Toss out the shorts and put on a muumuu

When I came to Honolulu the very first time in 1973, I was delighted by the ladies in long dresses. This elegant attire is called muumuu, I was told. Every year I came back. And every year the flattering dresses became less and less visible in the streets. What a pity, that now even elderly ladies wear shorts, although they would have the chance to hide their insufficiencies under the smart and so merciful fashion of their island.

Can the Daughters of Hawaii not start a sort of competition: "Back to Muumuu"? I am sure visitors like me would appreciate it.

Fight ocean trash with national bottle bill

Charles Moore, head of the Algalita Research Foundation, explains the problem of what he calls the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, only 800 miles from Hawaii and created by ocean currents ("Flotilla of trash trickles into isles," Star-Bulletin, Nov. 11). What these marine debris experts should be studying is how to stop it at its source.

The answer is a strong national bottle recycling bill using refillable bottles like Europe and Canada have. One hundred percent of Canada's beer bottles are refillable, using only one type of bottle with a 99 percent recycle rate. In the United States, 125 billion glass, aluminum and plastic bottles are not recycled and end up as loose trash, in landfills or in incineraters. Only 11 out of 50 states even bother with a bottle bill. Hawaii's bottle bill is newest in the nation.

One-way plastic bottles must be banned. Refillable bottles must be mandated. The article quoted a recent study that found that two rivers in Los Angeles discharged about 2.3 billion plastic pieces into the North Pacific in just three days. Disgusting! Where are major environmental groups regarding a national bottle bill?

Other products contain lead, too

If lead in toys from China is known to be a danger, we now find that is also true of telephones for sale is our stores. A clear warning about the wiring containing lead, "a chemical known ... to cause cancer and birth defects," was printed inside the heavy plastic cover of the telephone I purchased. The manager of one of our prominent stores removed five of these phones when I returned mine.

However, two branch stores still carried them a week later. Is the Consumer Products Safety Commission going to step in?

Community programs offer prison option

The issue of housing Hawaiian prisoners in mainland prisons has been recently rekindled with Sen. Will Espero's visit to Arizona's Saguaro prison (Star-Bulletin, Nov. 4). The consensus from past debates on the mainland prison issue is that mainland prisons keep inmates away from their families, but it also is not viable to build prisons on the islands.

The focus needs to be taken away from prisons as the only viable solution to house offenders. There are many community-based correction programs that could be a viable option for many nonviolent criminal offenders. Community-based correction programs will keep families together without the building of more prisons. Community-based correction programs such as work release, community service and rehabilitation still make offenders accountable for their actions while keeping community support intact. I have seen previous letters to the editor that discuss the success of current community correction programs in Hawaii.

I'm not saying that all inmates should be placed in community-based corrections; this is not feasible or safe. I am just saying that the Department of Public Safety might want to look outside the "concrete prison box" for other ideas on what to do with some of Hawaii's inmates.

Can you hear me now? Unfortunately, yes

On a recent trip on the Kauai bus, someone had a cell phone with the ring tone of a siren. The driver pulled off to the side of the road, believing it to be an emergency vehicle.

I pass by people in the supermarkets yapping on their cells, asking the advice of their friends or spouses on what frozen pizza to buy.

I saw three tourists walking together and each one of them was on their cell phone. They had the company of each other but had to talk to someone else on a phone.

I go to lunch with a friend and they spend half their time on their cell phone. I'm the guy buying, shouldn't I get the attention?

I observe about 50 percent of all drivers speaking to someone on their cell phones. The conversation might go something like this: "How are you?" "Good, how are you?" "What's happening?" "I don't know, what's happening with you?" "Should we do something?" "I don't know, do you want to do something?" I don't know." Then call-waiting kicks in and it's another call: "Howzit?" "OK, howzit with you?" "What are you doing?" "I don't know, what are you doing?" Then the battery dies as they smash into the car in front of them.

Movie theaters, churches, synagogues, business meetings, lectures, the beach, hiking trails ... nothing is sacred any more.

My friend points her cell phone at me as we are being intimate and says, "Smile and say cheese!"

Nowadays the only place you can escape cell-phone mania is by speaking on your land line.