How dumb do Democrats think the voters are?

The 1998 gubernatorial campaign continues to leech toxins into Hawaii's political environment. Now come charges by Republican National Committee Co-Chairperson Patricia Harrison that Hawaii's "Democratic machine" spread the word that, if Linda Lingle won, Christmas in Hawaii would be abolished (Star-Bulletin, Feb. 27).

Lingle abolished half-day holidays on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve for Maui County workers because it cost taxpayers too much! As a taxpayer, I applaud any governor or mayor who would abolish these unauthorized paid holidays for government workers.

How dumb does the Democrat machine think the voters are? It will protect its power base, even if it means lying to its own members and constituents. Remember Cec Heftel!

Jay Bauckham

GOP charges against Democrats are ludicrous

If anyone is engaged in tawdry politics, it is the Republican National Committee and its local front people, Donna Alcantara, Linda Lingle and a cast of sore losers. There is no credible evidence that anyone in the Hawaii Democratic Party and Cayetano campaign authorized, much less, suggested, that Lingle and the Republicans would abolish Christmas. Ben Cayetano and Mazie Hirono did not base any portion of their campaigns on anti-Semitism.

The vast majority of the American people reject the tactics of the Republicans who sought to throw President Clinton out of office. Now, in a vicious attempt to squirm from the embarrassment of a failed impeachment, they dream up allegations that belong in the funny pages, not on the front page.

Lingle and the Republicans blew a 30-point lead. They lost seats in Congress and the Hawaii state Legislature. Rather than admit to their ineptness, and to the fact that in truth, the Cayetano supporters campaigned with greater passion, they scream foul. They lost because they did not respect their opposition, trash-talked the Democrats, and took the voters cheap. Looks like they are planning a repeat performance for 2000.

Gerald de Heer
(Via the Internet)

Nothing is surprising in local-style politics

What? I'm shocked. Some people think that voters in Hawaii would oppose the election of a lesbian Jew who wants to cancel Christmas!

Why, next the Republicans will suggest that voters in the Aloha State would believe that gays might marry their dogs and thus threaten traditional marriage.

Linda Lingle, meet Mike Gabbard.

Richard Miles

QUOTABLE "They make you look like a criminal, like a person who doesn't go work. It's not true. We want the public to understand we are good guys too." -- Paul Romias, who raises fighting cocks in Waianae. "I could end up down the street here in that big white house, or I could end up living in a hut on the beaches at Kona, where I would throw my watch away and know that when the sun comes up in the morning, you get up; when it's straight overhead, you eat lunch; when it goes down, you go to bed." -- Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, when asked at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. if he might run for president. "Being employed is not going to harm children." -- Elizabeth Harvey of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, on a study that showed children of women who work outside the home suffer no permanent harm because of the mother's absence.

Smuggling of fireworks threatens air travelers

As a retired local airline pilot who served on our union's "hazardous materials" committee, I want to register the strongest possible objection to any change in our state fireworks law that would return control to the counties. That move would put us back where we were years ago!

Airline passengers and cargo shippers continuously broke both state and federal laws that control the transportation of hazardous materials such as fireworks. It was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

I can't believe our legislative judiciary committees would even consider such a bill. Any difference between the counties - whether in type of fireworks or price - would again prompt interisland, mainland or foreign country returnees to sneak this dangerous material in their luggage or shipments.

If you fly or if your loved ones fly at any time, would you want to sit or have them sit over pounds of explosives in the baggage and cargo compartments?

Call your state legislators today and tell them to vote "no" on this before it gets out of the judiciary committees!

Bryant Neal
Honokaa, Hawaii

Fireworks Scientific Poll Results

Fireworks Online Survey Results

Hawaii Revised Statutes on Fireworks

America no longer condones lynchings

Brent Staples' Feb. 26 column on your editorial page, on how common lynchings were in the late 1800s, was in contrast to R.W. Parkinson's Feb. 26 letter grousing about the outcome of the Clinton impeachment. Parkinson said that politics today and public acceptance of lying politicians have made him ashamed to be an American.

Yet when I read Staples' column of how common and socially acceptable it was a century ago to torture and murder people in public, I am struck by how far we have progressed.

Yes, I am sorry and disgusted that some politicians lie. Maybe someday we'll have a society where all politicians are honest. But I'm far prouder to live in an America that deplores murderous violence than in the America that accepted it a century ago.

J.B. Friday
Hilo, Hawaii
(Via the Internet)

State government will be Y2K ready

Richard B.W. Ing's Feb. 22 letter blames government and big business for the "inevitable Y2K fear and panic," but he should learn first what both public and private sectors are doing to be Y2K compliant.

For example, the Cayetano administration has been working on Y2K remediation since 1996 at a cost of $20.7 million in fiscal years 1998 and 1999. This cost does not include staff time and regular computer purchases.

As of Jan. 31, 58 percent of all computer systems and projects in the executive branch were Y2K ready. We are operating under a self-imposed deadline of Sept. 30, to complete all Y2K remediation and testing. We fully expect to meet this deadline.

Raymond H. Sato
Comptroller, State Department
of Accounting and General Services

Elephants aren't more important than people

How can Mayor Jeremy Harris and the City Council justify $6.8 million for two elephants in Honolulu Zoo, when our children are sweating in unbearable conditions in the classroom? The money would pay for a lot of school improvements and air conditioners.

Are elephants more important than our children? This state is a joke. At least when we had Frank Fasi as mayor, people always came first.

Dianne Tokujo
(Via the Internet)

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