Hawaii needs to get recycling ball rolling

I am originally from Hawaii, currently living in Maryland. Our incorporated city of Bowie has a recycling program. Trash pick-ups are Mondays and Thursdays, recycling pick-ups are Wednesdays. The city of Bowie provides each household its own recycling bin. Recycling trucks are different from the trash trucks.

We recycle paper, plastic, cans and glass. Our city generates nearly $1 million each year with the recycling program. It's time Hawaii developed its own recycling program. It's good sense for the environment and for the economy.

Joyce Tsugawa
Bowie, Md.

Saddam is worse than any other weapon

I cannot understand how the people of the two most intelligent and powerful nations in the world, the United States and Great Britain, don't have the common sense to realize that our troops may not have found any physical weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they have found 300,000 results of the most powerful weapon of mass destruction in the world and that is Saddam Hussein. Our troops found mass graves of women and children whom Saddam had murdered. It's Hitler all over again.

People are worried about actually finding physical bombs. They should be worried if we don't find the biggest bomb of all, and that's Saddam Hussein.

Charlotte Rego
Pearl City

Rudeness worsened chaos at Maui airport

I had once deemed Puerto Rico the world's worst airport. Maui-Kahului has moved to the top of the list. Arriving two hours before our flight, we found the place in chaos. People packed the terminal. Airport, security and airline personnel behaved as if it was their first day on the job. They were rude and unhelpful. No consideration was shown to those with earlier flights. When advising an employee of Hawaiian Air that we were in risk of missing our flight and connection, she responded, "Yes, you probably will." It was mayhem in Maui.

My daughter showed real initiative by sneaking into the check-in line. The rest of us walked up just as she reached the counter. It wasn't the polite thing to do, but we'd still be there otherwise. The staff and management of Kahului airport and Hawaiian Air have redefined "total incompetence." They should be ashamed.

W. Laurence Willis
St. Louis, Mo.

Surfing doesn't belong in school curriculum

It is absolutely ridiculous to think that we should have surfing as part of the curriculum in our schools ("BOE considers cost of surfing," Star-Bulletin, July 16).

Why stop there? Why not offer tanning and chip-dipping 101? Our state is in an economic slump, our students are behind in academics and our poor are not receiving the help they need. If any funds are available, then these are far more worthy uses. Surfing is something to do after students finish their English and math homework. We waste too much already on field trips to the beach in a state surrounded by ocean.

I'm always amazed when I see school buses unloading students at Ala Moana Beach Park. These students should be at school, absorbing what our teachers have to offer. As adults, we need to take responsibility, stop wasting our young people's time and start making the right choices for them; they're not ready yet.

Wisdom should be our guide and education our legacy.

Raymond Franco
Honolulu

Neighborhood boards should listen, lobby

Vision Teams as we knew them are dead. I participated in a Vision Team -- not because it was a sound way for government to function, but because it was either participate or lose an avenue of funding for my community. We needed improvements for parks and roads that had been ignored for years.

The neighborhood boards are not reaching into the community for input as they should.

Each neighborhood board should invite the community to decide what projects are needed in their area, then submit them to their City Council members. The Council members then should lobby the capital improvement project budget committee and the Council as a whole to approve the projects. This is how government is supposed to work.

Pam Smith
Former member,
Ewa Neighborhood Board