Varsity was great place for college classes
Your piece
Saturday on the closing of the Varsity Twin Cinema (nee Varsity Theater) evoked memories for me of the 1972-1973 school year, when I was a young graduate student at the University of Hawaii.
I was a teaching assistant in the history department and worked with professor John Stalker in the World Civilizations program, also known as History 151 & 152, a required course for graduation. Due to the large number of students needing to take the courses, the Varsity Theater was used as a lecture hall and Professor Stalker's renowned stage presence was seen at its best! We must have had around 900 students at a time, the theater being still one auditorium -- and, of course, the concession stand was open for business.
"Would you care for some popcorn and soda with your Greek philosophy?"
Roger Tansley
Lanikai
Health ad campaign ignores real threat
How much money and time has the Department of Health spent on its "educational" campaign preparing me for a flu epidemic by telling me to cough into my arm, stay home if I am sick and stockpile supplies? What it has failed to do is educate me on how to protect myself from the large number of unsanitary poultry housed by my neighbors in our residential area.
Wouldn't it be more proactive to use this time (prior to an outbreak of bird flu) and resources in enforcing current laws and eradicating unsanitary poultry from my Kalihi neighborhood?
Cathleen Matsushima
Honolulu
Stop it with all those sirens in Waikiki
Every resident and tourist appreciates the fact that emergency services are available. But Saturday morning was out of control, with an incessant blaring of sirens from 7 a.m. to at least 10 a.m. You're telling me people were dropping like flies? Someone got seriously injured every 5 minutes? Maybe Godzilla came ashore? It sure sounded like it with all that noise going on.
Is there any discretion at all? It is seriously time to consider putting an emergency center in the center of Waikiki. This bookend stuff just doesn't make sense anymore. Modified mufflers on Harleys and mopeds, along with the EMS sirens are making it impossible to get a good night's sleep in Waikiki.
Why can't I hire a band to play on the corner of Ala Moana and Kalakaua Avenue at 2 a.m.? It's just as loud as this other stuff that's not being addressed. Noise for the sake of noise is getting out of control. Not just in Waikiki, but everywhere. Whoever represents Waikiki better address this issue, now!
Johnny Miro
Honolulu
President unfair to immigration opponents
President Bush is again showing his willingness to trade old Americans for new illegal immigrants. No matter how you spin it "we the people" are the ones to lose in this trade. We lose in the downgrading of the worth of American citizenship; we lose in the tax dollars we will pay, now and in the future; we lose in the congestion of our highways, the crowding of our parks, the land developed, the emergency rooms closed, our crowded schools where English-speaking children are neglected because of the overwhelming number of Spanish-speaking children.
We have a president who calls us un-American and has his cronies say unkind things about people who are against his immigration reform bill, who disregards the millions of people who love America and want to be able to see some semblance of that America in the future. Are we to allow him to just ride roughshod over anyone in his way?
Sandra Gray
Kapaau, Hawaii
Buses could be better, cheaper than rail
According to
yesterday's article "Rail study to review Salt Lake, airport lines," a report stated that "an elevated bus guideway would be more costly than rail and have more adverse impacts because it would need a massive, wider infrastructure to accommodate passing buses and more on- and offramps." This is not necessarily true. The elevated guideway, if used exclusively for articulated express buses, would not be much wider than that of a two-way rail guideway.
As for the on- and offramps, you wouldn't need them if the buses stay on the fixed guideways. This would require two systems of buses. The guided buses would transit the guideway from point A to point B, then turn around. A ground-based system of buses would shuttle riders from neighboring communities to stations along the guideway.
I would be interested in seeing how the construction cost of the rail system would compare to a bus guideway system. It would seem the bus guideway would be less expensive and easier to maintain as it would not require special equipment and technology and specialists to maintain.
Steven S. Fukunaga
Mililani