Ill-advised legislators
support legalized gambling

On Feb. 8, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to legalize casino gambling. Somehow the committee railroaded this bill through without the public's knowledge.

I can't imagine why they would want to legalize gambling when the U.S. attorney, the state attorney general and the Honolulu Police Department have all openly voiced their fears of what casino gambling would do to Hawaii.

The fact is this: Casino gambling will increase crime and drain our social service system. We would be crazy to put Hawaii in such a volatile situation. The demise of other cities, like New Orleans and Atlantic City, should be enough evidence to convince our legislators that casino gambling will bring nothing but harm to our island.

Hopefully, next time the issue comes up in the Legislature, people will be given an opportunity to voice their concerns.

Yori Sawada
Kailua

Let guide dogs skip
overzealous quarantine

Hawaii's quarantine has never, in its long history, prevented a case of rabies from entering Hawaii because no case of rabies has ever been discovered at the quarantine station. There is no cause-and-effect relation between no rabies in Hawaii and its quarantine.

Consider that organizations that have blind or handicapped members requiring guide dogs will not be able to stage their conventions in Hawaii because such organizations are required to provide accommodations for their handicapped members.

Our visitors bureau and especially our convention bureau must be up front about this and indicate in their promotional material that no organizations with handicapped members requiring guide dogs can convene in Hawaii - all because of our archaic and now irrational old rule.

The good people of Dallas don't flip out and go into a panic when a blind person with a seeing-eye dog comes to their city for a convention. They know that such animals are all immunized.

Governor Cayetano is to be commended for taking the lead on this. He is moving us toward catching up with the rest of the world and permitting immunized guide dogs and their owners to visit Hawaii.

Dr. Paul W. Dale
Mililani

Nobody seems to care
that women are suffering

A too-familiar script was played out in my neighborhood recently. In the early morning hours, my neighbor - a young mother - roused everyone within earshot with her screams for help. The father of her children had come to her door after 3 a.m. and began abusing her. At the first crash of glass, I called 911 and described the situation. During my phone call to police, the woman was outside our building, screaming at the top of her lungs.

The man came after her, and the woman ran down the block, screaming for help with the man in hot pursuit. One sleep-deprived neighbor clearly voiced his concern over the situation by repeatedly shouting, "Shut the f-- up!" as the woman's screams faded.

The police arrived and they stopped the situation. Today, I asked the woman if the man was in jail. "No," she said. "I didn't let him catch me or I would have been dead. The cops said I had to have bruises. They had no evidence to hold him."

This incident only confirms what we hate to admit: It truly is open season on women in Honolulu. When they are preyed upon, nothing is done until their predators are tried for murder.

How many bloody female bodies have to pile up before a woman's voice, indicating peril in the night, is taken seriously?

Beverly Kai

Campaign funding reform
is not being taken seriously

The House Judiciary Committee's amendment to HB 140 relating to campaign loans is a travesty. The campaign loan is one of the most onerous loopholes in the state campaign finance statute today. Thousands of dollars have been contributed to candidates in the guise of so-called "loans" which are not being paid back.

This circumvention of campaign contribution limits by special interests and influence peddlers is not acceptable.

House Judiciary Chair Terrance Tom amended the Campaign Spending Commission's bill requiring unpaid loans to be considered as contributions on the day of the election, by requiring political candidates to repay loans with money in their campaign funds within five years.

Isn't this a way of opening the door to selling votes for dollars? Lenders, not voters, may be the ones who will influence elections. This charade on the voters must be stopped.

Arlene Kim Ellis
Chairwoman, Legislative Committee
League of Women Voters of Hawaii

Sunny Hawaii needs more
bike routes, solar panels

I find it surprising that the streets of Honolulu have few bike routes. Our weather is ideal for this efficient mode of transportation, yet cyclists have to put their lives on the line to pedal alongside motorists who seem keen on burning overpriced gasoline to produce nitrogen dioxide and a host of other byproducts.

The under-use of solar power in one of America's sunniest cities is also astonishing. There are dozens of buildings on Waikiki's skyline that expose all sorts of surface area to the sun all day, but which have no panels to convert heat and light into energy.

I guess we'll have to wait a few hundred years for some rational behavior out of our citizens.

Enrico Uva

(Via the Internet)

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