Stop dumping on Leeward Coast
I'd like to know where city Environmental Services Director Frank Doyle lives ("City will not ship out garbage," Star-Bulletin, Oct. 8). Surely he doesn't live on the Leeward Coast. We need a moratorium on deciding what to do about our garbage. It seems to me that our decisions are made too fast and the catch word is "Leeward Coast."Not sure what I mean? How come four out of five sites for a new landfill are on the Leeward Coast? One is up the single-lane road by my house!
Couldn't we use a little time, generated by shipping out our garbage, to decide what needs to be done? Don't just stick a new landfill in my backyard because no one in Kailua, Kaneohe, Manoa or Hawaii Kai wants one. We've had years of putting up with trucks, flying debris and the smell. Now one candidate for mayor says it's OK to put it on the Leeward Coast, but he'd compensate us with a park. What a slap in the face.
Doyle says it's morally wrong to send our trash to someone else's backyard. But they want it! Two states are begging for it! Isn't it also morally wrong to put it on the Leeward Coast?
Maile
Old recycling bin is being wasted
I live in Mililani, and recently a blue bin was dropped off at my curb for mixed recyclables. Now I have three waste bins: a gray one for general refuse, a blue one for mixed recylcables and an old green one left over from the recycling program that shut down more than a month ago.The blue one came with a pamphlet instructing me to leave the green one on the curb to be picked up the next day. It has been a week now since my green bin, and the bins of all my neighbors up and down the street, have been sitting on the curb waiting for pickup. They are an eyesore and a nuisance.
I'm all for the recycling program, but I did not ask to house this green bin indefinitely, which I assume is the property of the City and County of Honolulu. Ironic that Honolulu's refuse division is taking so long to take care of their "waste."
Mililani
WMD search required Saddam's removal
One of the obvious questions left unanswered by the Charles Duelfer report ("Bush continues to defend Iraq war," Oct. 7) is whether there could have been absolute verification of Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction without the removal of Saddam Hussein.Contained in the report is the conclusion that Saddam had retained the ability and desire to restart his weapons' program the moment inspectors and sanctions were removed.
Saddam's covert activity can be considered as further evidence of his unwillingness to adhere to the armistice agreement ending the first Gulf War.
As well, the barrage of intelligence and mixed signals surrounding Saddam's prepara- tions for resuming WMD production has to be taken into account. That offers at least some explanation for the intelligence reports wrongly concluding Iraq's WMD capabilities prior the war.
Kailua
Beat drugs by teaching kids consequences
Thanks for your story "Beating addiction" (Star-Bulletin, Sept. 26). Clearly, this is a war we are not winning. There are wonderful organizations fighting the fight, but we are winning too few battles and losing a war.As a member of the Rotary/Castle/Hina Mauka Family Program Committee, I adhere to the process but do not want to become complacent in finding better solutions. I am not certain that throwing money for beds is going to help us in the long run. With as much dedicated work as we are putting into rehabilitating the addict and comforting the addict's family, we need to put more work into prevention. There is just too much drug-related crime surrounding us.
Maria Carpenter felt a "sense of empowerment" with Hina Mauka. She came from modest means, and was raised with an understanding of the American dream, but failed to stay the course. Where did she loose her sense of her own empowerment? She states in your story that "I was in control and knew everything. I didn't need help finding answers. I was a control freak and a perfectionist."
Yeah, everything but having a sense of consequences. Is this the missing link that we do not instill in our youth?
If addiction is a disease, then what is a beautiful, intelligent young woman's decision to snort cocaine or smoke ice? We can say it was only recreational, an emotional downfall, the need to escape from life's knocks, even a scream for help. But the bottom line is it is an individual and societal failure. To call it anything else is a cop-out.
Your story states that cocaine was Carpenter's downfall. In that statement lies the entire problem. If it wasn't cocaine, it would've been ice, heroin, food, sex, alcohol. Her downfall was that she made a bad choice.
We need to continue more discussions on this subject. We need to win this war.
Honolulu
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