Warriors in training are very entertaining

On the percentage of football players who graduate (”;Warriors fumble on grad rate,”; Star-Bulletin, Dec. 9), we can be proud of the University of Hawaii for affirming the true purposes of intercollegiate athletics: entertaining the community and training players for professional sports.

Don't leave our cops, citizens vulnerable

Ever since Honolulu Police Department officer Glen Gaspar was shot and killed by a fugitive in 2003, I've been worried that police officers in Hawaii were too hesitant to use their firearms when confronting dangerous fugitives. Too often the public, the police department and the courts seem to assume that the officers are guilty of excessive use of force. We should all be concerned that this might lead officers to hesitate too long in using their firearms or Tasers to apprehend dangerous armed fugitives like Shane Mark in 2003. A good officer, husband and father might have died in 2003 because of that overzealous scrutiny.

Now we find SHOPO, the officers union, protesting HPD's possible too frequent restriction of police authority, which also significantly lowers officers' income while the investigations drag on. No one wants police officers to think excessive use of force is OK, but neither should we as a society want gun-shy officers failing to protect the public because they're too worried about subsequent discipline or loss of income.

The proper balance needs to be found, and it's quite obvious that we don't have it now.

Mentally ill are pawns in dangerous game

Big cuts are coming to the Department of Health's Adult Mental Health Division (Star-Bulletin, Nov. 27). At a recent neighborhood board meeting, a state representative said we will know if too much money has been cut if suicides among people with serious mental health disorders increase. A representative of AMHD was reported to have said the same.

People killing themselves is the criterion the state uses to determine if too much money has been cut?

The first indicator will be an increase in the number of hospitalizations. As people lose their programs, with little or no support in the community, health and behavior will deteriorate and hospitalization will be inevitable. And hospitalization costs more than supporting people in the community.

Is the state so insensitive, callous and bereft of knowledge of the needs of people with serious mental health disorders that it must wait for an increase in suicides to determine that too much money has been cut? It's guessing with people's lives and that is irresponsible.

Calm down, folks, Obama's not the pope

The Obamanatics (Barack Obama fanatics) really make me laugh. First they throw an absolute fit when Gov. Linda Lingle takes some vacation time and campaigned for her party's nominee, at her own expense. How dare she leave in the middle of a “;crisis,”; and worst of all, defy their will?

Next the Obamanatics go nuts when Lingle decides to skip the national governors conference, and stay home to catch up on work, because she missed an audience with the president-elect. You would have thought that Obama had been elected pope, instead of president. She doesn't have to kneel and kiss his ring. Obama repeatedly said that the nation only has one president at a time. And until Jan. 20, he's not it.

Get a grip, people! The election is thankfully over. Obama won. So be it. Que sera, sera. (What will be, will be.) The Union is strong. The nation will endure. Our flag is still there. And after Jan. 20, anything that goes wrong will all be President Obama's fault.

Please, marathoners, give residents a break

I am writing to ask that whoever sets off the fireworks at 5 a.m. on the morning of the Honolulu Marathon please refrain from doing so starting this year.

Is there any reason that the entire city must be woken up because some people are going to have a road race? It is a day off for most people and 98 percent of the population is trying to sleep at that time.

If fireworks must be used at that ridiculously early time of the morning, please use fireworks with no report (no explosion). They are readily available, cheaper, wake up far fewer people and light up the sky just as beautifully.

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