Letters to the Editor

Let's all stop using throwaway chopsticks

I am glad to see the Honolulu Academy of Art is showing "The Road Home," a lovely film set amid the natural beauty of the aspen-birch forests in a mountain village in China. Sadly, these forests are disappearing, largely to meet the demand for disposable chopsticks.

More than 25 million trees are cut down every year to produce 45 billion pairs of throwaway chopsticks. The problem is so serious that a number of Chinese cities and districts have begun restricting their use and encouraging alternatives. Student groups in China have started refusing to use disposables, and often carry their own reusable chopsticks with them.

I have found that it is easy to follow their lead and take my own chopsticks to restaurants. I am also trying to gather more information about the issue, which I will make available online at homepage.mac.com/mstrauch/greenchopsticks.

Let's all stop using throwaway chopsticks. Ask your favorite restaurants to provide reusable ones, and, in the meantime, try carrying a pair with you. If you go see "The Road Home," you'll want to keep those beautiful trees standing.

David Strauch

Candidates should take qualifying exam

Beauticians, cosmetologists, barbers, architects, physicians, contractors, lawyers, sales people in the insurance, securities and real estate industries and many others, including many civil servants, need to take and pass an exam before they can pursue their occupations.

It's time that candidates for political office take an exam and pass it in order to hold an elected office.

It can be a simple test covering the history of the state of Hawai'i, the United States and the constitutions of both entities; the administrative procedures of the state Legislature, including how a bill is enacted into law; basic finance and economics.

The exam should assure us that the candidate can read, understand English and has the necessary foundation to help govern us.

Tom Shimabuku
Kailua

Hirono should listen to Case, Anderson

Here are my two cents after listening to the Democratic candidates debate.

Mazie Hirono's got the presence and mainstream support, but maybe she should incorporate into her platform the two viable recommendations of her opponents that might go a long way to solve our education problems:

• From Ed Case: Abolish the elected state Board of Education and replace it with local boards with real authority to spend the money appropriated to them (with limits, of course).
• From Andy Anderson: Approve a state lottery with funds going only to education "in the classroom." He made a good point: We are a gambling state, even if we don't want to acknowledge it. Let's leave a little of that money here to get us out of the bind we are in.

My kids are grown, but I believe that the only way we can prosper in the future is to make sure our kids are well-educated now.

Ruth McKeown

Ed Case offers voters true change this time

The Big Island of Hawai'i is politically independent, and has elected Republican mayors Bernard Akana and Harry Kim and Green Party council members Keiko Bonk and Julie Jacobsen. Another "upset" is in the making.

The large number of Mazie Hirono yard signs shows the influence of the old-time Democrats. But, when asked, the residents rarely give a full, unqualified endorsement. Much of her "support" will disappear within the privacy of the voting booth, as political pandering to public employee unions is a large part of Hawai'i's problems. The sparse number of Republican-turned-Democrat Andy Anderson signs tells of limited support.

For those seeking true change and true leadership, we finally have a viable choice. Ed Case has a consistent track record of being a courageous person of principle, often voting alone. Like George Ariyoshi, he'll be quiet but effective. He has guts like Ben Cayetano but with a sweet personality to bring people together.

More than anything else, he walks his talk and is committed to looking after all of Hawai'i. For the love of Hawai'i, wake up!

David W. Fukumoto
Kurtistown, Big Island

Anderson isn't 'sassy'; he's a sensible realist

Kevin Dayton, Advertiser Capitol Bureau chief, in the Sept. 5 issue, indicates that Andy Anderson is "tough, practical and sassy." I agree that Andy is tough and practical. To me, he is not sassy. He is a realist and talks sense. His ideas are very innovative.

Andy is a successful businessman, and he will apply his business know-how and ideas that no one on the horizon has thought of to solving Hawai'i's problems. I sincerely believe Andy will rejuvenate Hawai'i onto a road of success.

Alfred Akana

Federal programs creating a monster

I am glad to see that Sen. Dan Inouye has joined in the local fight against the growing problem of crystal methamphetamine. His commentary in the Aug. 25 Focus section points out many of the dangers and problems associated with this terrible scourge.

However, I believe that a basic point has been missed. The efficacy of the Green Harvest and Federal Property Forfeiture programs have caused a market condition where the more dangerous crystal meth is cheap and readily available. This must be part of the public policy debate on the subject.

In no way should this be construed as an advocacy of the use of marijuana, just a voice calling for a look at the problem from outside the box given the heinous nature of crystal meth and the limited resources we bring to bear.

Joseph Uno
Kailua

No urgency for war on Iraq? Think again

A Sept. 6 editorial urging Congress to probe beyond war questions makes this statement: There "appears to be little that wasn't known before Sept. 11, 2001, and indeed, during the Clinton administration." And upon that basis this question: "So why the great urgency to make war on Iraq?"

One wonders how your statement and question might be viewed in, oh, say, a few months under the following "peacetime" circumstance. Imagine a commercial cargo ship in Honolulu Harbor carrying a concealed device painstakingly assembled in a foreign country over years in an inspection-free environment. Now imagine this device receiving a command detonation signal, converting it (and the surrounding cargo ship) into a rapidly expanding ball of heated plasma sufficient to generate shock wave overpressures exceeding 500 pounds per square inch at ground zero, accompanied by the release of fast-decay daughter products falling out over a massive cone-shaped footprint downwind.

Conclusion? Be careful what question you pose. You may just get the answer in ways you didn't anticipate. Many would perish in such a single event, but your question — like Dec. 7, 1941 — would live on in infamy.

Thomas E. Stuart
Kapa'au, Big Island

A landfill solution

Why didn't we think of this before? Let's turn Diamond Head crater into a landfill. When it's full, we could make a really nice park on top of it just like the Kaka'ako site. What? Smell. What smell?

Rod Alderton
Palolo