Letters to the Editor

Gays also have a right to pursue happiness

The pursuit of happiness is the most fundamental of rights awarded to us as Americans. With the exception that our happiness doesn't infringe on the rights of others, we have the right to search out that happiness. The right for my partner to receive health benefits or to visit me in the hospital is not detrimental to the rights of others.

The gay public has been taking extreme measures because their voices are drowned out by many politicians often confusing their personal morals with basic rights.

Through all this hoopla of gay marriage, religious values and political strategies, has anyone stopped to think that in some ways "gay marriage" is technically legal?

It's the cameras, stupid; don't bring them back

I have a simple message for all those who are trying to bring back the cameras: It's the cameras we hate, not the vans. It doesn't matter how the cameras are placed, the residents of Hawai'i have already spoken loud and clear: We don't want them!

It's the average Joe who will be lining up in court again, not those pesky racers. Who do you think is buying up all of those license plate deflectors that will not allow the cameras to focus in on their plates? It's the racers, not the average person out there every day just trying to get back and forth to work or do their jobs. So while the racers continue to race, the rest of us will be bunched up in the courthouse hallways when we should be at work.

Let's be realistic. On any given day, the flow of traffic on Honolulu freeways is about 65 mph. It's the reason police officers generally will not tag a car going less than 10 miles over the speed limit. If the state wants to bring back the cameras, the least it can do is raise the speed limit on the freeways to 65. That way the average Joe continues to live life normally while those who commit serious infractions will get tagged.

Beautification can wait; fix traffic first

Solving traffic woes appears to be on the agenda of Honolulu policy-makers, yet it is hard to comprehend why such campaign promises are forsaken to "beautify" the city.

To replace traffic lanes for grassy medians in high-traffic-volume areas makes no sense. The Kuhio Avenue project is a classic example. At 2 p.m., it took me 20 minutes to go 'ewa down Kuhio from Kapahulu to Seaside due to lane removal.

Another area is on the Pali heading makai between School and Vineyard. Instead of a center grassy median, it should be a left-hand-turn lane extending all the way back, eliminating the morning bog by left-hand turners clogging the through lane.

Another suggestion is for the diamondhead-bound H-1 freeway on-ramp from Liliha Street. It should be a double lane all the way down to the Pali off-ramp.

Honolulu is rich with natural beauty. If we lived in a steel town, I could see spending a few bucks on grassy median areas. To me, these beautification projects do nothing more than make Honolulu look like a Mainland strip mall.

Column misleading about al-Qaida link

David Polhemus' March 21 column entitled "Spain not necessarily 'giving in' " is misleading.

Polhemus correctly stated that there was "no proven link" between al-Qaida and Iraq before the invasion in March 2003 but goes on to state that it was only after the invasion that al-Qaida established "a presence" there. However, plenty of proof has been uncovered since the invasion. Most notably, Stephen Hayes' late-2003 article ("Case Closed") in The Weekly Standard laid out dozens of links discovered in the past year. Furthermore, there have been a number of articles in the Washington Post, The New Yorker and elsewhere that echo the same theme.

In his apparent haste to slur President Bush as culpable for virtually every high-profile geopolitical problem in the world today, Polhemus apparently failed to perform the basic research that his readers take for granted.

Advertiser readers are entitled to better.

What's to like about the president's policies?

So, Whitney Anderson doesn't like the Hawaiian Republicans distancing distancing themselves from Whitney's hero, G.W. Bush (Letters, March 20).

Whitney must love and support high deficits, lying to the American people and wholesale death and destruction. Tell me, Whitney, what is conservative about this?

And while you are at it, can you please point out anything in Jesus' teachings that supports Bush's aggressive policies? Bush, after all, has said that Jesus is his favorite philosopher.

I am sick and tired of phonies who claim to be conservative but push huge deficit spending and the mistreatment of our military. Shame on you!

I didn't vote for Linda Lingle precisely because she came out in support of Bush and will not consider any Republican who thinks Bush is a wonderful president. I suggest everyone just say no to Republican supporters of Bush.

Multiple school boards are the only way to go

The March 14 letter to The Advertiser by Hilo schoolteacher Kim Springer incorrectly credited me with voting against locally elected school boards for each Neighbor Island unit. This is credit I respectfully decline. I am strongly for school boards on the Neighbor Islands and on the Big Island in particular and always have been.

Even the superintendent of schools recognizes the current education system is not working. She called it "obsolete." Others have stronger words. It hasn't been working for a long time. If we care about our children, we have to change the way we run public education.

We must break up Hawai'i's large school district into eight local districts, each with its own local, elected board made up of citizens of the island or community. If we care about our children, we must change education to bring it closer to parents and the communities where families live.

What the governor proposes is to let the people choose what system they want. That is why we want to have the issue placed on the ballot. I am fully confident that the voters will select a change from the tried-and-found-faulty present system.

Probe into Hawaiian waivers uncalled for

The investigation by the U.S. Department of Education of our university for the alleged giving of waivers to Hawaiian students is uncalled for.

The lands that the University of Hawai'i at Manoa now occupy were part of the Victoria Kamamalu Estate.

Kamamalu was the granddaughter of Kamehameha I and daughter of Kuhina Nui Kinau. She was well-landed. Some say the estate controlled more land than all of the chiefs put together.

Presently, most of the Kamamalu lands through judicial probate decisions from the past are now called Kamehameha Schools. The portion of Kamamalu's land set aside for the university, in a sense, belongs to all Hawaiians. So, it is only right that some of the indigent Hawaiian children do get waivers.

One final note: All students do enjoy some kind of waiver — the Hawaiian queen's free land, which the University of Hawai'i at Manoa occupies.