Letters to the Editor

Bus convoy system better than rail plan

I disagree with the governor's plan to build a rail system from Kapolei to Iwilei. It's not fair and balanced to raise our taxes to pay for this project. Besides that, it will only benefit the residents of Kapolei and nearby communities.

Why not use 10 or more city buses to transport commuters in a military-like convoy system using the carpool lanes with police escort? The buses then can be dispatched to local routes and called back to serve commuters retuning home. This can be used as a test project. If it fails, so will the transit system.

You can't raise price on agreed-to figure

The position of the bus company concerning senior bus passes is outrageous. How can they say with a straight face that it is fair and legal to unilaterally cancel the passes in the middle of their term?

Imagine a landlord telling a tenant a few months into a two-year lease that he needs more money and therefore the tenant must either move out or pay more than double the rent previously agreed to.

If the bus company prevails in this matter, what is to prevent it from tearing up the new passes some months from now and saying it needs more money?

Doing what is legal is not always doing what is fair.

City tax proposal hurts the individual car owner

As discussed in your Oct. 23 issue, the mayor and City Council are proposing to raise individuals' vehicle weight tax an astounding 60 percent, while only raising the commercial vehicle weight tax by 25 percent. What is the basis for the difference? Why is it fair?

It is incumbent upon the mayor and council to justify why a greater burden is being placed upon the individual car owner.

The justification should be sure to consider that businesses can deduct the vehicle weight tax as a business expense, while private individuals cannot. Since businesses can deduct the increase, the burden will essentially fall even more heavily on the individual.

'Pursuit of happiness' is despoiling the Earth

Equating the "pursuit of happiness" with materialism, as Kathleen Parker does in her Oct. 29 column in The Advertiser, is tantamount to sanctioning the rape of the Earth's resources in the name of American liberties.

Huge, low-mileage "adventure vehicles," obese teenagers and President Bush's environmental policies are only recent examples of Americans' culture of excess and our belief that the world belongs to us by right, including the right to exploit it with no thought of future generations or anyone else.

Further, to hope that others will be similarly "free" is to doom them, and us as well, to an Earth despoiled. True freedom and happiness are to be found in living simply that others may simply live.

Alumni take pride in UH-West O'ahu

Dr. Mark Hanson's resounding words exemplify the type of professors at UH-West O'ahu. The professors at UHWO are a credit to their profession.

Unlike UH-Manoa, where students are often just a Social Security number in a large lecture hall, at UHWO the students have names, and every single one of them is free to build relationships with the faculty and even become friends. The professors employ multiple teaching methods to accommodate the diverse learning styles of their non-traditional students. Alumni leave knowing they have gained far more than they had anticipated and take pride in the degree they have earned.

Can Manoa make that same boast? There are no tragedies at UHWO, only successes. From the "pumpkin head" of a former student, thank you allowing me to reminisce about the best two years of my collegiate career, Dr. Hanson.

3-hour limit better along the Ala Wai

As a longtime resident of Waikiki, I am very happy to have the parking restrictions along the Ala Wai done away with. However, as pointed out in several letters and editorials, there are foreseeable problems with cars parked for days at a time or even abandoned.

I believe that a fair solution for everyone would be a three-hour limit, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The area would only have to be checked by traffic controllers three times a day: 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. Violators would more than cover controllers' expenses.

Enlightened approach on roosters is working

In response to the Oct. 22 article "Council puts off ban on roosters," I would like to note that since the Hawaiian (In)Humane Society has dropped all nuisance calls, Animal CARE Foundation has taken many of those calls and has met with overwhelmingly positive approval by all parties involved.

The enlightened approach is to give people the information they need to solve their problems and help them be good neighbors. Alternatively, banning roosters would promote abandonment, which would make the noise problem much worse. Also, bird rehabers who care for thousands of sick and injured birds a year would be virtually evicted from their homes. Last, thousands of birds would be cruelly abused and ultimately meet a grisly death at the hands of the (In)Humane Society.

Mainland lobbyists like Humane Society of the U.S. think they know what's best for Hawai'i. The reality is that the same rooster that ended up on plates at Petropolitan met a very inhumane fate, and the HHS with its lack of wildlife rehabilitation, blatant cruelty and death rate well above that of cockfighting offers no positive alternative.

Cataluna's dislike eclipsed her logic

It was disappointing to see letters favorable to Lee Cataluna's Oct. 24 column criticizing Bush's visit to Honolulu.

In it, she assailed Bush for taking a "self-serving opportunity to further his agenda" and using the visit as "rationalizations for irrational acts of aggression." She then went on to blame Bush, by implication, for the Makua fire, the difficulty to make ends meet in an island economy and the state of education in Hawai'i.

If she'd had more column space, Bush probably would have also gotten the blame for the miserable, humid weather, box jellyfish and the California wildfires.

Ms. Cataluna would have been more honest if she had just told the truth to begin with, that she has a visceral dislike for Bush that had nothing to do with his itinerary or the length of his stay. Having done that, she might then have had room to put some logic behind her vitriolic assertions.