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Bureaucracy responds slowly to emergencies

North Shore residents isolated by the rock slide at Waimea are trapped in a real crisis, as state officials struggle mightily to help them.

If this situation had occurred in some far-flung theater of conflict, a military demolition team like SDV Team One, the Navy Seals based at Pearl Harbor, would have surveyed, set explosive charges and dropped the cliff in two or three days. Then Navy Seabees would have probably brought in D-9 bulldozers, and cleared and paved Kamehameha Highway in a week or less.

But this is a political operation, not a military one. Meetings must be held so citizens can have input. All points of view, political considerations, liability concerns and aesthetics must be debated. Consultants must be engaged, then sub-contracts negotiated.

That's the trouble with political systems and privatization -- they don't function well in emergency situations. As a result, North Shore residents will probably be hiking across the beach for months to come. It would be funny if not so tragic for everyone concerned.

Gary F. Anderson
Waimanalo

How Hawaiians feel about the overthrow

Let's pretend I visit your house: You offer me food and rest. I decide to stay. I order you and your family around, use your things and rearrange the rooms. I take down your photos and religious symbols, replace them with my own and make you speak my language. One day, I dig up your garden and replace it with crops that I can sell. You and your family must now buy all your food from me.

Later, I invite my father and his buddies over. They bring guns. We take your keys. I forge a deed and declare my father to be owner of the house. I bring more people. Some work for me. Some pay me to stay in your house. I seize your savings and spend it on my friends. You and your family sleep on the porch.

Finally, you protest. Being reasonable, I let you stay in a corner of the house and give you a small allowance, but only if you behave. I tell you, "Sorry, I was wrong for taking the house." But when you demand your house back, I tell you to be realistic.

"You are a part of this family now, whether you like it or not," I say. "Besides, this is for your own good. For all that I have done for you, why aren't you grateful?"

Kiyoshi Matsuda

Quotables "Exercise is the best thing. Older people need to do something like this instead of sitting and watching TV. If your body and brain (aren't) working, they'll go dead." Lee Blears 81-YEAR-OLD AEROBICS INSTRUCTOR On what has motivated her to lead exercise classes at Waianae Recreation Center for 22 years "It is inconvenient. But it's also wonderful. Where else in the world do you get to walk through a post card every day?" Mary Shepardson WAIALUA RESIDENT Who must make multiple trips across the sand to get her two sons to and from Sunset Beach Elementary School after last week's rock slide closed Kamehameha Highway

Who would great men have voted for?

Who would the following people have voted for to be president of the United States of America?

George Washington. Who would have stayed fighting by his side for freedom?

Thomas Jefferson. Whom would he have asked to help in composing the Declaration of Independence because of their deeply shared beliefs?

Abraham Lincoln. Whom would he have trusted to lead in the crusade for freedom?

Robert E. Lee. Whom would he have most admired and wanted by his side?

Dr. Martin Luther King. Who would have marched with him and used his own body to shield his fellow American?

Jesus. Who stays true to him and would not sell him out for 40 pieces of silver?

Whom would they have voted for to be president: John McCain or George W. Bush?

Garrett Grace

U.S. should support Taiwan's independence

Communist China's threat of forced unification or invasion of Taiwan resembles the actions of Nazi Germany toward its European neighbors in the late 1930s. Just as the forced unification of Czekoslovakia and Austria with Germany only set the stage for further aggression, any move by the PRC against Taiwan will only lead to a wider conflict.

The Communists have much to worry about when millions of Chinese in Taiwan display the fruits of freedom and democracy to their oppressed brethren on the mainland. Clearly a form of government as stupid as communism is degrading to a people as worthy as the Chinese.

It's time U.S. policy recognized this and supported the liberation of Taiwan.

Paul Mossman
Kailua

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