Letters for Thursday, October 4, 2007

• Shocked at no charges

• No middle ground

• In protest of surfers/protesters

• War for peace

• Masculine/feminine balance

Shocked at no charges

I was shocked to the core to read that the Kaua‘i County prosecutors office failed to file charges against the Superferry protesters that had been arrested.

The crime these people committed is no different than interfering with a flight crew onboard an airliner … they were jeopardizing the lives and safety of people on a public transport.

Shame on the prosecutor’s office for dropping the ball on this. Would they have “dropped” that ball if it had been an interisland air carrier that was turned back from our shores?

I suspect it wasn’t an “accident” that these charges weren’t filed in time.

Payoff?

I’m disgusted.

Anonymous

Wailua

No middle ground

The problem Kaua‘i has is they have been selling building permits for the last 40 years, with not one new road created to accommodate the rapid growth the permits have allowed.

If you hand out building permits you must also build new roads to handle the growth that comes with development.

If you don’t want growth, stop selling building permits. Without building permits there will be no need for heavy equipment operators, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, concrete finishers, concrete truck drivers, painters, roofers, building contractors, lumber yards and the people who deliver the building materials to the job sites, hardware stores, tool rental companies, etc. Matson would have to cut back the amount of ships going to Kaua‘i (more layoffs) making the whale-people happy.

All of those people would be out of work and they would be forced to leave Kaua‘i, lowering Kaua‘i’s population in the process, making everyone left on Kaua‘i much happier with less traffic in Kapa‘a … right?

If you sell building permits you must build new roads. There is no middle ground on this issue.

Paul Staples

Kailua, O‘ahu

In protest of surfers/protesters

This letter probably won’t get printed, but here I go.

Local surfers who protest the Superferry. Here’s a far-fetched solution to overcrowded surfing spots. Remember when outsiders had to be sponsored to join a canoe club? Well, why don’t you protest that only local surfers can use the surf spots and outsiders can only surf if invited and sponsored by a local person to the surf spot. Like going back to the good old Hawaiian days, smiles. It’s Hawaiian waters and only locals should be surfing in it. See how stupid this letter sounds so far, you Superferry protesters.

And for the EIS concerns for these surf spots; there will be less urination and human feces, (which sometimes happens) and less tanning solutions in the water of surf spots. The beach itself will be a lot cleaner from rubbish because it will be a controlled area. Yeah, right … some of the locals are pigs and leave their opala on the beaches, too.

So, if some of you are going to protest my other choice (the Superferry) of traveling to the Neighbor Islands, fair is fair, “Do not surf or swim in Hawaiian/local waters.” Your tanning solutions, urine and human feces (along with the locals) contribute to pollution of our beaches.

Howard Tolbe

‘Ele‘ele

War for peace

Historian Charles A. Beard coined the phrase “Perpetual war for perpetual peace.”

Our president seems to be acting like that is his definition of international relations.

How else can one explain the latest poll that shows 69 percent of Americans want out of Iraq, and the administration is making noises about Iran that can only be described as, “deja vu all over again.”

As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Please speak out to our leaders and tell them we don’t need to kill any more men and women, ours or theirs.

We are not safer after Iraq, and will be less safe if we go to war with Iran.

And finally, as it is well recognized that our military is stretched too thin now, how will we fight the inevitable ground action?

I see only two answers:

A military draft

Weapons of mass destruction

You remember “WMDs”? Those are the weapons that we are afraid that the bad guys will use on us …

I submit to you that preemptive war is very close to a mirror image of unilateral aggression.

One wonders what is the definition of a rogue nation?

Hanalei

Masculine/feminine balance

Christians and Muslims have been causing much of the world’s problems for hundreds of years.

Why is that?

I think it may be the lack of balance in Christian based Republican conservatism and Muslim extremism. In Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism there is a balance between the masculine and the feminine that does not exist in Christianity and Islam. Christians believe that God is a man and that “He” created everything, and that we humans are made in “His” image. Well if that is so, how come when I created life, it took a man and a woman? If I recall correctly, she did most of the work as well. It’s all about the balance between male and female. Until the equal image of women is restored in Christianity and Islam these two groups will continue to wobble off-balance creating wars. This will not be an easy change because it challenges the entrenched core beliefs of powerful older men. But, I think it would be better than watching the repressed femininity surface in closeted homosexual Republican politicians. I think Sally Field was right when she said that if mothers were in charge there would be no more wars.

Jason Nichols

Koloa