Target drivers who ignore pedestrians

Recent news articles cite DUI arrests up, more drug labs shut down and "Click it or Ticket" programs successful. One recent article was about a crackdown on graffiti, catching artists red-handed. Glad to read Honolulu's finest are hard at work enforcing the law.

However, shouldn't saving lives be a higher priority?

I recently returned from one of many trips to Washington state, where the culture of the drivers is such that they go out of their way to yield the right of way to pedestrians at crosswalks and intersections. Even if you're standing on the curb at a crosswalk, they stop to let you cross. There was even one driver who stopped halfway into the crosswalk, backed up and motioned for us to cross.

This driver culture was all accomplished by Washington police enforcing the yield-to-pedestrians statute. They regularly conduct sting operations where plainclothes officers pose as pedestrians. If a driver doesn't stop and yield, he gets a citation with a heavy fine from another officer down the road.

Another recent media item was about many pedestrians getting seriously injured or killed while crossing streets. An HPD officer said that pedestrians need to be more careful and diligent when crossing streets. Should Honolulu's finest be conducting sting operations regularly like in Washington state instead of using manpower to curb graffiti? If they did, could they change the driving habits of Honolulu's drivers and thus save many lives?

There's no feud with coach June Jones

W. Ogitani is mistaken in the Friday letter to you alleging that I have an ongoing feud with UH football coach June Jones. As far as I'm concerned, there is no feud.

The so-called "jab" Ogitani claims I took at the football team on a recent newscast was a story by one of our reporters dealing with the drop of attendance at UH home games this season, a story The Advertiser also recently reported on its front page. Does Ogitani think The Advertiser has a feud with Coach Jones because it reported that story?

Before the season started, I took issue with coach Jones' lack of respect for UH traditions by arbitrarily changing the name of the football team from Rainbows or Rainbow Warriors to just plain Warriors, and lamented the fact that under orders from Jones, the UH band no longer plays "Hawaii Five-O" when the team takes the field. That was, and is, the extent of my difference of opinion with coach Jones.

Do I continue to call the team 'Bows or Rainbow Warriors? Yes, as do many longtime UH fans. My son and I have attended most of this season's home games in support of the team and have high hopes the many injured players who've been hobbled or who have missed recent games will be healthy for the final two contests against Northwestern and Michigan State. Go 'Bows !

Remember vonAppen?

This season's road-loss point margin may be the highest ever for our Warriors, but to put June Jones' picture next to Fred vonAppen's picture is laughable. Remember vonAppen, people? I don't feel sick to my stomach as I did when he was our leader. We're 4-5, baby, not 0-9. I support June Jones despite the road-loss point margin. Go Warriors!

Democrat editorial dejá vu all over again

What an original idea the Advertiser editorial board has proposed in its Sunday editorial: Turn back the Democratic Party clock by 10, 20, even 70 years! Revive all those old failed ideas of class warfare, raising taxes and confiscating the wealth people have created. Raising the minimum wage and promising to never fix entitlement programs that are spiraling out of control is certainly the answer. Remind "working men and women" that their "interests" are to have less in their pockets and bigger government bureaucracies.

Oh, and embracing Jesse Jackson's creed of dependency, rather than recognizing the opportunity-oriented cultures of our Hispanic and Asian immigrants, will surely convince them to vote solid Democratic again without thinking about it for a second.

By the way, rather than relying on the expertise of "historian" Garry Wills, you might want to do a little fact checking on United States and Western European "standards of living." Measuring true standards is a complicated exercise depending on what data are compared and the frequent political agendas of the individuals and institutions making the comparisons.

However, with the possible exception of Norway (few people and lots of oil and not a European Economic Community member), possibly some of the other Nordic countries and Liechtenstein, few would agree with that silly quotation from Wills or statement by you citing a better "standard of living" in most of Europe.