Stadium security lacks common sense

How are we to get back to normal activities if people are so paranoid? Stadium authorities are the latest example.

I couldn't keep from laughing about the posted sign that said "no weapons." Since when do people bring weapons to a football game? This is not the 1800s when people wore their guns wherever they went.

Let's apply some common sense. If terrorists really wanted to blow up that rusted structure we call Aloha Stadium, they would use products placed on their bodies in areas where security guards aren't checking. They will not be carrying in their AK-47s.

If anyone is afraid to go to the stadium, please stay home and lock your doors and windows, because the rest of us football fans want to bring our backpacks, ponchos and purses to the games.

"General" Les Keiter: Please reconsider the stadium security rules and review your signs before printing them.

Suzanne Dykeman

No joy for fans at most sports stadiums

I share Jim Becker's crankiness (Letters, Oct. 16) about the difficulty entering our beloved rusty bucket, but find that Aloha Stadium policies are consistent with mainland counterparts.

Hearing whiners all over the radio, ignoring the most productive offense and defense display seen in my 37 Warrior seasons, I queried several NFL, MLB and college stadiums on current practices, which are often tighter than in Halawa. Small purses pass through some turnstiles, but that's the limit. Fannypacks are verboten nearly everywhere. Backpacks or coolers? Nope. Thoroughly searched diaper bags get in less than half the stadiums. Green Bay's Lambeau Field said that clean or otherwise, keep diapers in pockets. They don't want anything brought in -- except cheesehead hats.

The Yankee Stadium lady said fans must show up in clothes and nothing else or "fohgedaboudit." 3COM allows pre-sliced fruit at 49er games. The Rose Bowl OKs sealed bottled water bottles. Jacksonville allows cameras, but no camera cases. And it goes on.

So we're inconvenienced -- so is the rest of the country. Les Keiter gets targeted for fan ire; he's the wrong target as Becker noted. Don't shoot the messenger and forget about shooting the message. We're all in this together, so remember that the person to blame is quivering in an Afghanistan cave. Let's go get him. Annoyed football fans can do more damage than bunker-buster bombs.

Oh yes, umbrellas are taboo everywhere.

Ray Sweeney
Kaneohe

[Quotables] "I don't see the bags out there." Carol Pregill Executive director of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, on the falloff in retail sales since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack and the noticeable drop in sightings of store-name shopping bags being carried by customers in shopping malls. "They may be smiling for a while, but we will do everything we can so that they won't be smiling on their way to jail for five years." Peter Carlisle Honolulu city prosecutor, saying persons responsible for anthrax contamination hoaxes will face stiff penalties. A Pearl City High School student was arrested this week after allegedly spreading baking powder and powdered sugar in a classroom and stairwell.

Trask's statements insult victims of terror

I feel ashamed by Haunani-Kay Trask's statement that the "U.S. has only itself to blame..." for the Sept. 11 massacre of thousands of innocents. Trask's insult to the victims, their families and all compassionate human beings shows such a lack of real aloha that Trask forfeits any credibility to speak for Hawaiians or any other people who have been wronged by history.

To condone or justify mass murder is not only un-American and inhumane, but even worse, it's un-Hawaiian.

Robert E. Rapp

Only way to fight terror is with force

President Harry Truman decided to drop atomic bombs on our World War II enemy Japan if it saved just one American life and ended the war.

It ended the war.

We did not start this war with terrorists anymore than those Japanese civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did. We were attacked by a ruthless enemy. To get Osama bin Laden's attention and the attention of all the other terrorists who would kill our citizens we must respond in like manner.

Did they clear the World Trade Center of civilians before destroying it? Did they drop leaflets warning us of what was to come? Are they giving us "care" packages for our wounded, our dead, our families who have lost loved ones? Of course not.

We must bomb them to dust. That is the only message that the Taliban and the rest of the wannabe-terrorist states around the world will hear. Now is not the time to mollycoddle our enemies. Let's deal from strength. After all, we are the biggest and toughest boy on the block, and it doesn't pay to fool with us now or ever.

Bob Gaddis

Don't use tragedy to make a sale

Using September 11 to sell merchandise is the ultimate in sleaze.

A recent radio advertisement for a mattress company started by telling listeners about the tragedy in very soft tones and deftly insinuated a statement to the effect that we can't let the terrorists win so come buy goods from their store.

I understand the need to support for the local economy and the need advertise. But I would like to ask merchants to refrain from using this kind of advertising. I will forever remember this particular merchant and will not only boycott the store, but any others who resort to this shameless and ignoble style of advertising.

Don Bowman

President Bush is not a bumbler

The article "Putting words in Bush's mouth" (Star-Bulletin, Oct. 14) is claptrap from the ultra-liberal New York Times.

Every president has to evaluate and re-weigh each word he says, especially in times of crisis. Bush's message to the world must go forth as clear as a bell to counteract the propaganda from our enemies.

This article made Bush appear to be a bumbler. He is not. When questioned by the press, he replies off the cuff with clarity and candor. He seems neither scared nor angry as the article described him.

Ruth M. Isaak

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