Public officials foster voter apathy

The reason people don't care to vote is because the elected officials do things to us like "van cams" ("State's voter apathy zooms to worst in U.S.," Star-Bulletin, Feb. 27). Why bother to vote when you will be ignored anyway, when the people in office need to find extra money to balance their poorly planned budgets?

The public will be squeezed for the money one way or another. We have found over the years that it doesn't matter who is in office, they are all corrupt or eventually will be corrupted. So why bother? There is enough to worry about just running your business, home and family.

Kathryn Hallmark

Bottle bills prove to be good idea elsewhere

Last year, both houses of the Legislature passed slightly different versions of the bottle deposit bill, HB 1256. The beverage industry was then given time to craft an alternative. It presented its plan in January and did not address the litter problem at all. Instead, it proposed a fee to support curbside recycling, placing the entire burden on residents -- no matter what their consumption of beverages.

HB 1256 would institute a refundable deposit on all beverage containers except dairy products. Since recyclers now pay considerably less than 5 cents per aluminum can, the 5- to 15-cent deposit would provide a greater incentive to those who collect cans, resulting in a dramatic reduction in litter.

Only 20 percent of bottles and cans are recycled. In states with bottle bills, 80 percent are recycled. No state has ever repealed a bottle bill. In fact, residents of those states overwhelmingly support their bottle bills.

Pearl Johnson
President
The League of Women Voters of Honolulu

[Quotables] "I simply used a cross as a metaphor for (a woman's sense of sacrifice). It wasn't a commentary on Christianity." Daria Fand Artist whose painting of a nude woman on a cross was banned from a Honolulu Hale exhibit a year ago. According to a settlement between the city and the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued over the matter, the painting will be displayed at a Honolulu Hale exhibit March 16-31. "Eventually, in the next 50 or so years, the islands will disappear. They will be all covered by waters. And the people there will also disappear, along with their land" Koloa Talake Leader of Tuvalu, an low-lying island nation of 10,000 people north of Fiji, speaking about the effects of global warming at this week's Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Australia. Parts of Tuvalu that were not threatened by flooding a decade ago are knee-deep in water today. Talake says if nothing is done, his people will be forced to migrate and their culture will vanish.

Welfare reform should prevent destitution

Clay Robison's column "Bashing welfare in the name of 'reform'" (Star-Bulletin, March 5) was a welcome attempt to analyze what is meant by reform. I well remember discussing this with a candidate for Congress who described lowering the stipend to just below a livable amount as "reform." In spite of past personal kindnesses, he lost my vote.

A few years ago, a column appeared in your newspaper with an analysis that I have yet to find fault with, and if accepted by more legislators and voters it might make it easier to speak about reform without polarization and fruitless arguments.

The writer simply divided welfare into two areas of consideration: preventing destitution among those definitely or marginally unemployable, and the "temporary helping hand" described by Robison. Only the most avid advocate of life in the jungle can resent the prevention of destitution, and with that out of the way the search can center on how best to get the others employed, with all the good things that brings.

John C. Roberts

Speed limits too often don't fit the situation

The consensus at my work place is that it would be fine and dandy if drivers going 10 mph or more over the limit were cited. But most of the citations we've heard about are for 6 mph to 10 mph over the limit.

Honolulu's traffic patterns and speed limits defy logic. About the time you get up to 55 mph, the limit goes down to 45 mph or 40 mph. Traffic flow does not allow anyone to keep an even speed, unless they are driving very late at night or very early in the morning.

At peak times on Kalanianaole Highway, for instance, it would be a miracle to reach the posted speed limit of 35 mph. At other times, you risk creating a hazard if you don't go with the flow at 40-45 mph. So it really looks like this traffic cam scheme is just that -- a scheme to raise money.

If there were realistic expectations on what constituted speeding -- 41 mph in a 35 mph zone just doesn't cut it -- I'd be willing to bet there would not be such an outcry.

Margo Akamine

Navy leader deserves harsh punishment

Your article on the commander of the Pacific Missile Range at Barking Sands made me enraged to think what goes on in the military and how many co-workers could have blown the whistle instead let it continue ("Navy disciplines officer on Kauai," March 6). It is known to all in the military that officers exaggerate the meaning of "rank has its privileges." I'm sure Capt. Brian Moss got his hands slapped. In other countries, they cut off your hands for stealing.

I reside in a bungalow on Wheeler Air Force Base where I breathe in asbestos and lead and nothing gets done. Maybe this kind of living arrangement would humble this poor excuse for a soldier and leader.

Susan Ford
Wahiawa

Hawaiians are the real victims of racism

The two attorneys and 16 plaintiffs of lawsuit against the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands claim that they have been hurt by the Hawaiians-only policies of both agencies, and that they are victims of racism ("Suit alleges OHA discrimination," Star-Bulletin, March 5).

Racism is the denial of housing, health care, employment, food, education and prosperity by one racial group over another. The power of a race of people to make this happen is the key. Do Hawaiians have this power? Just who sits on the bottom of every socioeconomic statistic here in Hawaii? Who had their country illegally overthrown and occupied?

The facts of how Hawaiians came to be Americans show that it is they who have been denied and victimized by a prolonged process of racism, colonization and illegal occupation. Hawaiians are the evidence, not the crime.

Steve Tayama
Waimanalo

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