Letters to the Editor

Lingle's 'New Beginning' belongs to Democrats

It's time to take stock. What has Gov. Lingle's "New Beginning" achieved? It has achieved attacks on the superintendent of schools, the state librarian and public-school teachers across the state.

These attacks took form this week when the governor attempted to slap down government employees — a move heroically blocked by Democrats in the Legislature.

And despite Lingle's attempts to stop it with a veto, the Democrats also achieved meaningful public-school reform.

The "New Beginning" belongs to the Democrats, and the governor's sole achievement to date is petty partisanship.

Economics shows need for bottle bill

Tax Foundation president Lowell Kalapa and letter writers are to be commended for attempting to inject some hard-nosed economics into the controversy over Hawai'i's bottle bill legislation. Hawai'i's hard-working citizens should be spared paying additional unnecessary taxes.

Unfortunately, in this case, the bottle bill opponents' economics is simply wrong. Rather than a "tax," the bottle deposit and handling fee are actually "regulations" to ensure the proper working of the marketplace. As any good economist will tell you, for the market to function most efficiently, prices paid by consumers must reflect the full cost of the goods or services rendered. However, in the case of beverages (no pun intended), the market price fails to include what in economic parlance are referred to as "negative externalities," e.g., the cost to clean up the pollution of beverage containers caused by the beverage industry.

So in reality, if neither government nor businesses collect a fee to pay cleanup costs, the beverage industry is effectively receiving an economic subsidy for a portion of its costs, as those costs are transferred onto the public, aka taxpayers.

Now to address Kalapa's objection to retail stores having to incorporate the additional personnel and space costs demanded by the legislation: Would this well-known advocate of private enterprise prefer that government budget for additional hires and rent to create a fully functioning container recycling system?

I, too — environmentalist though I am — was opposed to an additional "beverage container tax," until I worked out the economics.

All schools should adopt Kamehameha's P.E.

Thanks for your April 26 article "Special P.E. class helps students drop weight" by Robbie Dingeman. It gives examples of Kamehameha Schools students who have not only lost weight but have overcome other personal problems in the process through exercise and lessons on healthy nutrition and lifestyle taught at school.

All schools should pick up on this. Unfortunately it was only through public clamor that our public schools dropped a recommendation to decrease P.E. to a half credit. It only has one credit as is.

P.E. means much more than sports and games. It means educating our children about their bodies and how to be healthy. Come on, schools, let's get with it!

Where's media outcry on Iraqi atrocities?

It is totally wrong to treat the Iraqi prisoners the way they were treated, but where is the balance?

Some took pictures of them nude and piled up. The Iraqi people took pictures of Iraqis killing Americans, dragging them through the streets, beating the dead bodies — and there is no outcry fromÊthe media, and if there is, it might be on page six.

I'm sick of the media jumping on our troops and making it as if all Americans are like this. The sad part is that it is our media doing it and not just the Islam media. Our own media treat our brave service people as though they are evil.

Where is the balance?

Pest-control program should be continued

A feature article in the May 3 Advertiser lamented that we are losing ground statewide in terms of effective stewardship of our remaining high-value natural areas.

In the same issue, a second article stated that Kamehameha Schools has suspended a pest-control program in its forest lands in Ka'u after some feral pigs were killed by toxic bait deployed to reduce the rat population. This program should continue.

Eliminating both rats and pigs is effective stewardship. Both ruin native Hawaiian forests; it is hard to say which is more destructive. Conserving feral pigs as game (Kamehameha Schools' intention) is misguided, to say the least. Historical evidence indicates pig hunting was never a native Hawaiian tradition. The contemporary breed of feral pig is an alien terminator of what is left of our true Hawaiian natural heritage.