a serious long-term proposal except in the direst possible futures…

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In the days following the Paula Fuga incident, the same question was on everyone’s mind: how could anyone be like that?

Here was a popular and inspirational local singer performing at a fundraiser to help needy people have food for the holidays, getting repeatedly mocked after opening up about her own traumatic experiences with hunger and homelessness. It was gross and shameful and idiotic, and nearly everyone who watched the clip felt the same angry disgust.

But the outrage, justified as it was, seemed to be aimed less at the content of what was said than the context in which it was said. In general, viewing homeless people as objects of derisive entertainment is not an uncommon attitude in Hawaii…

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For every 10 venom-soaked diatribes there is at least one person on social media urging people to show each other aloha, asking why we can’t put political parties aside and come together.

I thought a lot about that question. I, too, want unity in this country and healing in relationships that have strained during the Trump years. So why were group discussions with seventh graders more enlightened and human than the dueling lectures I’ve been having with adults lately?

There’s something to be said about the willingness of young people to recognize what they don’t know, and its obverse stubbornness that comes with age. The classroom setting also plays a part, since the reality of having to see the same people several times a week for the rest of the year naturally regulates behavior.

Those explanations aren’t complete, though. There was something else that was different, an absence like a black hole: difficult to pinpoint but unmistakably there. This may sound like I am joining the chorus of folks bemoaning the death of civility in our national discourse, but I’m not really, though being nice to one another is always preferable.

To me, the main distinguishing characteristic of my seventh graders’ discussions was the absence of absolute lunacy…

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I can’t be the only one who caught a little buzz of schadenfreude from the recent rains. I usually enjoy this kind of weather anyway, but it was especially gratifying to know that the first few days of the return of tourism were somewhat rained out.

I’m not particularly proud of my kneejerk reaction; I’m inclined to believe it’s never good to feel that sort of cruel satisfaction, especially when it’s applied to real people I have never met. But now that we’re returning to the same old new normal – lots of tourists, but with masks and social distancing required – visitors have become much more obvious, more intrusive even.

There have always been reasons to bristle at the presence of tourists. They make traffic worse, they crowd beaches and sidewalks, they’re loud, they litter. They’re not alone in any of those contributions, and not every tourist fits that description, but enough of them do to make it easy to lump them all in together. Earlier in the pandemic, the absence of tourists was a small pleasantry in an otherwise endless cascade of anxiety…

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