Letters to the Editor
Cutting 'Sunset' movie representative of fall
Remarkable, is it not, after all her whining about Mayor Harris' more than $1 billion budget being financially irresponsible that one of the few items Ann Kobayashi actually cut from it is the "Sunset on the Beach" movie, arguably the most popular part of the event.
As my friend said, "How did they manage to cut the one new thing that brought us together?"
So I told him: Ann Kobayashi was Ben Cayetano's campaign manager, Ben and Jeremy loathe each other, the Democratic Party of Hawai'i is not only dysfunctional but imploding, and this is the way Kobayashi has played all that out.
His reply? "How small can you be?"
Lee Black
Case only Democrat with any backbone
Mazie Hirono has her wetted finger in the air, ready to switch races if the winds of political opportunity change direction.
Andy Anderson is either a Republican or a Democrat, depending on which seems more personally advantageous.
The only candidate the Democrats have with any backbone at all is Ed Case. He is the only one who occupies the middle ground between the newly formidable Republicans and the "old-boy network" of entrenched Democrats who have prevented any kind of meaningful reform within the party.
N.C. Bleecker
Democrats shouldn't get better treatment
The Advertiser obviously feels that more citizens are interested in UH trying to skirt the rules on a football coach than they are in their next governor.
Linda Lingle filed for candidacy on May 28, and The Advertiser editors chose to place this information on Page 5 of the B section.
The interested citizens will now expect the "equal" treatment of other candidates when they file. Surely the filing of a Democrat won't make the front page.
Kay Ghean
Maui
State is the big loser
My heart goes out to Mayor Harris and his family. They have been through so much over the past year. It's no wonder he bowed out of the governor's race. Who would blame him? Our state is the big loser, for he would have made a great governor.
C. Uyehara
There is no logic to banning sign-holding
Regarding attempts by politicians to make sign-holding illegal: What's next? No political signs in yards?
After all, these yard signs are also seen from the road and could attract drivers' attention.
Of course, there is no logic to banning sign-holding. If they're going to ban sign-holding because it could possibly distract drivers, then they'll have to ban anything else out there that may catch the attention of drivers: beautiful homes, trees, real estate signs, mango trees.
Evette Shamon
Abandoned vehicle crackdown needed
The state was recently given high marks by a national organization for our pollution-free air. Unfortunately, if there were an award for junk-free highways, we would be at the bottom of the list.
The various volunteer groups do an excellent job in cleaning up the paper, bottles, etc., but they can't handle the worst eyesore — the many abandoned vehicles along our country roads.
We should be ashamed of this visual pollution, which can be seen even at such popular tourist stops as Sunset Beach. On a recent day, I counted 15 such piles of rusted metal between Turtle Bay and Kahuku, a distance of only about three miles.
There is a statute in the Hawai'i code that calls for a $1,000 fine for abandoning a vehicle along a public right-of-way. Why isn't more being done to find the owners and collect the fines? I'm sure the official answer would be that it is too expensive to spend time tracking down the ownership.
Surely if only one or two were traced each week, the fines imposed would more than compensate for the time needed to track down the owners. Perhaps a person could be hired just for this, with a bounty paid for each identified owner.
Whatever it takes, something needs to be done.
Zane Clark
Kahuku
Change Singapore? Start with justice
If Prime Minister Goh wants to reinvent Singapore, a good place to start would be with its judicial system.
A few years back, when President Clinton's plea for clemency in the caning of Michael Fay was refused, many Americans concluded that justice in Singapore was too harsh and too stupid, so forget about it.
It hasn't changed. They are still caning prisoners. A quick look at the Internet at various sites such as the MSN Singapore punishment site will give a graphic description, including photographs of caning.
One story on the Internet is about a Singapore college couple who were given random urine testing on a return trip from Malaysia. It was determined that they had smoked marijuana three weeks prior in Australia. The couple was sentenced to one year in prison. As the technology of drug testing improves, it may in the future be possible to prove a person smoked pot 25 or 30 years ago, and senior citizens may be spending the rest of their lives in a Singapore prison.
James Gore
Cleaning Capitol pool a waste of our money
Taxpayers of Hawai'i, wake up! Do you really want more hundreds of thousands of tax dollars spent on the pools of slime surrounding our state Capitol?
Can't we face up to the truth that the very contrived and phony "ocean" just isn't working out?
Visualize how eye-pleasing and beautiful it would be to extend the lawns in toward the building, around the palm tree column and right up to the "volcano" (the 'ewa and diamondhead walls of the building).
This would also improve the incorrect symbolism we see there today. Palm trees do not grow out of oceans.
Think of the reduced maintenance costs, not to mention saving "about $360,000" budgeted to "plug some pesky cracks," as reported in the May 26 Advertiser.
Margaret B. Murchison
Insure your vehicle or face forfeiture
Now that the "Click It or Ticket" program is meeting its obligation to (a) protect us from ourselves and (b) provide our local government with large amounts of cash, I have a further suggestion that also includes a catchy slogan: "Insure or Forfeit."
Even though there are laws on the books requiring all of us to carry adequate car insurance, we know there are tens of thousands of uninsured and under-insured motorists driving around on our streets. If they aren't insured, they're breaking the law. Their cars should be impounded and forfeited until they can demonstrate adequate coverage.
By removing these lawbreakers from our roads, we'll greatly ease traffic congestion, reduce the cost of car insurance for the rest of us and make driving safer.
If the law requires sufficient insurance, why isn't that law being enforced?
Bob Lamborn
