Letters to the
Editor

Write a Letter to the Editor

Monday, April 13, 1998

McKinley High will see the light, thanks to many

We would like to thank City Councilman Andy Mirikitani, Mayor Jeremy Harris and the Department of Transportation Services for their work and initiative in securing the greatly needed new pedestrian activated traffic signal to be installed for McKinley High School on King Street.

Once in place, this school traffic safety improvement will help to protect the safety of our young students, as well as the families and senior citizens living in the McKinley community.

A real mahalo for their quick action in preventing another dangerous accident in the future.

Jim Koshi
McKinley High School
Parent Teacher Student Association

Global oil shocks will destroy nation

While the mainstream media is totally preoccupied with whether or not Bill did it with Monica, Americans are about to be blindsided by a global nightmare that will change their lives forever.

Around the year 2005, a unique event will occur: We will enter a new era of permanent resource scarcity as global oil production "peaks" and begins its inevitable and permanent decline.

Oil prices could quickly triple, sending shocks blasting through the global economy. Oil is used directly or indirectly in the manufacture of everything, so prices for all manufactured goods and food products will leap and American families will be flattened!

Although we have the best politicians money can buy, it's far too late to begin their education now. There is really nothing we can do to protect our families other than by becoming informed and networking with others.

See www.dieoff.org for a peek at your future. Then become close friends with your neighbors -- because you're going to need all the help you can get just to survive.

Jay Hanson
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Pearl Harbor could be a great gathering place

Hasn't anyone noticed that Pearl Harbor is prime anchorage in the center of the planet's largest ocean? It has top-notch facilities and easy access to Hawaii's world-class city.

Until now, it has been the unchallenged domain of the U.S. Navy, a good tenant, no doubt, but perhaps not the only one this fine harbor might accommodate. In fact, Pearl Harbor is the perfect location for a proposed organization that concerns itself with the use and misuse of our oceans.

For such an international body -- a United Nations of the Oceans, if you will -- admirals from every country could be invited to take residence here. In addition, representatives from the international shipping, fishing and cruise line industries could join in to map out our future use of the world's shared resource.

Not a symposium, mind you, but an ongoing concern -- a center for discussion, research and action as it applies to international waters in the present.

The world has long needed an organization such as this to coordinate the use of our oceans which, after all, conduct 90 percent of our commerce and provide more than 50 percent of the world's food.

This international, nonpolitical body would answer questions on how to keep peace on the high seas, how to best maintain the oceans' fragile ecology, how to protect fisheries and regulate their use, and so on.

What the United Nations is to land, this new body could be to the oceans.

Paula Walashek

Nobel Lecture Series benefits from publicity

The start of the College of Arts and Sciences Nobel Lecture Series was a smashing success, due in large measure to the wonderful March 16 article that Helen Altonn wrote describing it.

We had approximately 350 people at Kennedy Theatre to hear Dr. Sherwood Rowland speak on "The Changing Chemistry of the Atmosphere in the 21st Century."

Altonn's interview with him, and her skill in writing the article, were significant in bringing many people to this event.

Chuck Hayes
Acting Dean
College of Arts and Sciences

University of Hawaii-Manoa

Don't bother prosecuting Ewa Villages' culprits

Regarding the Ewa Villages probe: A wrong was done; fortunately, it only involved several million dollars. Now, however, the real money is going to be spent trying to discover who was at fault, how much they took and what is a just punishment. This is going to do nothing but make a few attorneys wealthy.

In all probability, it will cost the taxpayers around $10 million to try the guilty, only to have them pay back a small percentage of what they've stolen. The punishment will be in the form of probation.

The only thing accomplished in the courts is that lawyers make money -- big money. The simple thing to do is to take the guilty and move them to a position that will have nothing to do with the appropriation of funds.

Firing them would bring the ACLU down on us and cost millions to fight. Taking them to court is more millions spent on lawyers.

Let's save taxpayer money and not pursue the wrongdoing at Ewa Villages. Just put the people who have profited from it in jobs that go nowhere.

Bruce Tetreault

Mistakes are being repeated with Kosovo

The U.S. and European Union evidently have not learned much from the devastating mistake they made in 1991, after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia, an artificial state with a Serb-run Communist dictatorship.

Instead of extending prompt recognition, they wavered, waffled and waited until Serbia felt emboldened to wage a full-scale war against the breakaway republics. The same thing happened in 1992 with Bosnia.

Now, in 1998, the same thing is happening with the Republic of Kosovo, where the majority Albanians are seeking to throw off the Serb yoke and establish independence.

The latest Serb massacre of 80 Albanian civilians, many of them women and children, will just be the prelude to another Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing and land acquisition if the West does not end its charades of helplessness, and stand up for the victims of genocide and aggression.

Oliver Schultz

---

Write a
Letter to the Editor

Want to write a letter to the editor? Let all Star-Bulletin readers know what you think. Please keep your letter to about 200 words. You can send it by e-mail to letters@starbulletin.com or you can fill in the online form for a faster response. Or print it and mail it to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or fax it to: 523-8509. Always be sure to include your daytime phone number.