PRIORITIES MISPLACED ON NATIONAL SECURITY

In the name of national security, the U.S. has been fighting two wars costing billions of dollars, killing hundreds of thousands and harming many times more physically and emotionally. The war in Afghanistan seeks to stop al-Qaida, which is responsible for nearly 3,000 deaths on 9/11.

However, this needs to be considered in the perspective of the number of Americans who die yearly of other causes: 500,000 from cancer; 45,000 from lack of health insurance; 40,000 from auto accidents, including about 17,000 from drunken driving; 40,000 from AIDS; 34,000 from seasonal flu; 30,000 from gunshots; and 9,000 from food poisoning.

The allocation in the federal budget amounts to about 21 percent on defense, 21 percent on Social Security, 20 percent on health care, 3 percent on scientific and medical research, and 2 percent on education.

The distribution of taxpayer dollars is all out of proportion to the distribution of the causes of death as one indicator. Certainly terrorism is a deadly threat. However, in terms of the number of American deaths from terrorism compared to those from the other causes, it is far from the biggest threat. The federal government needs to rethink national security, policy priorities and how taxpayer dollars are allocated.

LESLIE E. SPONSEL | Honolulu

MÄNANA PARK

LET'S TAKE OUR PARKS BACK FROM VANDALS

I am writing this letter because I just spent the last three hours cleaning up broken beer bottles at the Mänana Skate Park in Pearl City. The park was completely trashed.

I cannot believe that this is allowed in these parks that are paid for with our hard-earned tax dollars. This kind of activity would not be allowed for one minute in Waikíkí, so why is this allowed in our neighborhood parks?

Mänana park is located less than two blocks from the Pearl City police substation , and yet this type of behavior goes unnoticed.

The people who are trashing the skate parks are not the skaters. The people who are trashing them are there to drink alcohol excessively, take drugs and take out their frustrations on public property. There must be laws against this and they must be enforced.

I challenge all who read this to take the parks back from the vandals.

Call your City Council member, congressman, senator and tell them that you want more police visibility . We want this activity stopped.

These parks are for us, our kids and families to enjoy and should not be abused.

JAMES BATES | Mililani

FIREWORKS

NO ENFORCEMENT IS ICING ON THE CAKE

We've been listening to extremely loud, illegal fireworks (bombs) for the past month every day from morning until late into the evening. Domestic animals in the neighborhood are in a panic and residents are perpetually offended by a few folks who believe their extremely loud explosions are of interest to everyone in the valley we live in.

The icing on the cake? No enforcement. In years past, we made the effort to witness offenders and notify the Honolulu Police Department, only to be told that unless the police witness the activity, they can't do anything about it. Hmmm, what's the solution? It's really bad where we live. I assume others on Oahu are experiencing the same problem. As a matter of fact, a massive explosion just went off as I was typing this letter. It was so loud it echoed off the Koolaus through the entire valley. But, hey, HPD has to witness it. If HPD parks in our valley for 10 minutes, they would probably identify several houses ruining the peace for the entire valley. Does anyone care?

DOUG JEFFS | Käneohe

HECO OUTAGES

Whenever there is an unprogrammed outage, we get an explanation from HECO of what happened. What we customers want to know is what HECO is doing to prevent these mostly preventable incidents.

Let us hear from the CEO of HECO about what's being done to review and improve HECO's preventive maintenance program. We commonly see tree limbs hanging over power lines, anchor cables missing, dead trees in proximity of power lines and many other unattended maintenance problems.

This is not asking too much of a chief executive who, I believe, is paid in seven figures by our fees. When we question the high utility costs, HECO always comes back with the high cost of imported oil.

How about reviewing the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the organization, starting at the top? Are we paying for a bloated bureaucracy that has gotten too fat and happy? This would be a worthwhile area for The Advertiser to investigate in a serious and comprehensive way.

TADAHIKO ONO | Käneohe

FURLOUGHS

SOLUTION IS TEACHERS TAKING A CUT IN PAY

HSTA's Wil Okabe on the recent Hot Seat used every excuse he could to justify their refusal to agree with the governor on a solution to furlough days. He talked about concern for student safety, their special needs, etc., things outside of the union's realm of responsibility. What he didn't talk about was where the money was going to come from to support what teachers want.

And we didn't need to hear how hard teachers work, just as we don't need to be told how hard policemen, firemen, newsmen, armed services people, etc., work, because we know — we are one of them.

The solution is for teachers to go back to work and take the pay cut. The only assurance they should be given is that when the economy improves, so will their paycheck. Further, that when they are given a pay raise, they won't be asked to work extra hours for it.

BILL PRESCOTT | Nänäkuli