Mahalo for supporting Touchdowns for Tatas

Our 2020 Mini-Touchdowns for Tatas event was held during every Monday Night Football game in October at Dollie’s Pub and Cafe in Kahana. We raised $2,758 for the Pacific Cancer Foundation, which was way higher than our $500 goal this year!

Cancer is not going away during the COVID pandemic, and we know the Pacific Cancer Foundation is in dire need of donations this year with their fundraising events being cancelled.

We have held six Touchdowns for Tatas events in the past, raising nearly $69,000. While we knew we couldn’t gather and have the same fun event we have had in the past, we wanted to do a little something to help out, so we collected donations during each MNF game while giving away fun gift certificates and retail items.

Since we knew our Maui community has been especially hard hit during the pandemic this year, we did not want to ask our regular community friends to donate prizes.

We did reach out to a few friends, however, and we wish to send out the biggest ALOHA and MAHALO to Captain Steve’s Rafting Adventures, Dollie’s Pub and Cafe, Maui Jims, Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, UFO Parasail, and UFO Fishing Adventures.

We couldn’t have done it without you! Mahalo to everyone who donated.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with cancer (of any kind — not just the tatas kind), please reach out to the Pacific Cancer Foundation.

DIG ME DEB PATTON, Event Coordinator, Touchdowns for Tatas, Lahaina

The Triple Conjunction of Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn

If you want to make some sense of a horrific year, then ponder the following observations about the celestial happenings of the past eight months.

Looking at the Western sky after dark, you will see the very bright Jupiter moving closer to overtaking the less bright planet Saturn. In between Jupiter and Saturn is the very distant planet Pluto, unseeable with the naked eye. They are in front of the Constellation Sagittarius, where the Black Hole center of our Milky Way Galaxy resides.

In 1969, the famed British physicist Roger Penrose predicted that an advanced alien civilization would be able to obtain energy in a black hole’s ergosphere, the outer layer of its event horizon. (The event horizon is the threshold around the black hole where the escape velocity surpasses the speed of light.)

On June 22 this year, researchers at the University of Glasgow verified by experiment this type of energy production.

The end of March 2020, when Maui “shut down,” the planet Mars was passing in front of Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn.

The last time that particular alignment happened was 4,000 years ago, when Babylonia was established as a powerful empire, considered rebellious and sinful against God in the Bible.

Whether you believe in planetary influences or not, this is a satisfying way to “explain” the dreadful time our planet Earth is experiencing.

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto all have characteristics bestowed upon them by the many different cultures throughout human history.

It’s interesting to learn what our ancestors thought of celestial bodies, their movements through the constellations and how they related those happenings in the cosmos to their own lives.

JUDY KINSER, Lahaina

Counting every vote

For your perseverance through the challenges of this year, thank you. From battling the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, to fighting for racial justice, to demanding the protection of our independent judiciary, you joined the fight, contributed, voted and used your voice in the most consequential election of our lifetime.

We need to make sure every vote is counted before we know the final results. One thing we know: every vote counts, and after the final vote is tallied, we will know who the next president will be.

I hope you feel pride and ownership in the historic turnout resulting in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris breaking the record for the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate. You did that. Thank you.

While results are still coming in, I want you to know that the work you put in is recognized and appreciated, and we wouldn’t have made the strides we’ve made without you fighting for our democracy every step of the way.

Everything you’ve done gives me resolve that we need to keep fighting. I know you have my back, and when this team steps up, we pull together and focus on the task at hand. And in this election, there’s work left to do.

There is still a path to elect a Democrat to the Senate in Georgia. In two months, a runoff election that could decide control of the Senate will take place between Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock and Republican Kelly Loeffler.

In the coming days, we need to come together and ensure Rev. Warnock is set up to win on Jan. 5.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO