Dems getting back at voters for Lingle
Here in Hawaii, we have:
» a tax on a container deposit of 20 percent (we pay 6 cents but get only 5 cents back)
» a gas cap that averages the price from three of the highest gas areas in the United States, and
» a Democratic Party that is so incensed with the citizenry for voting Governor Lingle into office that it punishes the citizenry for voting for her.
It's time for us to change the agenda and get these carpetbagging scalawags out of office and let Lingle run this state.
Stewart Chun
Mililani
City does support recycling efforts
Your
Oct. 23 editorial, "City should not dump recycling plan," was off base. We are not abandoning curbside recycling. As we announced, we are only canceling the plan for which bids were solicited in May. Your statement that recycling companies "are eager to pay the city for refuse" was inaccurate. Only one of the three bids proposed to pay the city for the curbside recycling contract, and that bid is being challenged. Pursuing that plan and resolving the bid protest would delay larger-scale recycling for months.
We already recycle more than one-third of Oahu's trash, by burning it to produce electricity at the H-POWER facility. Through recycling programs ranging from tires to curbside bulky item pickup, we recycle an additional third.
We agree that more can and should be done to recycle. That's why we will expand school and community recycling sites and look toward expanding curbside recycling of green waste and, perhaps, paper products.
As you noted, beverage containers make up a small portion of the recyclable waste generated on Oahu. Green waste makes up a much larger share of the refuse stream, about 12.5 percent. Expanding green waste recycling now, rather than waiting for resolution of legal battles over a contract that would remove less than 2 percent of the municipal refuse generated on Oahu each year, would make the most efficient use of our limited resources.
Eric S. Takamura
City director of Environmental Services
Homecoming show was entertaining
I realize that the quality of a halftime show at Warrior football games is a subjective issue, but my wife and I, who have been watching University of Hawaii football at Aloha Stadium for 25 years, thought that the homecoming show was one of the best we'd seen in a long time. I agree with the Figels in their
Oct. 27 letter that the mock football game between corporate mascots was "silly," but wasn't that the point?
The Figels must have been out of their seats for the main part of the show for they would have seen an outstanding tribute to the movie industry by the band and students which culminated in athletic director Herman Frasier, no less, in costume, slaying Darth Vader at the climax of what was a highly entertaining spectacle from all participants. As "silly" as the battling mascots were, the crowd seemed to enjoy their antics tremendously and applauded loudly. And it probably paid a few bills, which is not a bad thing.
Good job, UH. Go 'Bows, Warriors or whatever name you prefer for the home team!
David Wilson
Kailua
Ignorance allows evil to reign over America
As the years dwindle down to my 82nd birthday, I find myself profoundly saddened and smoldering with resentment at the pack of jackals who are systematically, and perhaps irreversibly, destroying my beloved country, mankind's finest experiment in government to date. President Eisenhower's warning of the perils of power in the hands of the military-industrial complex is realized by Vice President Tricky Dick Halliburton, Prince of the CEOs, who calls all the shots for the administration and by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps the only human evil enough to make Saddam Hussein by comparison eligible for sainthood.
The fraternity president in the White House is content to strut, posture and smirk at center stage, living proof that intelligence is not a prerequisite to prominence in today's world. The Machiavellian Karl Rove continues to keep the jackal pack in power by manipulating that ultimate villain, the majority of the American electorate. The only book this group opens is a collection of handed-down myths they call the Holy Babble. Because they are incapable of deciphering anything polysyllabic, this book is interpreted for them by the likes of Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker.
Democracy demands an enlightened electorate, and enlightenment is a scarce commodity in a society dominated by man's most pernicious form of mental illness: religion.
John H. Cort
Pahoa, Hawaii
Bail set too low for airport suspect
Bail set for the man suspected of driving his car into an International Airport terminal was $975 (
Star-Bulletin, Oct. 25)? Are the courts and judges kidding?
I don't care if this guy's on marijuana, ice, heroin or all three, he should be thrown in jail until the hearing. Then $1 million bail. Driving your car into an airport? This idiot jeopardized the entire island, and I don't care what his issues are.
And look at the DUI penalties, typically $295. In California, it's $1,500. Hawaii is America, right?
Either build more prisons, or ship these people off to Rikers, Folsum, Alcatraz or Detroit.
Either way, they can contemplate their lawlessness and become more productive citizens. Obviously, they've thrown away their privileges in reality.
Paul D'Argent
Lahaina, Maui