How do you fight higher sewer fees?

As I looked into my mirror this morning, I noticed that my hairline was receding more.

No problem, I have less hair, therefore less need to go to the barbershop as often, which saves me money, since the price has risen from less than a half-dollar when I was a kid, to more than $10 now. Fewer haircuts. First problem solved.

The price of gas has gone out of range, so I don't drive as many miles each month. Avoid unnecessary trips. Save money. Second problem solved.

I have quit buying juice or other packaged products requiring a 6-cent deposit. The hassle to redeem the "deposit" is not worth the trouble. Third problem solved.

Now Mayor Mufi Hannemann is going to increase my sewer fees. What is my defense? Reduce my use of the toilet?

Maybe I should just quit using my bathroom, and go to the park to shave, too.

Churchill's critics should read his books

I doubt any of the various columnists, politicians and citizens who wrote letters condemning University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's credentials and his patriotism have read any of his 12 books detailing the crimes the U.S. government has waged against native peoples and various smaller nations in our brief history. It is much easier to wave the flag and curse those "anti-Americans" than study the large number of wars the United States has participated in with money, weapons or troops.

Gen. Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated U.S. Marines in history, studied U.S. foreign policy on his retirement, and said: "I spent 33 years in active military service ... I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a gangster for Capitalism."

No less a mind than Albert Einstein called nationalism the "measles of the human race." Unless American citizens wake up like Butler we will continue to be fodder for multinational corporations who control the highest levels of U.S. government and incur the wrath of radicals worldwide for U.S. foreign policy.

Hemmings shed light on university speaker

Hurrah for Sen. Fred Hemmings ("With freedom of speech comes responsibility," Star-Bulletin, Feb. 27), the only public figure I have seen with the courage to speak out against the travesty that took place at the University of Hawaii last week, when a gaggle of radical faculty members invited fraud and hate-monger Ward Churchill to spread untruths under the veil of academic freedom and free speech.

Hemmings made it clear that the issue is not free speech -- something we all agree is vital. The issue is whether the ideal of free speech requires us to turn over our university for use as a platform by any charlatan or hate-peddler, dressed in the cloak of academe, who comes along. If the organizations that invited Churchill were truly interested in free speech, then why did they rebut Hemmings' request to debate Churchill? Could it be that they feared truth and aloha might prevail? Wouldn't that be a fresh wind in college classrooms throughout our nation where free inquiry -- and, yes, free speech -- are threatened by scholar-propagandists who have created a climate that ill tolerates opposition to their views.

Editorial missed the mark on Narconon

Regarding your Sunday editorial on Narconon -- what was your point? Drugs are poisons. They do burn up vitamins in your body. Kids should not take them. No one should. These are not religious datums. These are facts that most people would agree with.

Did you do any research on Narconon before you wrote this? Did you thoroughly look into the program, its origins, results or go to see a drug presentation to the kids yourself? If you had, you would have embraced Narconon and spread the welcome mat long and wide. You of one collective voice would have used that voice to help the people of Hawaii by letting them know of a new secular drug education and rehab program that gets results and saves lives. Who would not have wanted that? Only a man or woman of ill will would not have. You have done a great disservice to the people of Hawaii.