Ticket campaign should be year 'round
The seatbelt campaign "Click It or Ticket" is so publicized and yet it's enforced only two weeks each year. If it is so important, why not all year instead of only when federally funded?If it's about safety and not percentages, why is it that school buses, city buses, tour buses and trolleys don't have safety belts? We see bus riders with children on their laps not buckled in -- yet no ticket. What's the difference?
Remember, it's about safety, not percentages.
What will it take, a busload of people getting killed first, or is it about costs?
Why not use the money collected to equip the buses and trolleys with seatbelts?
Laie
Please explain what is noble about Iraq war
The question President Bush seems to be ducking is: For what noble cause did Casey Sheehan die?WMD? No!
Capturing Osama? No!
9/11? No!
It has been demonstrated that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat to the United States as described by President Bush, and it appears Iraq may have had more freedoms under Saddam than under the new Iraqi constitution!
In March 2003, when Bush attacked Iraq, a share of Halliburton stock was about $21 per share; two years later it's more than $56 per share. Would Halliburton and other U.S. corporations have opened their doors in Bagdad if Saddam was still in power?
The Pentagon's comptroller reported that the Iraq war costs more than $1 billion per week. You can understand how a business involved in the Iraq war would be concerned that profits will vanish if the U.S. troops withdraw. So supporters of American business in Iraq probably believe keeping the troops there is a noble cause.
What Bush is doing is not patriotic, it's profiteering on the backs of the poor and middle class!
Mililani
Test scores aren't much to dance about
Pat Hamamoto, the state superintendent of public education, was ready to dance on a table at the recent news that student test scores had improved (Star-Bulletin, Aug. 19). However, she would have been less than euphoric if she had adopted the high standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which, unfortunately, were far from being met.How much improvement should the public expect -- and how fast? The Board of Education, in its leadership capacity, should be setting those expectations. Then when test scores are reported in the future, the public will know how to react.
Honolulu
Pidgin should be left out of our schools
Regarding Rep. Marcus Oshiro's letter of Aug. 21, in my opinion he is pandering to his constituents instead of helping them to have a better life. What a shame. He should be active in having the local schools insist that their students speak correct English at all times in the schools. What they do at home is irrelevant. But in the marketplace of better jobs, "locals" need to be able to communicate in correct English.
Kapaa, Kauai
Alcohol doesn't belong at school events
I would like to thank Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona for pushing to ban alcohol at University of Hawaii games and on campus. I personally think it's an awesome idea because not only will there be fewer problems, but it will also set a good example for the younger kids at the games.I'm a student at McKinley High School who is thinking of going to UH-Manoa next year. Seeing that there will be positive outcomes out of making alcohol a contraband item at UH games motivates me to enroll at UH.
As teenagers, there are many influences around us that encourage us to drink. I'm happy to see that there are people in government who support teens by banning alcohol in public places. There are no positive outcomes from drinking alcohol at school events, anyway.
Honolulu
Hawaiian Fires
Like a baby crying from the pain of teething.
I smell the burning.
I see the thick white smoke
Rising high above the horizon
But way too close.
Reinforcements are arriving.
A helicopter flies low overhead
Vibrating the ceiling.
It dangles a line with a bucket attached
Filled with seawater dipped from the ocean.
The sight is compelling.
It scurries back and forth,
A giant dragonfly
Dragging urgency behind it.
The news will make mention
Of so many fires lit in so many days
In different locations.
This year the numbers are up.
But it's become blase,
An everyday situation.
Just some troubled youth, they'll say.
That with any luck will be caught and taken away,
And maybe placed in detention.
What is this dysfunction?
Are these fires accidents,
Or a symptom of desperation,
Or acts of mischief
Of time misspent?
Or the rage of a deeper conflagration,
Whose embers ignite on the winds of affliction
And spark the dry tinder of discontent.
Waianae
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