Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Boycott chickens for their sake and yours

Contrary to Charles Memminger's flippant essay on Sept. 8, "McDonald's chickens rule the roost," there's nothing funny about the miserable subject of "layer" and "broiler" chickens.

McDonald's only asked its factory-farm egg suppliers for a minor, PR-geared "improvement" in living conditions. Instead of the equivalent of a 5-by-10-inch sheet of paper to live on, a hen will get the area of a 6-by-12-inch sheet, not even enough space to spread her wings. When her egg production falls below a set level, she will still be shipped off to a painful end in some abattoir, much like chickens raised for meat.

Moreover, the poultry industry creates major environmental problems, ranging from pesticide runoff to manure mounds to water-polluting slaughterhouses. Additionally, the particles and ammonia stench emanating from manure trigger respiratory problems.

As a physician, I am also troubled that chicken's much-ballyhooed health benefits are basically nonexistent. Chicken packs virtually as much cholesterol as beef, its fat content is almost the same, and its content of cancer-causing heterocyclic amines is far higher than even a plain old hamburger.

To powerfully help our hearts, the environment and animals with every bite we take, my prescription is to remove animal products from our menus and switch to healthy vegan fare.

Richard F. Gartner, M.D.
Haiku, Maui

Gabbard would be bad school board member

In an ABC News poll of American adults with school-age children, 76 percent were in favor of public schools teaching comprehensive lessons in sex education, including homosexuality, masturbation, birth control and abortion. Include me in that majority.

That's why I won't be voting for Carol Gabbard for state Board of Education. She is adamantly opposed to any mention of homosexuality or sexual orientation in our schools. I prefer our kids be taught the truth about sexual orientation and human sexuality.

If Gabbard has her way, any male elementary school student caught with a purple Teletubbie would be sentenced to shock therapy. If poor Bobby or Kekoa were in possession of jacks or, heaven forbid, a Barbie doll instead of a Ken doll, it would be off to heterosexual therapy for them.

I ask the 33,000-plus voters who supported Gabbard in the primary to think twice about putting her on the school board.

Matt Mitchell

Quotables "I couldn't sit that way in a kimono for one hour. I was always fidgeting and always got scolded, so I got fired." Keiko Fujii HEAD OF THE JAPAN-BASED DANCE COMPANY THAT BEARS HER NAME Who got 'fired' at the age of four by her mother, a Japanese dance instructor, but who later found her calling in modern dance. Her troupe performed at the Hawaii Theatre last weekend. "My freshman year we went through the same thing. The JVs are kind of irresponsible. We're just trying to teach them to be leaders." Skip Johnson MOANALUA HIGH SCHOOL VARSITY FOOTBALL PLAYER On four other varsity gridders (Johnson wasn't one of them) who were kicked off the team and suspended from school for taking items from junior varsity football athletes

Obscene sign sets poor example for keikis

Haunani Trask ought to be ashamed of herself for carrying that obscene sign in front of Washington Place.

When she did so, she lost what little credibility she had left. Governor Cayetano was right to fulfill the court's ruling. He took the opportunity to bring leadership and respectability back to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Trask has long been spreading her twisted interpretation of the way things are in Hawaii at the University of Hawaii campus. Now, we can only hope that the Hawaiian immersion program doesn't start taking cues from the rabid woman. "Children, can you say f--- you to our governor?"

David Rodriguez

Hawaiians don't deserve special status

Hawaiians did not come from the aina. They did not just sprout out of the ground like some plant. They came on a boat like everyone else. They just arrived a few hundred years before the rest of us.

The menehune were here 400 years before the Hawaiian ancestors of the Tahitian chiefs. The Tahitian/Hawaiian invaders decimated the menhune, who were pushed off the islands by the stronger, bigger Polynesians who now claim some special right of the aina. The Caucasians and Chinese bought their lands from the Tahitians/Hawaiians at fair market value. They did not steal land or kill for it. The Republic of Hawaii did nothing worse than these Tahitian invaders.

The Akaka bill is giving Hawaiians the status of Native Americans. As a Native American with ancestors dating back 10,000 years in America, I cannot see the parallel. Someone arrives in a boat 300 years before you do and wipes out the current residents, so now you have to support their offspring for generations to come? That is injustice.

Robert Thomas

Everyone has right to 'feel' Hawaiian

I really thought emotional turmoil had been settled in the '70s.

It is virtually a constitutional right to come to grips with our feelings, and no one, not even our mommies and daddies, and least of all politicians and activists, can tell us how to "feel."

Now perhaps we can all retreat to the nearest karaoke bar and join in a sentimental tribute to our internal angst. All together now: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings..." The song may not be Hawaiian, but it certainly does the job.

Beverly Kai

OHA Special

Rice vs. Cayetano arguments

Rice vs. Cayetano decision

Holo I Mua: Sovereignty Roundtable

---

Get rid of one-party primary system

Who is this candidate known as "Blank Vote" that I see getting so much support every election, no matter what race it is. Blank Vote actually won the Republican race in the 2nd Senatorial District.

Is something wrong with our state's closed primary voting system or is it just me? Shouldn't we be able to vote for the candidates we think can do the best job for us, regardless of political party?

Hawaii needs an open primary election like California and about 20 other states, where the public is allowed to vote for the most qualified candidates in partisan elections. This will assure us that the best go forward into the general election, and will afford the public its best choice of candidates.

Claude Uehara

Starbulletin.com Election Results
State Office of Elections

---

Political sign-waving is superfluous, silly

Could someone explain how waving signs with a candidate's name and the office being sought is a good practice? It doesn't give voters any information on the candidate's position on issues, which is what we should be using as criteria to decide for whom to vote.

Sign-waving is also dangerous as it distracts drivers. And just because a motorist waves back doesn't mean a guaranteed vote.

Candidates should give up sign-waving and spend more time informing voters about their platforms and positions on issues. And if people are voting based solely on sign-waving, our country is in worse trouble than I thought.

Jonathan Yoshizaki
Wahiawa

---

Write a
Letter to the Editor

Want to write a letter to the editor?
Let all Star-Bulletin readers know what you think.
Please keep your letter to about 200 words.
You can send it by e-mail to letters@starbulletin.com
or you can fill in the online form for a faster response.
Or print it and mail it to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 3080,
Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or fax it to: 523-8509.
Always be sure to include your daytime phone number.