Illegal signs won't lift candidate's standing
I appreciate having a wide field of candidates to choose from for the '08 presidential race. I know that the candidates have to work hard to get their names out in the public and let people know who they are and what they stand for.
What I don't appreciate is the illegally placed Ron Paul campaign signs that seem to have popped up all over the island recently. In case you haven't noticed, they are in the road medians, at intersections and even hanging off overpasses.
If this is what Ron Paul stands for -- taking illegal shortcuts for some quick name ID -- he's lost my interest already.
Phil Klein
Mililani
Send ugly inmates to mainland prisons
In light of Maui building a new jail, I have to ask a question. Why is a prison such a bad idea in Hawaii? NIMBY is the usual answer.
Why not divide the Hawaii prison population into the good, the bad and the ugly? Send the ugly to the mainland prisons. Always leave that card on the table. Take the remaining akamai inmates and house them in high-rise detention centers like the federal one at the Honolulu airport.
In fact, take that same design and just replicate it at the old Barber's Point Air Station and elsewhere. Build the same design over and over to simplify and economize. It's a small foot print with great potential. Deliver the problem/dangerous inmates to the mainland, the ones who don't appreciate being close to home with visitors and ohana near by.
Don Behling
Hawaii and Baltimore, Md.
Traffic engineers play with pedestrians' lives
While I agree with Ken Chang (
Letters, July 10) that the fault lies with drivers, he misses an important point. The system is flawed. It is rigged in favor of drivers. It is designed by traffic engineers, whose mandate is to move vehicles.
At the July 5 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, city traffic engineers had no aloha for pedestrians who are blocked by vehicles in the crosswalk and/or running red lights and must wait another cycle before crossing the street; who claim the "don't walk" flashing hand comes on after three seconds, leaving them no time to step off the curb; who can't reach the pedestrian-activated button because a crowd waiting to cross is blocking the button; or that the buttons are broken. They say we risk getting a jaywalking ticket if we step off the curb when the red hand is flashing -- that we should wait it out.
Solutions include removing traffic engineers from decision making, banning turns on red lights, instituting the Barnes Dance (where all traffic is stopped and pedestrians can cross in any direction) at all intersections and removing all pedestrian-activated signals.
Lynne Matusow
Honolulu
If surge goal is to kill more, it's working
Recently, when Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham returned from his whirlwind tour of Iraq, he announced that "The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations."
The events in that country today (July 7) demonstrate how amazingly accurate Graham's report is. Eight of our troops died, while 257 Iraqis were killed and hundreds more were wounded.
With this month's Iraqi and American casualty rate now even higher than last month, we have proof positive that the surge is working, that we are accomplishing our mission, that the insurgents are getting desperate, and that President Bush's and Graham's expectations are being more than met.
John A. Broussard
Kamuela, Hawaii
Community group takes bulky items
I would like to thank the members of KEY Project and those in the community who were gracious and responsible enough to remove the accumulated items in front of the housing units at the bottom of Ahuimanu Road. I have called the Environmental Concern Line, Bulky Item Pickup Line and Kapaa Station repeatedly to try to have the items that are routinely dumped there removed. Although the pickup is supposed to occur on the first Monday of the month, it has not happened since May, when only some of the items were removed. I was told on my last call that the items would be picked up on July 2. They were not.
I mentioned this to a friend, who put me in contact with Sen. Clayton Hee. Within a day he had contacted the volunteers working the Community Clean Up for Kahaluu. The items were removed on Saturday.
I want to thank everyone involved for taking the time and effort to care for the aina. Your efforts are appreciated!
Lisa Schofield
Kaneohe