Council’s ban on smoking
doesn’t go far enough (not)
I don't believe the City Council's proposal to ban smoking in restaurants goes far enough. We should also ban sun-bathing (with its inherent cancer risk) in the state of Hawaii.We could also fill up the Ala Wai Canal and return Waikiki to its prominent "pristine wetland" position.
On the other hand, we can have the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau just shoot all the Council members in the right foot to save them the trouble of doing it slowly and methodically like they are bent on doing.
Raymond Perez
Scorn for those on welfare
is misplaced, unwarranted
Now that public assistance is being gutted, these same people are breathing a collective sigh of relief. But soon the hype will be revealed. Welfare accounts for only about 1.5 percent of the federal budget and an average of 2 percent is spent by states on cash assistance to needy families. Seventy percent of welfare recipients are on the rolls for two years or less.
Who really gets welfare? Corporate giants receive government subsidies and tax credits that could support our entire state budget for several years. In 1994, the U.S. spent $104.3 billion on corporate welfare and $619 billion on the military, while spending only $14.4 billion on social welfare programs.
The U.S. leads all industrialized nations in unequal distribution of wealth. If the present rate continues, the richest 1 percent of Americans will own everything in the U.S. in the next 35 years.
Please stop blaming the poor. Unless you are a multi-millionaire, we will soon be sharing the same boat.
Nancy Aleck
Cleaning up environment
is best way to study it
I had the privilege of working with Linda Elliot of the Big Island. She is a member of the International Bird Rescue Center, which arrived in Anchorage last spring to tend to hundreds of seabirds oiled near Dutch Harbor by a ship dumping its bilge oil illegally.
It may be hard to justify the cleaning cost per bird if saving each bird is the only standard for success. While I believe that there is value in saving animals which our mistakes have endangered, equally important was the knowledge imparted upon the volunteers who helped. Instead of reading another bunch of text about another ecological disaster, the volunteers learned first-hand of our sometimes unfortunate environmental harm.
Only when people understand their effect on our environment can they make intelligent, responsible decisions concerning it. Participating in a bird-cleaning effort goes a long way toward this sort of enlightenment, and that can't be considered useless effort.
Karl B. Holfeld
Anchorage, Alaska
(Via the Internet)
Columnist shouldn’t be
surprised by cross-fire
All people are entitled to their own opinions, as long as they don't tread on the rights of others. Gays and lesbians hurt no one else by legally ratifying their marriages and receiving the full rights and benefits of couplehood, which range from adoption rights to automatic inheritance. But by denying them those rights, right-wing homophobes go beyond advocating their beliefs and begin to harm other people.
Hopefully, the fair-minded people of Hawaii will come to realize this. In any case, though, by stubbornly planting himself between enemy camps on this emotional issue, Shapiro can hardly complain when he is hit by bullets from both sides.
Adam A. Sofen
Woodland Hills, Calif.
(Via the Internet)