Helemano residents deserve privacy

The Hawaii Disability Rights Center protects and advocates for the disabled in Hawaii, except their privacy, that is. Opportunities for the Retarded Inc. at Helemano Plantation is a community for disabled people where they can feel comfortable in their own skin. ORI helps its members to develop skills that will enable them to feel confident. Imagine, then HDRC's attorney Roy Benavidez, who wants to trample on their privacy. We would not want our records distributed to people we don't know without good reason. We hope ORI keeps up the fight.

Better bus system will lure more transit users

As a senior citizen with a bus pass, I decided to leave the car at home in lower Manoa and do some errands in Punahou and Moiliili. All went well, until it came time to return home. At about 4 p.m., the bus stop, a major transfer point in front of Puck's Alley on University Avenue, was blazingly hot with no shade and no benches for the many riders, many of them elderly, waiting patiently for the No. 4 or 6 up to the university and beyond to Manoa Valley and Woodlawn.

Normally I would have walked home in a half hour, but the groceries were a little heavy, and I wanted to give the bus a chance. After about 20 minutes I made do with a bus heading for Sinclair Circle, only about a third of the way to my house. After another wait of about 25 minutes further up University for the Woodlawn bus, I gave up and walked the rest of the way home. This was on a weekday during a normally busy time for commuters.

Our city is laid out like a giant hand with fingers reaching up into the ridges and valleys. Traveling along the “;palm”; is usually not a problem. Getting up the valleys and ridges can mean long waits. If we want people to get into the habit of leaving their cars at home, we need to make our bus system more user friendly. Some of these public transportation bus passengers will be our mass transit riders in the future. Improvement of our bus system can only increase ridership of any mass transit system, be it rail or one of the many alternatives.

Put scientists to work on something useful

In this time of crisis, it would be wise to put a hold on unnecessary major projects from agencies such as NASA, and use the smartest employees to look into solar energy and wave energy development and other renewable energy. Let's use this work force in a way that can help us on planet Earth. Let's take a 20-year break on trying to find a black hole or looking at the stars all night. There is no need anymore to spend $1 billion on a new telescope on top of Mauna Kea.

How much money are we wasting on trying to send just two more guys on the moon for showing off our technology and to find out if hamsters reproduce faster in space or broccoli taste the same, while our financial system is in a mess and our health care is inexistent. Let's stop all those luxuries and humble ourselves by focusing on better asphalt for our roads and better bridges millions people use every hours of the day.

There is so much we can do with that money (without counting the one going to Iraq).

By the way, the rest of NASA workforce, the “;not so smart ones,”; have them come out of their cocoon and find a job like everyone else.

The economy is doing great, just ask Exxon

Exxon has just announced that it has made its largest quarterly profits ever. That $14.83 billion is the biggest quarterly earnings ever amassed by any U.S. corporation!

So who says there's a recession?

We should all be proud of the fact that Exxon's revenue more than makes up for the economy's 0.3 percent decline, the rising unemployment figures and the few home mortgage foreclosures happening in this country.

Free enterprise has succeeded in America without any need for government's socialistic interference.

LWV-Hawaii neutral on Con Con question

In his guest op-ed, David Wilson (Star-Bulletin, Oct. 31) correctly states that the League of Women Voters of Hawaii found no compelling reason to call for a Constitutional Convention in 1998. But then he goes on to say that the league “;is not supporting one now.”; While it is true that we are not supporting a Con Con at this time, he neglected to add that we are not opposing one either. We are neutral on the question.

At consensus meetings held by the local leagues, our members were clearly divided on the question. League policy is to require almost unanimity in adopting a position on any issue, and only after a study. Therefore, we are taking no position on the Con Con question.

However, this was too important an issue for us to just sit on the sidelines. We decided to objectively disseminate as much information as we could on our state Constitution and its role in our state's governance, the different ways of amending or revising a constitution, opinions of thinkers and leaders on the issue of Con Con and some of the issues that would be raised and reviewed by a Con Con.

We brought in one of the foremost scholars of state constitutions and the revision processes for a seminar and sponsored a pro-con debate on the Con Con question. You can find this information and more at our Web site, www.lwv-hawaii.com.

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