Don't get loony about cartoon violence

Regarding the concern for increased violence in kid cartoons ("G Whiz! Today's children's films, Even the G-rated ones, have more violence," Star-Bulletin, Nov. 2): When was the last time anyone watched Tom and Jerry? Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner? Sylvester and Tweety? As for sexual references, when's the last time someone watched Pepe Le Pew chasing around that cat? Adult humor? Just check Bugs Bunny. Nothing's changed, folks.

Truth of old wisdom is in your smile

My hat's off to Gayle Nakama for her Oct. 27 letter to the editor suggesting that we lighten up and laugh a little. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said that people wind up being about as happy as they decide to be. True wisdom passes the test of time.

Smelly chemicals cause health problems

The award to North Hawaii Community Hospital was for the hospital's Hawaii Heart Brain Center ("Big Island hospital wins national health award," Star-Bulletin, Oct. 29). The Heart Brain Center was established to respond to the Big Island's stroke and cardiovascular death rate -- the highest in the state.

A recent report was issued about the increased risk of heart disease and stroke from air pollution. If one chooses to live on the Big Island there might be no escape from the vog, but one can escape from many other air pollutants. The perfume in doctors' offices, hospitals, community centers, libraries, schools, health food stores, and stores with open doors pouring out perfume and incense are all causes of air pollution -- and, unlike the vog, can be easily eliminated. Perfume, room fresheners, bathroom deodorizers and scented candles are some of the items that contain chemicals that are deadly to a sensitive person and over a period of time might do harm to the cardiovascular system.

There are many Web pages about dangerous chemicals in perfumes and other items that are used in the United States, and there are millions of pages about chemical sensitivity. Some are kookie, but most are not. And there are a million and a half pages about air pollution causing strokes and heart attacks.

Honolulu bike paths are poorly designed

On Oct. 24, a bicyclist was killed by a hit-and-run driver in the bike lane on Nimitz Highway, about 600 feet west of Pacific Street. Nimitz is the scariest so-called bike path in existence!

My questions are:

» How come the Nimitz bike path is half the width of the bike path on Sand Island Road?

» How come it narrows and turns into a gutter at the scene of the accident?

» Why is there no gutter and a bicyclist must ride on the muddy grass at the Sand Island Road intersection?

» Why aren't there road bumps or some other barrier other than four inches of air between a bicyclist and a car's side mirror?

Honolulu is the worst town in the nation regarding pedestrian and bike courtesy. My only hope is that the movers and shakers go take a bike ride around Honolulu to see just how awful it is. Take a tip from Boulder, Colo., and when making bike paths have them go under the intersection so that cars making left turns will quit using me as a human pylon -- as if barrel racing in a rodeo!

Golf courses shouldn't use up all the water

There is a serious disconnect when the Board of Water Supply exhorts us to save water, and the Water Commission sells this precious resource off to the highest bidder -- Gentry's Waiawa Development, in this case (Star-Bulletin, Oct. 26). Waiawa Development has been given permission to use 1 million gallons a day for two residential golf courses (the average U.S. household of four people uses 243 gallons a day). Kamehameha Schools, landlord of the property, is part of this golf course plan.

Gentry has already stated that 10,000 to 12,000 homes would be built whether or not they had water permits for the golf courses. If they had been denied permits until after a gray water system is in place, you can bet that Gentry would provide some muscle to get the gray water process rolling as quickly as possible in central Oahu, a system that is long past due islandwide.

If the government can't plan for the heath and availability of precious drinking water in our islands, who in the world is supposed to?

Why do lawmakers deserve convenience?

How convenient. The people who wrote the absurd bottle bill law now have a reverse vending machine in the Capitol building ("Capitol equipped to recycle," Star-Bulletin, Nov. 3). The legislators have once again proven they are out of touch with the general public.

If they want to recycle, why don't they have to put up with the intolerable conditions the rest of us have to go through? They should have to wait until the recycling center decides to open, wait while they change the full truck for an empty one, wait while the two people at the center close down an hour for lunch, wait while some guy in front of you drops off 50 pounds of cans ... wait, wait, wait.

Are the legislators telling us that their time is so precious that they can't afford to endure their laws like we do? If they would occasionally come out of their ivory towers and observe how the common folks have to sort out their ill-conceived laws, they might think twice before passing them.

Feral chickens aren't Asian flu threat

I read with dismay the Nov. 2 letter to the editor that suggested killing off all feral chickens as a precaution against the bird flu virus. Why stop there? Why don't we kill off our entire wild bird population, then execute all the pet birds?

A much more effective solution would be to stop at our borders all birds from entering Hawaii, be they game cocks, killed meat or anything else. We also need intensive screening of all people entering from other places, particularly Asia.

The likelihood of this virus being brought in by people and shipped birds and bird products is much greater than a scenario where infected birds migrate here and start hanging out with the local chicken population.

Be nice to turkeys this Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving celebration doesn't have to include turkey. Take pleasure in a healthy feast that won't contribute to animal cruelty.

On turkey factory farms, birds are forced to stand jammed together in their own filthy litter, breathing ammonia fumes. They develop respiratory diseases, foot ulcers, breast blisters and ammonia-burned eyes. They are dosed with drugs and antibiotics to prop them up until marketing time. To combat stress-induced aggression caused by overcrowding, factory-farmed turkeys are brutally debeaked.

It is time to rethink the old habit of eating a dead bird for Thanksgiving. Check out Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project at www.AdoptATurkey.org.

Gay rights aren't the same as civil rights

Eduardo Hernandez (Letters, Nov. 2) uses the recent death of civil rights heroine Rosa Parks to advance his dream of wedding bells for gay couples in Hawaii.

Rosa Parks lived in a time of extreme segregation in the South, when a black woman would not have had the right to eat in a restaurant, go to school or even stay in the same hotel as whites. She has taken her rightful place in American history for refusing to sit at the back of the bus and helped to win a great battle for equality and human dignity for all Americans.

Gays face no discrimination in modern-day America. Hernandez' attempt to equate the bona fide civil rights movement of Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the misguided "gay liberation" campaign is an insult to every person of color who has ever experienced discrimination.

HHSAA teams deserve new tourney formula

Regarding "State's top 2 teams tangle for ILH title" (Star-Bulletin, Nov.1), I think the Hawaii High School Athletic Association needs to rethink the distribution of berths each league gets. According to the HHSAA, the number of berths a league receives is a result of a formula that is a "play with numbers" that puts small leagues (like the Interscholastic League of Honolulu) at a disadvantage. The ILH is given only two berths in the Division I state high school volleyball tournament. However, because the Oahu Interscholastic Association has so many members and participating schools, it is given six berths. Look at the Star-Bulletin's Top 10 -- Punahou is No. 5 in the state, but is not going to the tournament.

If a state tournament is supposed to be the "best of the best," then a new formula must be developed so all teams that have proved their success over the season are allotted a berth into the state tournament, not "given" a berth because of a numbers game.