Congress should act to reduce oil prices
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent the members of Congress on a five-week break without allowing a vote on an energy bill that could have lowered fuel prices for every driver in America.
Apparently, to her it doesn't matter if the people that she represents are suffering from record high gasoline prices.
Pelosi and some of her fellow members of Congress remind me of high school students who choose to ride their skateboards and play computer games instead of doing their homework. The difference is we have elected and paid these lawmakers to serve us.
If you don't agree with her actions, you can sign a petition to demand that Congress lift its ban on offshore drilling at Grassfire.org and you can call her office at 202-224-3121 or 415-556-4862 (San Francisco office).
James Lee
Kapolei
Clay's behavior raises some questions
I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it, but I'm confused by some of gold medalist Bryan Clay's choices.
The Castle High graduate listed himself as representing California in the Olympics while being honored as a Hawaii hometown hero.
He chose to speak at the Republican National Convention and express his strong support of Sen. John McCain while becoming an all-American Wheaties face and getting bipartisan accolades from our largely Democratic state, plus elsewhere.
And unlike biracial Barack Obama and Tiger Woods, who never fail to acknowledge their black fathers, he shows no identification with African-Americans or other vulnerable minorities. It will be interesting to see how this works for him.
Faye Kennedy
Honolulu
Make road crews smooth out bumps
The roads are a mess with potholes and bumps. The city and state road maintenance crews think they are taking care of the complaints, but they just throw the gravel down and pat them down and don't even level them. They fill the holes but they make a lot of bumps and waste time, money and motion. The supervisors and workers drive over the same bumps, so how come they are blind to the mess they made?
In Aina Haina, they finally paved Hind Drive but a utility company dug up a strip across the newly paved road and didn't do a good job of patching it and spoiled the smooth drive. Here the road maintenance department is not enforcing strict rules.
Instead of spending tons of money on the train just to go from here to there, please fix our roads.
Loretta Fukumoto
Honolulu
Trams, bigger buses could ease traffic
There is something illogical about the pro-rail decision. If people on West Oahu are willing to wait for 10 or more years for their traffic congestion problem to be solved, and choose not to do anything to ease the long hours of commuting - and to save tens of thousands of dollars in gas money - perhaps the traffic problem is not as urgent and intolerable as they claim. Bus rapid transit trams and double-decked buses can be quick solutions for the traffic problem. Since there is no massive construction cost involved, bus rapid transit can be established quickly, and costs much less than the rail system. Trams use electricity and are environmentally friendly. Double-decked buses provide a better view of the city, and are beneficial for the tourist industry.
Some cities in California are planning to incorporate bus rapid transit into their mass transit systems. Hong Kong has been successfully using trams and double-decked buses to transport millions of people for decades. Should we not seriously consider those transportation alternatives?
Cecilia Graybeal
Honolulu
McCain's treated his first wife badly
I am one of the older women who wanted Hillary Clinton to be president. I now support Barack Obama.
Policy is what is important, and John McCain's policies are a George W. Bush repeat. How many trillions is our nation in debt after eight years of George? How much do we owe China? How much have our schools and medical insurance and jobs and homes and veterans suffered under Bush, while Halliburton and Big Oil show record profits?
As an older woman and ex-wife, I balance McCain's five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war with the experience of his first wife, Carol. She was a beautiful model with two young children when they married. He adopted her children, they had another, then he went off to war in 1966. Even then he was known as a party boy and woman-chaser.
While he was a POW, she looked after the kids. In 1969 was in a terrible car accident, necessitating 23 operations and a long time in a wheelchair. She gained weight, too, from inactivity. She would not let the Navy tell McCain she was hurt for fear it would add to his troubles.
When he returned in 1973, she was no longer the beautiful model he married. Soon he was again partying and chasing women. When he was 43, he caught one: a very beautiful 25-year-old, very rich, with a father influential in politics. They had an affair. In 1980 he got a divorce from Carol, and one month later married Cindy. Her father and her money financed his first venture into politics. Her money is what gives them so many houses he can't remember them. Her money is what connected him to the Keating Five disaster.
Policy is crucial, but how a man treats his wife also matters to me. I could never vote for McCain.
Sally Raisbeck
Wailuku, Maui