Alaskan natives made their choice

In response to all who complained about our congressional delegates who supported the oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, shame on you!

It's so easy to complain and give your unwarranted opinion when you don't even live there. If anyone is to blame, blame yourselves. You live in a gas-guzzling industrial country and have no idea what really goes on up in Alaska.

Try living in the conditions that the Alaskan natives who will be directly affected by this do. Unlike us Hawaiians, at least they got to decide after years of debate among themselves and tribes what they wanted to do with their 'aina.

If they want the drilling to create an economic base for them to improve their quality of live, so be it; they know what the possible consequences can be.

Recycling is great for housing cockroaches

I tossed away my trash can full of cans and bottles today. You see, I bought this separate trash can for recycling. But, my can and bottle collection soon became a home for roaches.

I promise to try to fill up my special trash can again. But I am sorry to say I will probably end up tossing the containers away again.

It really is a shame that someone from the City and County can't come by on a scheduled date to take them from me. I would be happy to donate them.

Dairy dependency is cause for alarm

Your story in the March 20 paper about the threatened closing of the state's largest dairy and the steady decline of our dairy industry is cause for alarm, not only because of our increased vulnerability to labor disputes in the shipping industry, but because it is one more step in our steady march toward total dependence on imports.

The coming energy crisis, as the world competes for declining supplies of oil, will be forcing a decline in globalization and a slow and painful return to regionalization. People the world over will be depending more on food grown closer to their homes.

Our children and grandchildren will wonder why we turned prime agricultural land into suburban sprawl.

Post writer's views on war contemptible

With total disdain and utter contempt, I concluded reading the article by Washington Post "writer" Ann Scott Tyson ("Prolonged war drains Army, Marines," March 20). Her message, with all the certainty that can be brought to bear, will most assuredly fall into the hands of al-Qaida. And there it will become a direct tool of war, most simply — but so deadly — as a terrorist morale booster unrivaled since the Towers fell.

I consider Scott's article analogous to the World War II broadcasts by Tokyo Rose.

Thank God our forces, who fight for Tyson's freedom to state her perceptions without fear of retribution, have the wisdom, courage, loyalty and battle-tested strength to not bother considering her throw-in-the-towel comments, much less take them to heart. Unfortunately with al-Qaida, her words could very well have the opposite effect — becoming a rallying point of grand and very grave proportions.

Shame on Ann Scott Tyson. Shame, shame on her for acting like Jane Fonda did during the Vietnam War.

Residential leasehold is 'make die dead'

We find Fred Rohlfing's letter, "Land Reform Act in danger," in the March 3 issue to be interesting but totally missing the point. It seems his objection to repeal of the 1967 law is more geared to the preservation of his legacy of legislative ownership — and those of his "reformist" Democratic colleagues — than it is to a thoughtful and scholarly assessment of the effects of this law on Hawai'i's housing market.

Simply put, the enabling of land condemnation basically eliminated one source of affordable residential housing in our island community and effectively pinched off one source of housing supply within the supply-and-demand equation. Absence of supply equates to upward price demand. Rohlfing and colleagues should also then honestly claim ownership of one of those invisible hands contributing to median prices exceeding $500,000 in the O'ahu residential home market.

The act has been heralded as the "Second Great Mahele." This mahele is out of gas. It is fueled by a supply of lease lands for condemnation — and this supply is nearing exhaustion, particularly with the repeal of Chapter 38, which Rohlfing doesn't mention. No future residential lease lands will fuel this engine. It would be a very foolish or naive landowner who would risk his lands to the "reformist" impulses of future legislators.

In the vernacular of our youth, residential leasehold is "make die dead."