Letters to the Editor
Illegal cockfighting excuses unacceptable
It's a disgrace that the HPD allows illegal cockfighting to take place within this major U.S. city. Lt. Michael Fujioka of the narcotics/vice division said the police can't easily catch the cockfighters, the penalties are soft and it's a socially acceptable "sport."
These are pathetic excuses. If Fujioka isn't smart enough to catch these criminals, the HPD should find someone who can. If misdemeanor penalties are too soft, maybe the police shouldn't arrest anyone for less than a felony. And while cockfighting might be an acceptable "sport" to Fujioka, I don't think it is to most Hawai'i residents.
It's a barbaric "blood sport" where knives are attached to the birds' claws so they can slash one another to death. And as Fujioka points out, cockfighting also attracts illegal gambling — and now murder.
Let's enforce the existing laws, and if they need to be strengthened, let's do that too. But let's do it before someone else is murdered.
Jim Brown
Interisland airlines are ripping us off
Six months ago, I was regularly buying interisland flight coupons for $52 in lots of 20 or so for business use.
Since the 9-11 disasters, our local airlines, thanks to the government, have had their landing fees waived, in addition to receiving millions in federal aid. Check the travel section of the paper, and you will see fares have jumped as high as $64. Where is the justification? I'll just make fewer trips, and everybody loses.
We're getting ripped-off on land at the gas pumps and now in the air. The ancient Hawaiians really had it made without these modern modes of transportation.
Bill Miller
State hurricane fund belongs to homeowners
Ben Cayetano is still eyeing the money in the defunct Hawai'i Hurricane Relief Fund to keep from laying off state employees.
This money belongs to the homeowners who were duped into paying into this useless fund, and it should be refunded without any further delay.
But, let's say Ben does get to use that money to keep civil servants on the job. What happens when that money runs out? What fund will he want to raid next?
Small and large businesses across the nation are being forced to lay productive workers off because of the economic slump. Too bad they don't have their own taxpayer-funded HHRF or some other fund to tap into so that they can keep their employees working too. Business owners have to make unpopular and hard decisions to keep their operations afloat.
Take a lesson from the private sector, Ben. Try running our state the way you'd have to run your own business.
John H. Mayer
Hawai'i Kai
Big business, unions cause our problems
Regarding the Nov. 14 letter by Evans Aki ("Here's the formula for a better economy"): Aki missed a big piece of the puzzle of why Hawai'i's economy stinks. The state and city governments are beholden to big business and big unions. Excessive taxation and regulations (many that no longer make sense, or maybe never did) create an anti-business atmosphere and stifle incentives for businesses to risk doing business in Hawai'i.
If you call for lower rents to be forced on landlords, you will end up with a situation like many inner cities on the Mainland where the landlords will not make repairs because they can't afford to do so while being forced to charge well below market rates.
If you want to give tax breaks to those landlords, the lost tax revenues have to be replaced somehow. There is no magic genie to give us tax monies. Taxes come from those of us who work and produce, not out of thin air and certainly not from our elected officials. They can only fund "give-aways" by legislating "take-aways" from the producing private sector. If you keep penalizing businesses and workers for producing and investing, after a while, you'd think Afghanistan's economy was a step up from Hawai'i's.
Tough economic times, like what Hawai'i has experienced since the "Japan bubble" burst in 1990, cannot be cured by punishing investors and businesses. They cannot be solved by excessive taxation that sucks out the economic incentive to work, produce and invest.
Even Hawai'i's sky-high gasoline prices would be lower if other oil companies were not discouraged from investing in Hawai'i by the myriad of regulations that make a start-up refinery too risky.
Art Saiki
Kailua
Children of heterosexual parents also experiment
Letter writer Mary Papish is determined to malign homosexual parents by pointing out that their children are more likely to experiment with homosexual behavior ("Children of homosexual parents do experiment," Nov. 21). She seems to think that figuring out your orientation is a bad thing.
I would like to share a fact with Papish: Children of heterosexual parents also experiment with homosexual behavior. I myself had heterosexual parents and absolutely no homosexual role models while growing up. Nonetheless, when puberty hit, I found myself attracted to the same sex.
Contrary to popular belief, there was no choice made nor any sort of recruitment.
I am convinced that having homosexual role models or parents in my life would have saved me a great deal of confusion in coming to terms with my orientation. It's a shame that people with anti-homosexual views work so hard to make the difficult teen years an emotional battleground for gay youth.
Wouldn't it be great if more heterosexual parents could embrace and love their gay children as nature made them, instead of cramming a narrow religious ideology down their throats requiring that they live a lie?
Daniel Patrick Jenkins
San Francisco
Sick minds continue attack on homosexuality
Thank you for an incisive and comprehensive look at Hawai'i's gay and lesbian parents ("Gay Parenting," Nov. 18).
In a state that takes pride in its tolerance, it's sad and unfortunate that too many of its sick minds, perverted by bigotry and steeped in religious intolerance, cannot disabuse themselves of the notion that gay folks make unsuitable parents.
Mountains of scientific evidence point to the indisputable fact that gay and lesbian parents are at least as capable as heterosexuals of raising morally, physically and spiritually healthy children, and in certain respects are better at it.
Now that interracial marriage and equal rights for women and racial minorities are facts of life in America, it seems that the only targets left to the benighted are gay and lesbian people and their efforts to attain equality.
Paul C. Weidig
Kane'ohe
A one-sided view
A newspaper that refuses to get both sides to an issue such as the extremely controversial issue of gay adoption and gay parenting is not really a newspaper. It's actually a propaganda rag.
David Estrada
Kailua
We must have better understanding of world
In his excellent memorial speech to the Sept. 11 tragedy, Sen. Edward Kennedy said we must make the U.S. even better. Many Americans did not realize that many people hate Americans because they believe that the U.S. is largely responsible for their poverty.
The adjustment we most need to make is not in our freedoms, but in our understanding of who else is in this big world, and what it will take for all of us to get along. At a minimum, getting along will require that our nation's political and economic policies begin to reflect our people's democratic values: economic fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all people.
The better part of patriotism is for us to raise hard questions to protect civil rights, put out inconvenient information to inform people, assert our values and appeal to what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature."
Rose Norberg
Drama critic missed essence of drama
Obviously The Advertiser drama critic didn't see the same play at Manoa Valley Theater that my family and I did.
If he had, he might have written: " 'The Wash,' as presented by Manoa Valley Theater, is a sensitive character study of an aging man (in this case Japanese) who has not learned to love or to accept love and has therefore lost or thrown away all chance at loving or being loved — and doesn't quite understand why."
There is a lesson here for all of us. Congratulations, MVT.
Arg Bacon
Thanksgiving gathering was something special
Hawai'i is a special and amazing place. Not only is the weather sublime and the scenery picture-perfect, the people here defy any attempt at definition.
Hawai'i residents exhibit everyday characteristics of phenomenal magnitude. We live face-to-face with people who differ from ourselves in many ways and we make it work. An example:
On Thanksgiving Eve, thousands of Islanders gathered as one people to pray for neighbors, community, state, nation — and America's enemies.
Representing over 65 Island Christian churches and many different dominations, these thousands united with one voice to offer support, especially for those who are hurting emotionally and economically as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Also, thanks were given to God for the hope of peace for all.
At the Stan Sheriff Stadium, songs and prayers in Hawaiian, Samoan, Japanese and English filled the air, and seats were filled with old, young, rich, poor and every shade of skin color under the rainbow. Only in Hawai'i could an evening this special take place "for such a time as this."
I'd like to thank all those involved in bringing together the best of what Hawai'i is — the people.
Angela Rickabaugh Shears
Feds should butt out of assisted suicide law
Regarding your Nov. 21 article on Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law and the U.S. Justice Department's effort to nullify it: Oregon did not pass its assisted suicide law lightly.
Much deliberation, thought and soul-searching went into the decision. It appears to be a well-written law with numerous safeguards to prevent abuses.
How is it that the Republicans can preach home rule and states' rights, and at the same time try to impose their collective federal will on Oregon?
My message to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Bush administration: Allow Oregon (and other states) to decide for themselves.
Dave Kern
O'ahu drivers ignore crosswalk pedestrians
I am a 65-year-old retired military and civil service employee. I have been all over the world and I have never, ever experienced terrorism such as that exhibited by the drivers of O'ahu.
Because of a stroke two years ago, I have become a pedestrian. It is extremely rare, when trying to cross Kamehameha Highway at the designated crosswalk, for any driver to stop and allow pedestrians to cross. For the most part, pedestrians are simply ignored. Pedestrians are mostly old people and children. We, old people and kids, don't have much political clout and we are simply ignored.
Therefore, I am declaring war on the drivers of O'ahu and the politicians who refuse to do anything to ensure our safety. I am going to do everything I can to disrupt traffic whenever I can. I will adopt a Gandhi strategy to accomplish this.
As for the politicians, I will vote for no candidate unless he or she proposes and implements a program to ensure the safety of pedestrians.
How many of us have to die before you do something?
I am putting the drivers of O'ahu on notice. This is war!
John Billups
Kane'ohe
Off-ramp widening project a fiasco
Am I the only driver who has noticed that our Department of Transportation has done it again?
It spent millions, perhaps, to improve and increase the number of lanes at the H-1 Punahou off-ramp. One lane is so short at the outlet as to be unusable and has been coned off since the completion of the project.
Also, the striping intended to prevent lane switching defies logic.
William Kibby
Harry Potter to rescue
Harry Potter has come to Hawai'i just in time. Perhaps only he can make dengue fever disappear, make tourists reappear and explain the proclamations and pontifications of Judge Ezra.
Richard Y. Will
