Be a nice guy -- then whack 'em?
President Bush ordering his administration to take ethics classes is like John Gotti ordering his "crew" to take sensitivity training before they make the hit.
Paul D'Argent
Lahaina, Maui
Hawaii Kai residents, officials band together
Given the development climate of Hawaii Kai, I commend the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board for taking measures to preserve an important community resource and enhance the livability of East Honolulu. At the Oct. 25 neighborhood board meeting, the board reiterated its support for the East Honolulu Sustainable Communities Plan, which includes maintaining the current urban growth boundary and agriculture lands of Kamilonui Valley.
The plan explicitly states that future development is anticipated within the boundary only and not outside the urban growth boundary. The plan notes that Kamilonui Valley is a valuable resource, providing agriculture, watershed, open space and scenic vistas.
During the past year I have witnessed hundreds of East Oahu residents, respective area legislators and the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board unified on one issue: save Kamilonui Valley from development.
The beauty of Kamilonui Valley is not only what one sees, smells and hears when you visit, but the inspirational power it gives the community to band together to protect it.
Evangeline Yacuk
Honolulu
Hospital officials are mentally incompetent
Mental incompetence is defined as "lacking the necessary mental ability to make and carry out sane decisions". Mentally incompetent persons who are considered dangerous are eligible for confinement in the Hawaii State Hospital.
According to the Oct. 29 Star-Bulletin (Newswatch), Adonis Oandasan was judged to be dangerous after he allegedly slashed more than 40 tires in a shopping center parking lot on the Big Island.
He was sent to the Hawaii State Hospital on Oahu for confinement, taken off his medication by hospital authorities, considered by the police as "possibly violent," given a machete to do yard work, and successfully planned and effected an escape.
I'm wondering who fits the "mentally incompetent" definition better. Is it the inmate who planned his escape and carried it out? Or is it the state hospital personnel who took a potentially dangerous individual, took him off his medication and gave him a machete?
Stann W. Reiziss
Kailua
U.S. policy toward poor, elderly inhumane
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we need to think about what to do with the elderly, the disabled and the indigent population. I suggest that we start shipping them to the Arctic and setting them out in the cold to freeze.
I know it sounds farfetched, but just 50 years ago in Nazi Germany, 6 million undesirable people were put into gas chambers.
Either of these options would be more civilized and humane than what the U.S. government is doing right now. Yet another bill is "targeting key programs for budget cuts." On the block are health care, food stamps and welfare, among other things.
Yell, scream, shout at the top of your lungs, but most of all let your representatives know that if this happens they will lose your vote. Demand that all the tax cuts for the super rich be repealed before they start cutting the lifelines of the poor.
Ashley Winkler
Mililani
Crooks and con artists follow hurricane's path
Like most people, I was awed by the sights on television and in the written media of the gridlock of vehicles trying to escape north from the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. It reminded me of our own H-1 during rush hours. I also noted the cars headed in the opposite direction at a good pace. The question was, just who were these persons heading south into the lion's den?
I discussed this with my advisers (my barber, World War II buddies, my sagacious poodle). They advised me that those heading south were the usual shysters who always run to disasters, followed by con artists who come from everywhere, followed by fat-cat unqualified bureaucrats looking to sup at the public trough, and finally a luxury caboose to accommodate politicians seeking a TV sound bite by making the mandatory trek to observe the hoi polloi in the shelters and be photographed unloading a box or using a ladle in the serving line and a finale of holding a baby aloft.
Lucky we live in Hawaii, even with the old H-1.
Frank D. Slocum
Waianae