Makana weighed, in an instant, the pros and cons of pissing off the president and possibly torpedoing a flourishing career. Sure, he’s unlikely to be invited to entertain Obama and friends anytime soon, but no one’s dragged him by the hair to the ground, “ nudged” him with a nightstick, or pepper sprayed him at close range. He’s certainly mindful of the difference between his stage and that of the protesters, but Makana sees the same spirit of aloha—a spirituality lost, like so many Hawai’ian protest songs, on many outsiders—as animating even angry dissent with love.
