Postal workers serve with kindness

I have written to the Honolulu postmaster, but feel that recognition of good service with a fantastic attitude deserves more praise.

The Saratoga Street post office is the best post office I have been to in more than 60 years of visiting the guys and gals in blue. They could not be kinder there, to locals, to tourists and to those in need.

There is a young man there named Curtis. He is a postman and is part of the new program Click and Ship. You go into your computer and from there, can print your own postage and shipping labels and arrange a pickup of your package. Curtis has been to our place a couple of times now and he brings joy and an enormous smile to his work. He is a blessing to disabled persons like me, and the elderly who need additional help. With people like Curtis and the rest of the staff at Saratoga Street Post Office in Waikiki, the program cannot possibly fail.

Fix potholes or lower freeway speed limit

It was a dark and stormy night, as the traffic raced down the H-1 freeway. A motorist in car No. 1 swerved to miss a pothole, as did other vehicles to avoid car No. 1. Unfortunately cars collide, fire engulfs a vehicle, the ambulance rushes the injured to the hospital. Why? Because the state of Hawaii didn't repair a pothole!

For the state to allow motorists to race down the pothole-dotted, rain-slicked freeway at night is acting recklessly without reasonable caution and putting another person(s) at risk of injury or death. In lawyerspeak it's "criminal negligence."

If the state is going to allow motorists on the freeway with potholes so big they would take a legislator to fill one, the speed limit needs to be reduced to a level where these potholes can be negotiated without serious injury or loss of life.

In more than 50 years of driving Oahu's freeways I have never seen them in such poor condition as they are now. Shortly after Governor Lingle took office I noticed repaving of all the potholes on the roadway adjacent to (her family's ) Cutter Ford in Pearl City. Is this what Lingle meant by "New Beginning?"

Bush wants all keiki at same low level

A quick check of President Bush's budget shows how sincere he is in seeing to it that no child is left behind.

His cuts in food stamps, foster care, Head Start, nutrition and similar child-centered programs will help to reduce the health and education of all children to the same level.

Those who doubted Bush's sincerity when he said no child would be left behind will now have to admit they were wrong.

Now let's have an opposing view at UH

As a graduate of the University of Hawaii, I am appalled that the UH administration would allow Ward Churchill to speak under the guise of the First Amendment. If there is any truth to their defense of the First Amendment, then I would like UH to invite someone of an opposing view to speak; someone like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. Do you think that would happen in my lifetime?

Democrats try to grab control from Lingle

Sen. Sam Slom wrote a revealing, informative and clarion op-ed piece on Feb. 13 regarding the 40-year status quo, in-your-face Democratic Party that is presently trying to do an end run around Hawaii voters' wishes.

Voters rebelled against the unacceptable state of affairs in 2002 when they elected Linda Lingle to be the first Republican governor in 40 long years. Today, the Democratic leadership in the Legislature seeks to overstep its boundaries by weakening the executive branch.

The following bills would undercut the Lingle administration by:

» restraining funding to the Executive Branch (HB 1666)

» limiting the governor's power to make appointments (HB 3, SB 1257) and

» removing the governor's power to appoint the attorney general (SB 882, SB 1322)

When voters elected Lingle in 2002, they embraced her call for "A New Beginning." Today, the Democratic legislators are trying to shoot her down. The people of Hawaii cannot just sit back and allow this to happen.