Do Vanpool users waste tax money?

With the state of Hawaii, the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii all having financial difficulties, I'd like to see the statistics that prove the Department of Transportation's Vanpool vans are indeed a success. On a daily basis, I see single Vanpool drivers doing their banking, shopping and other personal driving. I'm sure the drivers are working well within the Vanpool rules, but the vans are paid by my tax dollars and I wonder if that money can't be put to better use.

>> Do Vanpool vehicles actually save taxpayers' money? I think not.

>> Do Vanpool vehicles cut down on rush-hour traffic? I think not, just ask Hawaii Kai and Mililani commuters.

>> Are the vans fuel efficient? I think not.

>> Are the vans misused by the drivers? I believe so.

My suggestion is to immediately stop the use of the vans and give them to state, city or university systems where they can be used in more effective and efficient ways, such as hauling groups of workers, players or loads of equipment and boxes. I'm sure they'd work well as parks or survey vehicles, without the need for these organizations, to purchase new vehicles, at additional taxpayer expense.

Stephen N. Bischoff

Grants available for nurses with loans

To address the current nursing shortage, U.S. Health and Human Services has available grant funds for working nurses with student loans. Every registered nurse with remaining loans or working nursing students should immediately go online to www.hrsa.gov or call the National Education Loan Repayment Program at 1-866-813-3753 (toll free). The current program application period will close March 31. Grant money is taxable. Apply online or download the forms and mail them. Available grants are 30 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Kauai nurses are in a designated critical shortage area and so receive a higher priority, but all nurses with loans should apply. Restrictions are listed on the Web site, which is user-friendly.

Rose Marie Norton

How much more superficial can we get?

In a world abundant with Joe Millionaires and Bachelorettes, where do we as human beings draw the line? Tuning in on primetime to discover that the bondage star Cindy from Joe Millionaire was cut loose, or dialing a 1-800 number to decide who should marry whom -- what kind of world is this?

Where love and money are equivalent? Where the higher the ratings the more tasteless and insufferable the show becomes?

It is heart-rending to witness women and men selling themselves on television for 15 minutes of deplorable fame. It is a travesty for sane citizens to descend to such rubbish.

Who did Joe Millionaire end up picking?

Marissa Robello
Mililani

Cruelty bill would outlaw pig hunting

Your editorial "Legislator set to kill cockfighting bill" (Star-Bulletin, Feb. 10) presented a distorted picture of what actually happened in the House Judiciary Committee. You also unfairly characterized Rep. Eric Hamakawa's motivation in asking for a reassessment of the measure.

House Bill 165, "Relating to Cruelty to Animals," is unconstitutionally broad, vague and ultimately unenforceable in its current form. Hamakawa simply recognized that fact. So did the committee when it voted 10-1 to hold the bill.

The legislation states that anyone who "commits an act against an animal that is especially heinous, atrocious, cruel, or unnecessarily torturous," would be in violation of the act.

Taken as it stands, the bill would make pig hunting a felony. Roasting a kalua pig or even roping a calf at a rodeo could have been defined as illegal activities if this poorly drafted piece of legislation had been enacted.

The bill also would have made it a felony to simply "own, train, possess, or sell a game cock or other fowl known by nature to have a propensity to fight." How does one tell the difference between owning a rooster domestically and owning one for fighting purposes? Should we establish a special commission to begin sorting domestic fowl?

Rep. Blake Oshiro
Vice-chairman
House Committee on Judiciary

Bush policy spreads hatred of America

To expect world opinion to change the minds of Bush and his colleagues is like hoping a garden sprinkler can put out a wildfire.

They have no idea how much hatred they have already created all over the Muslim world, not just against the United States, but also against Christians and Jews everywhere.

Those in the Bush administration are unable to understand a plain reality: There is a powerful force in the world that wants every Muslim country to be the enemy of the United States so that it gets a free hand in implementing its aggressive designs. Tricked into attacking a defenseless country, Afghanistan, where not a single major problem has been solved so far, once again the West has left a people high and dry and the entire Muslim population in South and Central Asia an enemy of the West. If the same thing happens in Iraq, all fundamentalist Muslims the world over will become the sworn enemies of the United States.

Ultimately, the United States will suffer the same fate Britain and France did in 1956 when they tried to retake the Suez Canal. They were unsuccessful, and in the process they lost all influence in the Middle East.

Bettejo Dux
Kalaheo

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