Another stoplight won't make Pali safer

As a Kailua resident, I oppose another traffic light on the Pali Highway. What is needed is a pedestrian overpass or underpass for crossing the highway. Traffic lights will only stall traffic, which will then cause motorists to speed up between stop lights.

Just try to drive Likelike and experience all the traffic lights in the short distance between School Street and the overpass above Kamehameha IV housing. What a mess! The distance on Pali Highway is about the same as on H-3, but motorists travel the H-3 in less time. Why? No traffic lights.

Lloyd P. Ignacio
Kailua
Via the Internet

Laws for pedestrians need to be enforced

The most recent tragic crosswalk accident on the Pali Highway is ample proof that the installation of a new traffic signal at Jack Lane is needed immediately.

But a hard look should also be given to county and state standards for the location, identification and lighting of crosswalks on all arterial streets and highways. And the Legislature should bring our crosswalk laws more in tune with most other states.

It is easy to see that Hawaii motorists have far more legal wiggle-room as to whether they are meeting their obligations to crossing pedestrians. The predictable result is that many motorists do not yield to people using crosswalks.

Further, it is rare for the police to enforce a pedestrian's right. Rather, the walker is forced to wait for a break in traffic. And, significantly, many other motorists pass other cars properly stopped at a crosswalk, in apparent violation of existing Hawaii law.

In this free-for-all environment this creates, it's no wonder that more than 20 percent off all traffic fatalities are pedestrians.

We need better engineered crosswalks, better traffic laws governing crosswalks, and a commitment by HPD to provide better enforcement of pedestrians' rights at crosswalks.

J. Roger Morton
Via the Internet

Column on toys was no kid's stuff

Many thanks to David Shapiro for a wonderful Dec. 4 column ("Some toys we'd be better off without"). He summed up the year for Hawaii in a wonderful way.

We'll miss him should the Star-Bulletin close!

Dana Gray
Waialua
Via the Internet

U.S. isn't right about what is ideal economy

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with your editorials [and here] on the collapse of the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle.

Yes, much of the Third World may be mired in poverty, but a Western-influenced global economy is not the answer. Fueling Western economic growth by expanding global trade perpetuates an economy that is not sustainable from a resource point of view, let alone from a moral point of view.

My prediction for the 21st century: a leveling of the economic playing field through the development of locally sustainable economies. I'm sorry to say this, but that will very likely entail a drastic change in the American lifestyle.

If the change does not come through choice, then it is likely to come about by collapsing under the sheer weight of unjustified economic expansion.

Don Child
Via the Internet

Plan can make bay attractive to residents

We believe that the proposed development plan for Hanauma Bay should proceed. We are concerned, however, that some who oppose the project are offering misleading information to support their opinion.

We must remember that Hanauma Bay is a nature preserve, not a beach park, so it deserves special attention. Education is the cornerstone of its protection.

An exhibit/display area will augment a video orientation that will be required of everyone going down to the beach. Staff and volunteers of the current education program will attest that signs are not effective because visitors, whose sole purpose is to "hit the beach," ignore signs and staff attempting to educate them.

Offices which are necessary to administer Hanauma Bay's complex operation take only about half the square footage of the video and exhibit areas.

The new plan recognizes that residents often avoid the bay because of the crowds. The plan encourages their return by allowing them to bypass the lines once they have completed an annual video orientation. No admission fee for residents is being considered.

Changes planned for Hanauma Bay will help protect it and, hopefully, see the return of residents whose presence there has been missed and whose help is needed to protect and preserve it.

Bob Kern, Micki Stash
Via the Internet

HPD substation, surf racks are welcome

As a resident of Waikiki for the past 15 years, I would like to voice my support for the current location of the Honolulu police substation on Kalakaua Avenue. Its presence there is a positive for both locals and tourists alike.

I also support the location of the surf racks on the beach, because this helps preserve the history of Waikiki and adds to the flavor of place. They are also a major convenience to hundreds of local residents -- many of whom are in their 50s, 60s and 70s -- who surf as their regular exercise. We also are consistent customers of many Waikiki businesses.

Michael Speer
Via the Internet

Bad breeding condition for Atlantic salmon

Thank you for Betty Shimabukuro's fine Dec. 8 article on salmon cuisine. Readers might also like to know that salmon sold in Hawaii as Atlantic salmon are raised in netcages on the coast of British Columbia.

Netcage salmon are controversial because the crowded conditions under which they are raised often require medication to control disease, because their wastes contaminate the marine environment and because they infect wild salmon as they pass the cages on their way to natal streams.

For these reasons, southeast Alaska does not allow salmon netcages. Thoughtful shoppers can support the environment, as well as Alaskan fishermen, by avoiding Atlantic salmon.

Neil Frazer
Kailua
Via the Internet

Quotables "When I did 'Oliver,' I knew everyone's lines without looking at the script. With 'Scrooge,' I memorized all the dances." Emiko Jenna Ono 9-YEAR-OLD MANOA DANCER AND SINGER Reprising her role as Tiny Tim in Honolulu Dance Theatre's production of "Scrooge" "I can remember riding my scooter on Wilder Avenue heading toward Piikoi Street. I saw a car with its turn signal on, and it just turned. The next thing I remember is a police office holding me." Rebecca Perkins VICTIM OF AN UNSOLVED NOV. 21 HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT Recuperating from a shattered left leg at Queen's Hospital and one of 17 victims of local hit-and-run cases this year

Da kine letters

Pidgin can be used effectively in classroom

Let me congratulate you on your sensible article about pidgin in the classroom (Star-Bulletin, Nov. 30).

As a student at Kauai High School, I was fortunate to have studied under many outstanding teachers, some of whom knew how to use pidgin as an effective teaching tool. So far as I am aware, I suffered no permanent brain damage as a result of my occasional exposure to pidgin in the classroom. To this day, I greatly respect those teachers who did all they could to make me learn, even when it meant explaining things to me in pidgin.

Banning pidgin or merely dismissing it as "bad" English has only succeeded in alienating our kids from education. Our well-meaning educational establishment needs raise the level of debate above the standard "let's get tough on pidgin" rhetoric and focus more energy on basic research. It is amazing how little we know about effective strategies for teaching standard English to pidgin-speaking kids.

Ryo Stanwood
Ph.D. Linguistics
Lihue, Kauai
Via the Internet

Who would fill out college application in pidgin?

What next? Ebonics? Isn't it enough that Hawaii lags the nation in verbal SAT scores? Shall we handicap all Hawaii children by duping them into thinking it's OK to speak pidgin English at a job interview or to use it in filling out a college application?

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with pidgin. It has a history and a culture all its own, one worth documenting and preserving.

Call it tyranny, then, that the world doesn't respect pidgin speakers. But don't take out your righteous indignation on kids who desperately need to boost their standard English in order to get ahead in this world.

Alex Salkever
Via the Internet

Eh, no try tell us we no can talk pidgin!

I dunno why dere is dis hullaballu about da kine peegeen English! Any won can see dat das no make deefrance when we talk la dat!

I suspose dat some peoples tink we dumb cause we talk dis way. But when you tahk stink about da way us guys tahk, ass gotta be cause you wan racist and tink you mo bettah dan us, eh?

Ass long ass us guys unnastan and can tahk story, no beeg deel. Foa you da kine hi muckimucks who tink you speak betta dan us, I taal you buggas, "No make fun, gunfunit, unless mebbi you like wan fat lip!"

Clayton Ching, M.D.
Pasadena, Calif.
Via the Internet

Broken English must be fixed by school system

As a former Hawaii resident, I can't believe that people are actually considering pidgin to be a legitimate form of communication that shouldn't be corrected by the school system.

This is ludicrous. Can you pidgin speakers say ludicrous?

Yes, I am making fun of pidgin speakers. It is inferior to modern English. How many people in positions of authority in the business world speak pidgin? Hmmm.

Children come to school speaking a certain dialect, which is what pidgin is. It is not a language. Schools must teach kids what they will need to know to make it out in the real world.

Pidgin ranks right up there with ebonics. It's broken English. And when something is broken, you fix it.

Billy Christensen
Dallas, Texas
Via the Internet

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