Watch it, Andy, your chauvinism is showing

Gubernatorial hopeful Andy Anderson needs an attitude adjustment to overcome years of machismo. Perhaps he chooses not be a person of the times; he certainly showed it in a Star-Bulletin story July 30 when he used the term "baby" in reference to political opponent Linda Lingle. Referring to Governor Cayetano's controversial critique of Lingle's platform, Anderson characterized the governor's reaction as, "I can't afford all your goodies ... and baby, you can't either, so stop promising things I know you can't afford."

I read the headlines and followed the article of July 30 and the "baby" kept ringing in my ears. What a demeaning remark to one woman, let alone to all women.

Andy, get a grip. Try a new career.

Kathy Howe

Mink puts careful study into each vote

It was interesting to read Republican congressional candidate Bob McDermott's comments about U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink in the article "Congressional candidates square off" (Star-Bulletin, Aug. 1).

When a delegation from Friends of Sabeel met with Mink, a Democrat, earlier this year, we were amazed at the depth of thinking and study that takes place before she votes on any bill, including those related to anti-terrorism.

Mink is top rate when it comes to studying and reviewing legislation and it shows in her careful and meaningful voting.

I am honored that she represents our state.

Rev. Vaughn F. Beckman

Voters will analyze Lingle's agenda

Peter Ehrhorn's Aug. 1 letter to the editor ("Governor's critique of Lingle was fair") proves there are still some who blindly follow the status quo, whose only complaint seems to be with the Republican Party. We haven't seen any Republican in power for more than four decades. How do we know they are the real bogey men?

Ehrhorn shouldn't be satisfied with Ben Cayetano and his administration for doing an above-average job. You should demand an extraordinary job, especially when it comes to the economy and education of our children. C+ is not good enough for me.

Here's the truth: Linda Lingle's pamphlet, "A New Beginning," is nothing more than a proposal, a set of ideas that is being presented for the educated and unbiased voters of this state to consider. I've read it, and I'm beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The pamphlet is not a bill before the Legislature. For the governor to use his staff on our time to "analyze" an idea that seems to keep him awake at night is a waste of taxpayers' money. Nothing will become of this proposal unless Linda Lingle is elected governor. The voters should be the ones to analyze the ideas put forth by Lingle not the lame duck governor.

Jim Fromm

Gov's staff shouldn't waste time on politics

The governor was wrong to have state workers on state time analyze Linda Lingle's plan for Hawaii's future. If he wants volunteers to join him outside of working hours to go through campaign literature, that would be fine. If he read through Lingle's booklet on his own time and wanted to release a statement, that's fine.

But don't waste our tax dollars to do damage control on an opposing party's campaign pitch. We don't pay taxes just so the monies collected by the state can be used to pay workers to dissect a candidate's literature. The governor should do it on his own time. When he's on state time, his staff should do something about the problems we're facing, such as the notorious state budget deficit.

Jeff Kino

Hawaii's Democrats like regressive taxes

Democrats in the other 49 states want to eliminate regressive taxes. These are the taxes that hurt the poor, on a proportional basis, more than the rich. Look what we have in Hawaii:

>> Tax on food.

>> Tax on drugs.

>> A flat tax on income. Every dollar over $19,000 for singles and $39,000 for married folks gets taxed at the same rate as those who make one million bucks a year!

>> Then we have the excise tax that has driven the small mom-and-pop stores out of business and given us the big box stores that look so attractive.

This is one Democrat who thinks that we all should be taxed according to our ability to pay.

David Fanning
Aiea

Empty Kapolei library could use Aiea's books

Another approach to deal with the lack of books for the new Kapolei Public Library is to move all the books from the dilapidated Aiea Public Library, which is scheduled to be demolished and eventually moved to a new site. This would allow us to immediately use the new facility in Kapolei as a tradeoff to an old facility in Aiea.

Stanton T. Gaza
Waipahu

Cartoon unfairly targeted Israel

The July 28 cartoon of an Israeli missile pointed at three children playing jump rope and an Israeli pilot with the caption reading, "Hamas activity sighted! Fire at will!" was outrageously biased.

Israel declared it had faulty intelligence and said it was sorry about the innocents killed. Does the United States sometimes make similar mistakes? Hamas and other Muslim terrorist groups' stated purpose is to kill civilian noncombatants in their war against Israel and the United States.

Michael and Kathy Cline
Kapolei

Attack on Iraq may be diversionary tactic

Our Founding Fathers defined our country as standing for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and justice for all, after escaping and defeating an oppressive, overbearing, overtaxing government. Are we falling into a like-father-like-son syndrome? Is it now unpatriotic not to support everything our government wants to do, such as attack Iraq?

Or is it an opportunity, while the news media focuses on the Iraq fighting, for major U.S. oil companies to install pipelines from Afghanistan through bordering countries and into India? Saddam Hussein would not sit still while the United States built pipelines in Afghanistan and neighboring countries.

If we think it's patriotic to invade Iraq and disregard the rights of others and suffer the consequences, we can proceed with the Iraq invasion. War historically has created more jobs, boosted the president's ratings and sagging economies. Then the CEOs of majors corporations won't have to hire chefs to cook their books.

Smoky Guerrero
Mililani

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