Police aren't untangling
convention center snarl

The time is now for neighbors of the convention center to begin saying, "We told you so!" The traffic around the center is just horrendous, for both vehicles and pedestrians.

We all recall hearing at a public hearing that there would be a traffic light at the corner of Atkinson and Kahakai by Christmas (silly us, we thought they meant last Christmas).

To date, that traffic light has not even been started. Plus, numerous requests to have the police officers on duty help motorists get into and out of traffic have been to no avail.

HPD has evidently been hired to take care of convention center traffic only, and the public be damned!

Nora Boone

Translation services could be
idea for new industry

Much has been said and written about Hawaii and its economic system. Many have bemoaned the peculiar animosity which citizens have toward business. Every year, for decades, business has complained about the anti-business climate.

But Hawaii has a particularly powerful role to play -- not so much as a trade hub but as an information hub. Having returned from a trip to the Far East, I was stunned by the volumes of material in English and other languages which are still not available to one another via translation.

Given our kaleidoscope of cultures, we should be able to translate these documents. This could be a whole department at the University of Hawaii.

The focus would be on practical issues, such as studies of health issues in China and the possible research we might engage in here to solve someone's problem there. After all, isn't that what America and entrepreneurial skill are all about?

Instead of grimacing about the problems here at home, we might consider the opportunities elsewhere in Asia for those who dare.

Rick Tsujimura

Sugar cane burning
makes life intolerable

It is bright and early on a beautiful morning. Yet how many woke up in Kihei with burning, irritated eyes? How many went to bed last night with dry, burning sinuses, and wondered if perhaps you were coming down with something?

The cane smoke begins subtly. At first, you think a neighbor is having a barbecue until the smell becomes stronger, and you suddenly feel tired, lethargic.

Where else in the United States does a company say "sorry for the inconvenience" or an elected representative like state Sen. Avery Chumbly get away with stating "if you don't like it, move," while blatantly polluting the air?

How did an entire community become convinced that any change to this industry would result in job loss? That we have no choice but to breathe noxious, toxic air?

In other countries where sugar cane is grown, harvesting has been changed with no job loss. And these countries are overtaking Hawaii's share of the sugar market.

Life is full of mysteries, and I suppose this is one of them.

Kate Burrows
Kihei, Maui

To thwart more robberies,
bank on these two new ideas

Notice how bank robberies have been relegated to a newspaper inch or half-a-minute on the TV news? I have a solution that will return bank robberies to prominence. Make it tougher to rob banks and get away with it. It's a two-part solution:

1) Make banks responsible for reimbursing the money that is stolen, not the federal government. Then the banks will do everything they can to prevent robberies.

2) Plant a color digital camera right next to each teller. Why are banks still living in the stone age, using black-and-white cameras that invariably produce grainy images? And why are these cameras placed at an angle designed to produce unreadable images? Digital cameras will provide vastly better pictures.

James Ko
(Via the Internet)

It's accurate to say
Lenin rests in supine position

The June 10 Star-Bulletin included an editorial titled "Lenin's tomb," which included an indication that Lenin's body "has lain prone in public view."

I believe you meant to say that the body has lain supine. This is the normal position in which bodies are placed for viewing.

If it were in the prone position, it would be extremely awkward to see the face of the deceased without twisting the body into a very unnatural position.

Louis H. Trigg
Pearl City

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