Brainstorm! Challenge

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Torturing turkeys is no way to celebrate

It is time to re-think the old habit of eating a dead bird for Thanksgiving. Turkeys on factory farms develop respiratory diseases, foot ulcers, breast blisters and ammonia-burned eyes. They are not suited to the harsh confinement systems in which 5,000 or more sensitive birds are forced to sit and stand jammed together in filthy litter breathing burning ammonia fumes and lung-destroying dust.

These turkeys are bred and fed to become pathologically obese. Their skeletons are so weak under their bloated muscles ("meat") that many birds collapse. Oxygen-deprived and grossly overburdened, many turkeys' hearts explode.

Factory-farmed turkeys are brutally debeaked. As a result, they cannot eat or preen properly. The hot debeaking blade cuts through the sensitive beak tissue causing lifelong pain and suffering in the mutilated bird. There are no laws governing humane slaughter of turkeys in the United States.

A Thanksgiving meal doesn't have to include turkey. Take pleasure in a healthy feast that won't contribute to animal cruelty. Enjoy delicious entrees instead, such as lentil roasts, stuffed acorn squash, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, green beans, cranberry dishes and pumpkin pie.

Laurelee Blanchard
Haiku, Maui

Energy bill would reward big polluters

On Friday the Senate voted to reject an anti-environment, anti-consumer energy bill. This vote was a huge victory for anyone who drinks the water, breathes the air, pays utility bills or pays taxes. We applaud Senators Akaka and Inouye for rejecting this pork-ridden excuse for energy policy and standing up for the public instead of the polluters.

The energy bill would repeal protections that safeguard consumers from rising energy prices and price spikes. With Hawaii's already high energy costs, this is something that would hit particularly hard.

It also would let oil and chemical companies off the hook for a $29 billion in cleanup costs for polluting our drinking water. Hawaii has 502 contaminated sites that need to be cleaned up.

But it's not over yet. The polluters are busy twisting arms so they can make another run at the estimated $37 billion in taxpayer handouts to oil, gas, nuclear and other dirty energy sources contained in the energy bill.

Akaka and Inouye should continue to reject the dirty energy bill and instead work toward a smarter, cleaner energy future.

Chuck Burrows
President
Ahahui Malama Ika Lokahi

Moira Chapin
Federal field organizer
U.S. PIRG

Seat-belt use a must for children

I hope the police who are involved in "Click It or Ticket" will check to see if children in rear seats are buckled in. I have seen too many cases where youngsters in vehicles are not wearing seat belts just because they are not sitting in the front seats. I've even seen some cases where a parent is holding a toddler tightly on his or her lap, thinking the child is best protected that way -- yet the parent's seat belt is not buckled.

Please remember that the law in Hawaii, as with laws in most states, requires that passengers under age 17 must be restrained no matter where they sit in the car. If they are physically small to use regular seat belts, they must be in infant restraints or booster seats.

To those adults who tell me that seat-belt laws interfere with their freedom, I say, "Please don't speak against protecting minor-age passengers," because the very young cannot protect themselves.

Mariea Vaughan
Ewa Beach

Trash-to-energy model uses bad arithmetic

Re: the letter to the editor about converting trash to electricity (Star Bulletin, Nov 20.): I get tired of hearing from these promoters of the magic bullet to solve our trash and energy problems. They need to brush up on some simple arithmetic.

Find out how much energy is in each type of trash. Add up all the available energy from the amount of trash the city generates a day. Convert all this energy into the equivalent electric energy and you will find that it amounts, at best, to about 5 percent of the electricity we need.

Of course, there will eventually be the really ambitious promoters who will tell you that trash contains fissionable material, so that you can get nuclear energy out of it. In that case, we'd all be glowing in the dark!

Raymond Chuan
Hanalei

Inexpensive drugs from Canada are safe

Kudos to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for taking the position to let consumers buy their prescription drugs from Canada (Nov. 14). I buy my prescription drugs from Canada, and they are much cheaper than in Hawaii. Many senior citizens are on fixed incomes and the savings is important to them.

The Canadian drugs are safe. The $30 million in contributions to politicians from the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is intended to protect the high prices.

The Star-Bulletin is right. Consumers should be allowed to purchase prescription drugs from Canada.

How Tim Chang
Honolulu

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[ BRAINSTORM! ] Dirty gutter talk Those orange rolls that highway engineers have been shoving into storm drain openings -- there must be a more efficient or practical or attractive way to filter out road debris. These things are about as useful and pleasing to the eye as huge, discarded cigarette butts. Send your ideas, drawings and solutions by Thursday, Dec. 17 to: brainstorm@starbulletin.com Or mail them to: Brainstorm! c/o Burl Burlingame Star-Bulletin 500 Ala Moana 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210 Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 Fax: Brainstorm! c/o Burl Burlingame 529-4750