Letters to the Editor
Terrorists deserve whatever they get
Regarding the Nov. 22 letter from Jerome G. Manis about the Bush idea of "justice": Before he criticizes the Bush administration, perhaps, in his next letter to the editor, he could explain to us about what kind of "justice" was given to the people in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center or the people in the Pentagon or the people who died in the four planes used in these terrible acts.
These people are madmen and deserve whatever they get, no matter the means of how they get it.
Barry Birdsall
Kailua
Let's not pay for access to beach
The Hawai'i Kai Community Board reaffirmed the community commitment to unrestricted public access to Maunalua Bay. The decision rejects the City & County attorneys' and the judiciary's misguided willingness to entertain a condemnation settlement that would legalize restrictions on the Seconds Beach access to Maunalua Bay.
The Seconds Beach access has a long history of consistent access by surfers, fishermen and Maunalua residents. There should be no question here as to a long-established de facto legal ownership of the access by the public.
The City & County attorneys and the court should not even consider a settlement that pays, and confers an additional property interest to, an absentee adjacent landowner for something he never in fact owned or paid for.
The Seconds access has been an established, traditional, historical access for well over 40 years. It is a safe, liability-free access in the area. This is a case of "Money vs. Aloha."
The Maunalua Bay Surf Club applauds the Hawai'i Kai Community Board for reaffirming unrestricted access to Maunalua Bay and reaffirming the meaning of aloha.
Charlie Dickson
Maunalua Bay Surf Club 'Ohana
Traffic photo program didn't work on Mainland
The state will be implementing its new photo traffic enforcement program, using high-tech measures to catch speeders and red-light runners. What Transportation Director Marilyn Kali and Prosecutor Peter Carlisle haven't yet informed the taxpaying public is that this program has been shut down in several Mainland jurisdictions already.
Due to the constitutionality issue, questionable technical glitches and other problems (like making positive identifications), cases were thrown out time and again, and several suits were filed and won. Our local defense attorneys will have a field day with this.
If you are going to give the company running this thing a piece of the action, why not instead give the police officers "incentive" pay for each hazardous citation he issues. There would definitely be an increase in traffic enforcement and a lowering of fatalities and major injury accidents.
Steven T.K. Burke
Pearl City
Hawaiian language isn't needed for test
Clifford Wassman's Nov. 22 letter wondered why the Hawaiian language was not among the other languages on our driver's license test. Most people would agree that any government service should be based on needs, and the needs should be based on fact, not theory.
Yes, Hawaiian is one of our official languages, yet how many people does Wassman know who understand only the Hawaiian language? What percentage of our population do they represent?
The other fact is that our state is facing some serious financial difficulties. The last thing it should do is spend a good chunk of taxpayer money to justify a cause that is based only on theory.
Celia Chapman
Kailua
Digital subscriber line works perfectly
The USA Today article "Crawling along," printed in the Nov. 27 Advertiser, gives DSL a bad rap. I accepted an offer from my telephone service provider for a free trial of DSL. (Customers can download data using the digital subscriber line.) They sent me a modem and filters that had to be attached to each telephone. I installed the modem and filters and plugged into the phone jack in about 15 minutes.
Everything worked fine from day one and continues to do so. There is no slowdown during peak evening hours as with cable and no service disruptions at all in six weeks of use.
No one had to come to my house to install anything. Any 9-year-old could have done the job (probably in half the time it took me).
Incidentally, I don't have any relationship to either the phone company or cable service provider except as a customer of both. I am a very satisfied DSL user.
One more item of interest: AOL has a screen to enter your phone number, and it tells you whether or not it is possible to use its DSL service. I did so, and the answer came back that my line would not support DSL.
John Billups
