We must create alternatives to oil

I've been looking for an excuse to compliment C. W. Griffin's spot-on analysis of Rush Limbaugh (Gathering Place, July 22), unquestionably America's richest liar. Thursday's letter from Marilyn Tracy trashing Mr. Griffin was just the excuse I was looking for. I've listened to Rush's "endless pursuit of the truth" for years. It leads to two inescapable conclusions. First, nothing any liberal has ever said or done is any good. Second, nothing any conservative has ever said or done is bad.

Tracy also castigates Democrats for opposing various drilling options and thus blames the Dems for our current high cost of gas. I support the Dems and oppose efforts to drill our way out of this mess. If ever there was a time for a crash program to shift our energy needs to clean renewable alternatives, this is it. That is, by far, the fastest way to reduce oil demand and stabilize prices.

Lastly, consider this: Imagine the benefit to the U.S. economy if only half the $700 billion annually we're sending overseas for oil were spent in the good ole U.S. building windmills, photovoltaic cells, etc. Why, it would be the greatest economic boost and job producer since the end of World War II.

We should heed the voices of experience

A long time ago Honolulu started out with a streetcar line (the cars were called "dang dangs," from the sound of the clanging bell) from way out in Kalihi to out South King Street. After a brief trial of rubber-tired electric coaches just before World War II, we switched to buses and the rails were covered over with blacktop. It's been buses only ever since, so naturally we distrust rail for an expressway.

On the mainland public transportation started with horse-drawn streetcars on rails, eventually motorized and gradually a network of streetcar tracks covered the cities, later supplemented by buses. Japan did the same thing, a mix of buses and street cars on rails.

So all those cities have the advantage over us of having years of experience with both rail and bus. With that experience they chose rail for their expressways.

To make up for our lack of experience we hired a prestigious engineering consulting firm to investigate what is best for us. They chose rail. In view of our lack of engineering knowledge and experience, we are in no position to discard that decision "just like that."

Now either buses or rail will work; people will ride them because of need. In the long run, maintenance adds up to more than first cost. We should choose the one that gives us the longest run for the money. I believe that highly ranked consulting firm has done that for us.

Better get extra scoop with that plate lunch

The price of food in restaurants on Kauai is representative of a tourist economy within an oil crisis. For the most part, heavily overpriced with small portions and poor service.

Everyone likes a good deal and with the advent of a couple of new lunch wagons in the Kapaa area I became excited since I thought great deals, local grinds. To my surprise, these mobile lunch wagons are charging as much and more as sit-down diners with full service. Burgers for $10, plate lunches for $14 and $15. These wagons are supposed to be an alternative, they do not have all the expenses of a full-service restaurant, they don't even have restrooms, this implies savings to the consumer, right? Wrong.

These wagons never seem to have any business. May I recommend a $5 plate lunch special, get people to try your grinds, get some business get established, do the math, sell 100 plates for $5, that's better than selling three plates for $14.

Until such time as these mobile lunch wagons change their ways, I'm sticking with Costco hot dogs and Burger King.

Homophobes keep us from prospering

California now has gay marriage. That state expects to see, by most estimates, more than $700 million pumped into its economy over the next three years. Massachusetts, which is preparing to allow gay couples from other states to marry there, expects to see huge financial gains as well. Canada has been prospering from gay marriage for some time, as have several European countries.

But here in Hawaii, which, except for the antigay campaigns of Mike Gabbard and others like him, would have had gay marriage for a decade now, we have received none of this largess. Instead we've watched our tourism market deteriorate, a fate that Gabbard promised would befall us if we accepted gay marriage.

In fact, contrary to the naysayers, no place that has legalized gay marriage has fallen in the sea, been destroyed by a meteorite or suffered any other God-sponsored cataclysm. In fact, every place that has decided to recognize the equal rights of all its citizens has prospered, and prospered big.

The irony, of course, is that now that the genie is out of the bottle - every state in the union will eventually have gay marriage. By then the financial boon will end up being spread around the 50 states. We could have had a giant cut of that, but because of the homophobes we'll get next to nothing.

So I would like to thank Sen. Gabbard for protecting us from all them gay people with all their nasty money. Without him we'd be suffering carpal tunnel from counting all that cash and hernias from carrying it to the bank.

Slugger’s feat wasn’t the least bit trivial

I see where Lance Tominaga has written a book "Hawaii Sports Trivia." So he doesn't have to read this, because it's no trivia. It's humongous, even though that word had not yet been born at the time of this happening more than 70 years ago. But that span of time can not detract from the humongousness of it.

One Johnny Kerr, weighing all of about 165 pounds, hit a home-run ball that would be the envy of the big sluggers of today; that is, if they can believe the story. But they don't have to believe it, and I wouldn't blame them. Because neither would I if I hadn't seen it with my own eyeballs.

Kerr blasted a baseball over the huge scoreboard near center field of the old Honolulu Stadium on King Street in Moiliili. Lacking the record of the dimensions of the old stadium, I estimate the horizontal distance of the scoreboard from Johnny's bat to about 570 feet. Given that the top of the scoreboard was about 50 feet high, and that the blow was a liner rather than a pop fly, it's almost a certainty that that baseball flew at least 600 feet before it landed somewhere in the boonies behind Dreir Manor, the old clubhouse of the St. Louis college alumni.

Credit where credit is due. Amen.