Fall 2019: September Issue 1
Dearest Vulcan,
News writing seeks to right the difference between rumor and reality, and journalism, done well, bites through the dense flesh of perception to suck at the marrow of a general truth. Whether or not a human subject is capable of performing such an endeavor with imperforate justice remains up to your discretion; what we can do, however, is illuminate the experiences, voices, struggles, and ideas of our fellow beings. As the student-run news publication of UH Hilo, that is what we aim to do.
In this issue, you’ll find a few pieces focused on an affair that’s become decidedly divisive on levels both locally and internationally. The story of Maunakea and the Thirty Meter Telescope project is an incredibly multifaceted one that we have only caught in the middle. Our coverage of it will continue to run as long as it affects our community.
As far as our tale goes, the life of a college student can be a macro-cyclical, micro-sporadic, anti-circadian rhythm that looks a lot like the highly flattering, alien glow of a laptop screen at 2 a.m. propelled by a caffeine fix so profound that your eyeballs throb with the beat of your own heart. This, more often than not for me, is the middle. It is during these times that the end goal of education feels like nothing more than a bleak, abstract objective typified into an eight and a half by eleven inch sheet of ink and dried tree pulp printed simply to celebrate the fact that you made it through the system and are eligible for hurling yourself into the post-degree world.
But at its best, your years of commitment and the eventual hard-earned degree represent how you wish to make your mark on society and what skills you’re going to learn in order to accomplish it. Any pursuit performed with passion is one that can render you unstoppable, and you just so happened to pick one of the most unique and incomparably beautiful places on the planet to do so. When times get tough, as they undeniably will, find all the ways in which you can count yourself lucky and remember that persisting through darkness breeds inevitable beginnings, as is true with anything and everything that becomes.
My saga in Hilo arcs back almost inseparably to when I first joined the group of people who help produce these publications. I never predicted that I would get involved with journalism, but I like words and I like people and I like telling people’s stories through words, so here we are. To the remarkable cast of characters whom I call my crew: my gratitude for you is ineffable. I try to think of the crescent of lights, names, and memories clustered around this bay without bias, but my lenses are oftentimes tinted rose. So the story goes. I want nothing more than for you to create your own here. Whether you’re a fresh face on campus or you feel like your feet have tracked grooves in the concrete, may this new chapter be one for the books.
Me ke aloha pumehana
With warm regards,
Rosannah
“In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle.” - Ursula K. Le Guin