Leeward commuters are desperate for rail
Some of the anti-transit system sentiment seems to come from residents who live on the Windward side of the island or East Honolulu. They object to spending their tax dollars on rail transit because they think they may never use it. They want the voters to decide.
Well, no one gave me the chance to vote on spending my tax dollars on H-3 or improvements to Likelike and Pali Highways, which I rarely use. And we didn't get to vote on widening Kalanianaole Highway either.
Let me educate them what it's like to commute to work every day from the Leeward side: We have to get up at dawn, then fight traffic for an hour or more to town, work the entire day, then drive back in bumper-to-bumper cars.
Rail will bring a welcomed traffic relief to our community, and options to get to and from town that don't exist today. Let's do what's best for the entire island. Let's move forward with rail before it's too late.
Antoinette Dubey
Ewa Beach
Beck should think of switching networks
I particularly enjoyed
Corky's Oct. 24 cartoon satirizing Glenn Beck, CNN's talking head, although it might be the other end. Among his other biases, he cannot say enough bad about Hillary and Bill Clinton. President Bush's ruination of our credit rating, currency and world standing never merited a peep of disapproval.
Per Beck, Hillary isn't as good a general as David Petraeus. I doubt it too, but that's not the job she's running for. Obviously Bush's "weapons of mass destruction" was a real triumph of generalship.
Bill Clinton left a surplus, a good reputation with foreign governments and avoided entanglements we cannot win. I think Hillary can, too!
Who listens to CNN's Beck anymore? I shut it off whenever he appears. He must be trying for a job on Fox.
Warren Robens
Waikiki
Ferry should unite isles, not divide them
We watched with horror and shame as the few among us dared to speak for the "people" while shouting obscenities, deflating tires, pounding vulgarly on vehicles, obstructing traffic and intimidating others (
"Protesters' flotilla halts vessel of Nawiliwili," Star-Bulletin, Aug. 28). Those who have treated others so reprehensibly have forfeited their credibility and do not come before their fellow citizens with clean hands.
We know that there are many ways our beloved Hawaii is different from our sister states. One incontrovertible difference is our island geography. Commerce and communion among our people currently hang on the wings of financially weak commercial airlines at war with each other. It would be irresponsible to deprive the people of Hawaii an alternative mode of travel that is so in keeping with who we are as an island state.
Indeed, it is beyond belief that the people of Hawaii do not already have a fast, comfortable and safe mode of travel over our natural waterways, for the very ocean that has divided our people is the very thing that has always provided the means to unite us. The Superferry is long, long overdue.
Those who oppose the Superferry can fly, but give the rest of Hawaii a choice.
Nelson Chang
Kaneohe
It's wrong to exempt Superferry from law
I oppose exempting the Superferry from state environmental law. Undermining these laws for the sake of one corporation may be politically expedient and profitable, but it also undermines faith in the Legislature and ultimately the Superferry.
I do not believe there is any excuse for bulldozing through an exemption, and I would ask all public officials who have received contributions from the Superferry corporation to recuse themselves from relevant proceedings.
I am not opposed to the Superferry, but with the way the operators believe they are above the law. Neighbor islanders will bear most of the impacts from this project, and writing a special exemption without full public review will stir protest and resentment once the impacts begin to be felt.
Kanoa Kimball
Holualoa, Hawaii
Neighbor islanders can't stop progress
I don't know what the beef is about the Superferry. The environmental arguments seems extremely flimsy. Some say it's really about Kauai and Maui being anti-development, tired of more tourists and especially fearful of Oahu cars suddenly filling their beach parking lots.
I say grow up. Change happens. If you drive out to the North Shore of Oahu on a weekend, there is hardly any traffic. On a weekend, you make do. The beach is still pretty.
Some neighbor islanders think Oahu is ruined. My daughter does. She moved to Pahoa. But I think Oahu is beautiful. Just a lot more cars.
I lived on Kauai three years. The problem is that the Kauaians can't grow up and put a second lane both ways from Kapaa to Poipu. Bite the bullet, it's going to happen. The world's not going to stop because you have a pretty island and you want to keep it that way.
I had to leave Kauai because I couldn't make a living there. Trying to stop progress puts the brakes on economic development, too.
It's my guess that the roads and lots of the improvements on Kauai were paid for by state or federal dollars. So, it's not just yours, neighbor islanders. It's ours, too. Go Superferry.
Alvin Koo
Honolulu
Deployments don't put states in harm's way
In response to Michael Rivero letter,
"Guard's Iraq tour makes isles vulnerable," (Star-Bulletin, Oct. 25): Rivero can't be serious to blame the wildfires in California on President Bush!
Rivero claims that heavy equipment from the California National Guard was sent to Iraq, thus leaving California vulnerable. With the planned deployment of the Hawaii Army Guard, Rivero seems to think that our state will now be vulnerable.
Let's get a few facts straight: The California Guard may be deployed, but there are plenty of military resources available to help with the fires. The Marines, Air Force and Navy are all stationed within a few hundred miles of the fire.
If a disaster should strike the islands, having the Army Guard deployed would have little impact on the readiness of this state for the same reasons. Hawaii has plenty of active duty military personnel and equipment along with the Hawaii Air National Guard that would be able to provide assistance. Hawaii is not any more open for natural disaster with or without President Bush in office.
Eric R. Daido
Mililani