‘Tropic Thunder’ isn't kiddie entertainment

I attended a weekend showing of the movie "Tropic Thunder" at Ward, and I was shocked to see so many young children with their parents at this R-rated movie. The movie was laced with profanity and explicit sexual references. I don't know if parents just didn't do their research, but all it would take is to read one review of the movie to understand it is not suited for 7-, 8- and 10-year-olds. However, there were enough awkward silences in the theater throughout many scenes to make me hope these parents all just had a lapse in judgment.

And to think it was a perfect summer day with the Family Festival right outside ... sad indeed.

If HPD won’t do it, let us protect ourselves

In your Aug. 16 article on the Iolani Palace takeover, our Honolulu Police Department (city) refused to protect a U.S. citizen from physical assault and battery, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources (state) acted after the assault. Our legislators should consider replacing the state's Sheriff's Department with a State Police Department that would be given broader, all-encompassing authority to enforce all state laws.

Barack Obama stated that if he gets elected president, he will pass the Akaka Bill. The racial native Hawaiian government would then likely create its own police department which will enforce its own laws for the benefit of its own government and citizens. There will certainly be conflicts between governments, and the need to create and expand a State Police Department, that is already established, would be easier.

In the meantime, since U.S. citizens on Oahu are unable to depend on HPD's protection from physical assaults in their presence, our state legislators should pass a law to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons as other state and council governments do.

Remarks about Hawaii were outrageous

Rather than promote our shared commonality, our similarities and being inclusive, the right wing instead seeks to highlight any perceived differences at every opportunity, real or not, to denigrate others "not like them." And news commentator Cokie Roberts' comment on Barack Obama vacationing in Hawaii is just the latest example of this mean-spirited, divisive, not to mention outrageous and gratuitous, nonsense from the right.

To say that Hawaii is "foreign, exotic" leaves one speechless. It is one of the top three domestic vacation destinations of middle-class U.S. citizens, but that doesn't matter to the right wing exemplified by folks like Cokie, who will knowingly inject outlandish remarks with no regard to fact or principle because that's the only way they can galvanize their base. Imagine if a white Republican had his grandmother and half sister living in Hawaii, and who himself grew up there, and after a long campaign season, with an opportunity for a short respite, chose to spend a week in his boyhood home state, a top vacation destination in the United States. What would Cokie say?

Isle GOP a bad source of voting advice

The governor and lieutenant governor have been parroting the negative McCain smear of Obama that "this isn't American Idol" (Star-Bulletin, Aug. 15).

Well, excuse me, but aren't these the same folks that campaigned for our former cheerleader, failed businessman, poor student, family brand name, alcoholic current president in the first place?

If that weren't bad enough, they continued to campaign for him four years later. This after he invaded the wrong place and ran the country with a credit card, not to mention the plethora of other scandals and debacles.

I won't be listening to their advice, mahalo. I'll be voting for Barack Obama and a return to competent leadership.

Cooke Field has other important uses

A photo and article (Aug. 14 Star-Bulletin) about the condition and use of the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus use of Cooke Field failed to mention an important use of the facility. Each day of a regular semester and the summer sessions, Cooke Field is scheduled for use by the College of Education's Department of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Science for classes needed to meet accreditation standards established by Western Associations of Schools and Colleges and National Colleges of Teacher Education.

There is no other outdoor field space available to the department to conduct classes required to meet the accreditation requirements of the college and department's programs of study in undergraduate teacher education in physical education and exercise science.

The National Association of Sport and Physical Education reviews the College of Education's degree programs in these areas; a review is scheduled in the near future. It is critical that Cooke Field be completed prior to that review.