Hawaii says ho-hum to NorK missile threat

So says the New York Times:

Antimissile interceptors are in place, the Defense Department said, and Hawaiians watched the other day as a giant, towering radar commonly known as the golf ball set out to sea from the base where it is normally moored.

But if lifelong residents like Gerald Aikau are on any state of alert, it would be the one telling him that his octopus, caught in the waters here with a spear and his bare hands, is overcooked.

“What are you going to do?” Mr. Aikau, 34, a commercial painter, said as he proudly grilled his catch at a beachfront park. “You are going to go sometime, whether it’s on a wave, or a missile, or your buddy knocking you down and you hit your head.”

Vulnerability, and a certain fatalism about it, are part of the fabric of life in this archipelago, 2,500 miles from the mainland and, as many residents seem to have memorized since the Obama administration raised the alarm last week, 4,500 miles from North Korea.

That pretty much sums it up. Between pot-smoking and the scourge of methamphetamine use, respectively, locals either just don't care about much or they've got some other scary sh¡t to worry about.

The North Korean missile threat is somewhat new to Hawaii residents, so "threat fatigue" (like that found among many South Korean residents) hasn't yet set in. After a few more years of this "North Korean missiles can hit Hawaii!" stuff, expect nonchalance or even annoyance.