Tourists come here to sunbathe au naturel

I, along with several friends, have been to Maui on vacation three times. One of the main reasons that we return is to enjoy Little Beach au naturel. In our travels throughout the tropics, Little Beach is at the top of our list of clothing-optional beaches.

With so many miles of "textile" beaches, does this small, secluded stretch of sand really need to be regulated?

Little Beach is the reason we would return to Maui with our tourist dollars. Please keep it natural.

Julie Garner
Villa Park, CA

Time to close saga on Ehime Maru

I fully support the closure of the Ehime Maru saga as written by Robert Levy (Letters, Nov. 29) and Norma J. Nicholl (Letters, Nov. 30) in the Star-Bulletin.

I believe many people here in Hawaii are disgusted and disappointed with the U.S. government for letting the Japanese government call the shots in the Ehime Maru incident.

I'm totally against erecting a monument for the Japanese and letting them sue us.

The Ehime Maru incident was an accident. I believe all fishermen, like soldiers, firemen and policemen, should be ready to die with their boots on.

Instead of building a monument for the victims of the Ehime Maru, I believe it would be much more fitting to erect a monument to honor all Filipino-American veterans who participated in the wars for the United States.

Edwin S. Imamura

Wahiawa

[Quotables] "Nothing has happened at the level of the pedestrian to improve transportation since we invented the sneaker." Dean Kamen Inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, a two-wheeled, battery-powered, single-person transportation device. The Segway is intended to bridge the gap between walking and driving. "Our mission was simple: to prove our loyalty to the United States." Ed Ichiyama 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran, explaining why he and other interned Japanese Americans volunteered to serve during World War II.

'Haole' is useful, not necessarily pejorative

I would like to keep using the word "haole," otherwise I would have to call myself a Caucasian-race-European-ancestry-mainland-born-Maui-lover and that's too much work.

The recent controversy over Maui's clothing-optional Little Beach led to comments saying that the word "haole" has become a pejorative. I hope not.

I think the word is useful to pigeonhole someone like me. I came to Maui for a job 20 years ago and loved it so much I expect to end my days here. The word is also used for 6th- or 7th-generation missionary descendants.

I have always considered myself haole, and have never felt hate as part of the word.

Every country, ethnic group, religion, class or race has suffered terrible things in history and inflicted terrible suffering on others. Probably women of any race could claim more victimization than any other group.

I hope all of us can maintain aloha, with respect for one another's culture and history.

Sally Raisbeck

Prominent people get away with doing wrong

I was just wondering, are there more articles written in the newspapers nowadays showing that what matters is who you know and what connections you have, not obeying laws or facing punishment when you don't?

No matter how much good people do for the community or society doesn't make them exempt from proper and due punishment when they break the rules. When a person is in a position of authority, or is prominent in the community, that person should hold to standards of a higher degree.

Instead, what I'm seeing are these somewhat prominent people getting caught red-handed, then getting their cases halted or delayed and swept under the rug when the media frenzy dies down and people have forgotten about it.

Maybe everyone sees what's going on and are either too afraid to say anything or are just a part of the problem. Or maybe people just concern themselves with the cubbyhole they call home, making sure everything is hunky dory there and keeping all evil outside. In either case, it's unfortunate for Hawaii in general.

Thomas Haae

Gas firms should be public utilities

After reading about the legal battle between the state and the gasoline firms, it occurs to me that gasoline companies should be made into public utilities, such as electricity producers and, in years gone by, telephone companies.

We could save a lot of taxpayer money if we were this practical. The reason that our government has allowed utilities, which have a monopoly on their particular product or service, is because the product and/or service they provide is so important to the population that the government sees the need for a stable, reliable and reasonably priced commodity. Utilities are given the right to raise prices if they don't make an unfair profit, and they are prevented from price abuses, ensuring a reasonable rate of return for these firms and continuity of supply.

We can't trust the gas companies to lower their prices, but with something so crucial as gasoline, can we really allow these companies to just charge whatever they like?

Gasoline is a special item, affecting the price of so many other products and services that it needs to be regulated.

The money we save can be directed to development of mass transportation. We need legislators with the guts to do the right thing and not kowtow to the special-interest money donated for their campaigns.

Mike Reilly

Don't let planes fly over neighborhoods

Before the tragic crash of American Airlines Flight 587 sank into oblivion, a number of suspected causes for the accident were offered, including poor maintenance, manufacturing defects or human error.

Whatever the cause, the plane disintegrated four minutes after take off. Parts of the aircraft scattered over a residential area, causing death, fire and destruction. Numerous times every day on Oahu planes abandon their over-water routes to veer over East Honolulu. When will engines burn out, tail sections come apart or human error cause irreparable damage?

Taking to the air or the road implies assuming a calculated risk. Residents below planes on a take-off pattern, however, do not make that choice, yet we risk having an engine crash into one of our schools or a piece of the plane crushing our homes. The risk is taken not by us sitting ducks but by those who decide the flight path. By not opposing this dangerous practice, those in high office who could take action on our behalf are party to this aggression.

We hold liable all those who allow planes to fly over our neighborhoods when they could travel over water. This means the control tower and the FAA, the airlines and our elected officials whom we have begged to take remedial steps.

George Cassarno

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