Letters to the Editor

City should have used staggered renewals

Has the city administration given any thought to the bus pass renewal procedure beyond the current mess?

Apparently there are over 50,000 senior citizen passes currently in effect, and they all need to be renewed before Nov. 1. This means that many will need to be renewed again next October.

It would have been more sensible to spread out the renewals over several months. For example, those with expiration dates in 2003 would renew this month, those with passes expiring in 2004 would renew next month, and those with valid passes expiring in 2005 would renew the following month.

I'm sure the city could have worked out the appropriate rebate amounts to take into account the staggered renewals.

Hook-and-line longline swordfishing welcome

In response to the Oct. 5 front-page article that covered the federal decision to permit hook-and-line longline swordfishing to return to Hawai'i: The ruling from the federal Circuit Court in the District of Columbia is a realistic decision that will boost the seafood industry and directly impact the economy in Hawai'i. Allowing Hawai'i boats to fish for swordfish with new techniques under the regulation will minimize interaction with birds and turtles.

The amount of swordfish caught by hook-and-line longliners off Hawai'i is negligible compared with the various international and national seafood trawlers and purse seine net fleets in the Pacific. These fleets sail to international waters around Hawai'i from parts of Asia and Europe. These same fleets have been seen fishing in waters that directly affect the pelagic catch for the Hawai'i hook-and-line longliners.

These foreign trawlers and seiners catch, crush and kill within their large and often illegal nets endangered species, such as turtles, dolphins and whales. The effects of catching underage species, such as bigeye and yellowfin tuna, tombo and aku, deplete the oceans of future stocks. The effect is immediate to the Hawai'i hook-and-line industry, with fewer fish stocks available.

The Atlantic is nearly void of fish due to 50 years of fishing with large industrial nets. If only hook-and-line fishing techniques had been used in the Atlantic, that ocean would still have an abundance of fish.

The hook-and-line fishing boats are the answer to a responsible and sustainable fishing industry. Let us put our energy and efforts into fighting the real nemesis of the sea: large nets.

Carpool lanes should be opened to all of us

Can anyone please explain to me the rationale behind only allowing "two or more" in the zipper and HOV lanes? A parent with an infant, a driver with an elderly passenger, a driver with a disabled person, a driver with school-age children all qualify as "two or more."

Originally, "two or more" was designed to encourage carpooling, but carpooling is not as popular today as it was when carpool lanes were implemented years ago.

Today's traffic is so bad that carpool lanes such as the HOV and zipper lanes should be opened up to all vehicles regardless of the number of occupants within.

Throw away the key for illegal donations

It is impossible to totally stop illegal campaign donations, but there is a way to discourage the participants. Guilty parties would face mandatory fines, mandatory jail and no future city contracts, ever.

As a deterrent for any crime, the punishment must be severe.

Complaints abound at the football games

I've seen it all and heard it all (complaints), but there seems to be no one with guts to say it all. Auwe!

I've attended almost all of Wai'anae High School's football games for the past two years and noticed that the football players are not on the field to sing their alma mater nor "The Star Spangled Banner" and the traditional Hawai'i Pono'i whether it is a home or away game.

I've also noticed that when there is an injured player on their opponents' side, they don't "take a knee" out of respect for the injured player. The worst of all are the bathroom facilities: no toiletries, no stall doors and uncleaned.

So who is to blame? The coach, athletic director, the assistant athletic director, the school's principal?

Bus ad OK doesn't mean unwanted ads

I am responding to Rep. Kirk Caldwell's recent commentary in which he urges against bus ads to preserve bans on billboards. Reading his column, I was also reminded of earlier items reporting concerns that bus ads, if allowed, would subject us to graphic pictures of aborted fetuses.

Have we obtained counsel's opinion to understand how bus ads would affect billboard bans or require us to accept undesirable messages on our buses? I think not.

Selling bus ads is by no means a foray into uncharted legal grounds creating unknown risks to billboard bans. In fact, it has long been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court that the operation of a city public transportation is a commercial venture. As such, unlike a public street or park, a city bus is not a public forum for purposes of First Amendment speech. Thus, Honolulu would have the right to limit the type of advertising accepted for its buses to less controversial commercial and service-oriented advertising while refusing to sell space for political or public issue advertising (Lehman v. Shaker Heights, 1974).

Would bus ads raise sufficient revenues to play any substantial role in paying for public transportation or raises for our police officers? I don't have an informed opinion. I do have an opinion, however, about how our elected officials should manage our money. Before imposing higher gas taxes, give serious consideration to alternative sources of revenues based on facts, not unsupported fears. Cap on gas prices? Should that be a cap on gas taxes?

Pitts' commentary on religion was unworthy

Criticizing a nationally syndicated columnist is risky business, but Leonard Pitts' Sept. 30 commentary on religion and casting stones must be addressed. He has, in his typically soft-sell manner, steered the reader away from the truth and toward a self-serving, cynically driven attitude toward people of faith.

He begins his assault with the well-publicized case of an Islamic woman accused of adultery under Shariah law, a religious code based on the Quran. The penalty for adultery is death by stoning. Relying mostly on technicalities, the judges eventually freed the poor woman. Perplexed by the rationale of the acquittal, Pitts concludes that, despite the harsh brutality of the penalty, Islamic law must contain other passages about "mercy, compassion and forgiveness." Certain of his conclusion, Pitts launches into his own leap of faith by focusing on the main intent of his article: to cast stones at Christians, yes Christians, in contemporary America.

Without missing a beat, he deftly shifts our attention to the recent situation in Alabama involving the removal of the Ten Commandments and the "weeping of thousands on the steps of the courthouse." Rather than ponder in similar fashion whether the Bible might contain passages about respecting authority and obeying the law, Mr. Pitts wonders how such acts of religious people can possibly further human rights and justice. "Was a single person fed because of the demonstration? Was a single person clothed? Was a homeless person housed?"

The obvious answer is "No." Why? Because, Mr. Pitts implies, Christians are self-righteous and unwilling to put themselves "on the line" for social justice. In the parlance of old-time religion, Christians talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

Incredibly, Mr. Pitts would have us believe that the peaceful civil disobedience of a group of Christians is somehow a stronger indictment of religious hypocrisy than a religious code that allows to this day the hideous, chauvinistic practice of stoning women to death.

Objective, thoughtful discussion is the most direct path to the truth.

Disabled and getting a runaround

I went to the Neal Blaisdell Center. Considering the amount of area that the center covers, the lack of signs was amazing. There were people here, there and everywhere. There were long lines going somewhere, but no indication as to which line one should get in. Running out of oxygen, I left.

Arriving back home, I called the bus information line. After being cut off two times, I finally managed to get through and had to wait and wait and wait. Finally, I got a customer service rep. When I inquired if there were any arrangements made for the disabled, as I am on oxygen and have a total usable oxygen supply of two and and a half hours, I was informed that I could wait in line like everyone else.

Receiving no satisfactory answer there, I attempted to call TheBus administration office. It should be the one responsible for arranging the methods of obtaining bus passes and making arrangements for accommodation for the disabled. Apparently, it does not want any contact with the public — because after calling three times at about 3:45, there was never a single answer to the phone. Not even an answering machine message.

So, I tried calling the bus complaint line listed under City Hall. That just transferred me to the original complaint line at the bus company. Well, as I had received no usable information from it in the first place, I tried calling the general complaint number. I was informed that TheBus was not handling the bus passes. I was told to call the Department of Transportation hotline. After calling for another 20 minutes and only getting a busy signal, I decided to call the mayor's office. After all, if TheBus is not handling bus passes, who is?

So, I called C&C information. I was told to call another number. So, I called that number. I explained my difficulty to the person answering the phone and was told that it was so unbelievable that no arrangements had been made for the disabled that she wanted me to explain it to her supervisor. So, I explained to the supervisor the whole problem again. Her suggestion was that maybe they should provide a big oxygen tank or I should bring several tanks with me. When I explained that I was on disability and unable to carry several oxygen tanks, I was told that she would refer the problem to the Department of Transportation.

Thank you, but after spending approximately an hour on the telephone, my final answer was that they would refer the problem to a department that made the problem in the first place.

As a final attempt, I called the DOT again. Apparently by then, it was no longer answering its phones. The answering machine did state to leave a number and one should receive an answer sometime between Monday and Friday. Which week was not specified.

The answers I received seemed to imply that if one has a limited supply of oxygen, one can wait in line with everyone else until one runs out of oxygen and keels over dead. I assume that at that time, they would at least call for a hearse.