Brainstorm! Challenge

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TheBus has outlived its usefulness

Neither the TheBus company's employees nor its managers are to blame for the recent bus fiasco. Neither group held an unreasonable position: Employees had legitimate concerns over compensation and work conditions, while management fulfilled its obligation to protect the bottom line.

Rather, this crisis was an incontrovertible demonstration of the fact that TheBus is no longer a financially viable mass transit model for Oahu. Mass transit must be just that -- a transportation system with a ridership sufficient to provide operational revenue, and that means a rail- or dedicated lane-based system.

So yet again, the blame for the present debacle rests squarely on our own elected officials who have, going on two generations now, chosen air-polluting traffic and scenery-defacing sprawl over intelligent urban development.

Dylan J. Williams
Honolulu/Washington, D.C.

Car inspections should include exhaust levels

As I was sitting at a red light Thursday, choking on the fumes from the vehicle next to me, I wondered: Are there any air-quality and pollution laws here that are enforced? Or do we just hope for strong tradewinds everyday to sweep the fumes out to sea?

How about if we add to the two-minute yearly vehicle safety inspection and start testing exhaust levels also? There are a lot of vehicles on the streets these days that have no business being there.

Danny Barlow
Waipahu

Entire island of Oahu is a dumping ground

Efforts to keep illegal dumping off Kapaa Quarry Road should be commended and violators prosecuted (Star-Bulletin, Oct. 2). This said, why should that desolate stretch of Windward real estate command such ecolo-outcry when all of Oahu is subjected to far more visible environmental abuse?

Discarded batteries leak acid into the water supply, busted refrigerators and air-conditioners turn our neighborhoods into planet PCB from Kaneohe to Waikiki and beyond.

J.P. Muntal
Kaneohe

Put lower-paid workers in some police jobs

There is a way to raise the pay of police officers without increasing taxes. The solution is simple: You reduce the payroll by 4 percent in each year of the contract by reducing administrative personnel. A good example would be eliminating police officers in the records department. They can be replaced with more friendly and lower-paid civil servants.

The police officers there have an attitude problem. I have had better treatment by police and state security in Communist China. The elimination of those positions will improve services and reduce payroll costs.

Myles H. Shinsato
Honolulu

We made Iraqi mess; we should clean it up

Before the Iraq war, we snubbed our allies who asked for more time for weapons inspectors. The United States invaded without U.N. Security Council approval, and then found no weapons of mass destruction.

Now the president refuses to admit his mistake and still expects other countries to help us in Iraq. It's the American taxpayer who is bearing the brunt of this mistake as critical human needs such as education and jobs are being shortchanged to pay for Bush's quagmire.

We are responsible for the current mess and should help clean it up. But Congress should only give the Pentagon its war chest when the administration presents a specific, viable plan for authority transfer in Iraq to the U.N. and Iraqi people, allowing America's burden to be shared. Otherwise, we'll just keep footing the bill.

Douglas Kouka Allen
Waianae

Aloha fueled effort to save marriage

Regarding the hateful comments by homosexual activist Martin Rice (Letters, Sept. 30) directed toward City Councilman Mike Gabbard: I have spoken with Gabbard many times, and found him to be one of the kindest, most gentle people that I have ever met.

He is a true embodiment of the aloha spirit. Unfortunately, pro-homosexual activists are under the erroneous impression that if a person has true aloha spirit that they will be cowardly and afraid to stand up for what they know is right. Gabbard, a leader of the Save Tradition Marriage campaign, and the majority of voters stood up out of the aloha spirit to protect traditional marriage and families and no amount of hateful comments directed toward these people can change this truth.

Personal attacks and character assassination are the only tools that homosexual extremists have left since few people are swayed by their arguments and propaganda.

Kay Gleason
Kailua

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[ BRAINSTORM! ] What can be done to disguise or beautify those hulking steel utility boxes found in parks and other locations around town? Send your ideas, drawings and solutions by Wednesday, Oct. 15 to: brainstorm@starbulletin.com Or mail them to: Brainstorm! c/o Burl Burlingame Star-Bulletin 500 Ala Moana 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210 Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 Fax: Brainstorm! c/o Burl Burlingame 529-4750