THE BIG ISLAND, Hawaii--In some ways, Hawaii has always been a bit ambivalent toward tourists. When Captain Cook arrived here in 1778 he was considered a god. Just a year later--after he had, well, overtaxed his welcome--he ended up murdered.

For the most part, however, latter-day tourists have bathed in the Aloha spirit. Their cash flow is as much a part of the landscape as the lava flow.

Only today there are a few second thoughts about what is called ``the visitor industry.'' On Oahu, the famed Waikiki Beach is mourned as a honky-tonk strip. On Maui, visitors lured by the surf complain about being stuck in traffic. And even here on the Big Island, where coffee growing and cattle ranching coexist with golf courses and luxury hotels, there is talk of the fragility of a state whose ecology is also its economy.

In his farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the changes wrought by the invention of nuclear explosives and the intercontinental ballistic missile.

Someone kindly sent me the text of that famous speech, as reprinted by Air Force Magazine in 1983. In view of the looming debate about the missile defense system, it would be useful to reconsider Eisenhower's words and warnings. Here they are, exactly as he spoke them:

AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh, great. The most important thing to happen in politics in years and it has a sexy name like "the non-severability clause" of the equally sexy-sounding campaign finance reform bill. Try selling the passionate importance of that one: "Give me severability or give me death!"

While the U.S. Senate lurches toward campaign finance reform, with everything riding on this one obscure provision, we've got flaking Democrats (thanks, Sen. Clinton) and cockroaching Republicans (to cockroach -- a Texas political verb stemming from longtime UT coach Darrell Royal's observation that the trouble with cockroaches isn't "what they eat and carry off; it's what they fall into and mess up"). And one glorious demagogue in Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Affirmative action is back in the news, revealing once again this country's confused fixation on ethnic matters.

This week a federal judge in Detroit ruled that the admissions system of the University of Michigan's law school is unconstitutional, because it includes race as one of several subjective criteria in judging applicants. Oddly enough, a different federal judge in Detroit ruled last December that Michigan's (BEGIN ITALICS) undergraduate (END ITALICS) admissions system was just fine, even though it factors in ethnicity in a much more clear-cut manner: Black and Hispanic applicants are automatically given 20 points on a scale of 150 that is used to determine admission.

Michigan's undergraduate admissions system is insulting, because it brands all blacks and Hispanics as inferior by virtue of ethnicity. Even a black or Hispanic high-school student who attended a top high school and is the child of a lawyer and a college professor is deemed disadvantaged enough to need those 20 extra points. Yet a kid recently arrived from Albania who graduated from a bad inner-city school and is the child of a garbageman and a factory worker gets no extra points.

After writing this column for a decade, I've decided to give it up as a weekly endeavor and instead just write an occasional piece when events warrant. It was a tough decision to come to, and in making it, I spent a lot of time thumbing through old clippings to see what I'd said over the course of 10 years.

While my musings have seemed somewhat random, taken as a whole, I did see a pattern. On the personal side, I have documented my family's progress, watching as my son and daughter moved from college to jobs and on to marriage and family. On the public side, I've hammered repeatedly at population growth, poor health care and disintegrating schools.