CRYBABIES

CURBSIDE RECYCLING IS NO MAGIC SOLUTION

Why all the hand-wringing about curbside recycling?

People who truly care about the environment already find a way to work recycling into their daily routines. Drop off your old newspapers at a school bin on your way to the mall. Bundle your green waste for curbside pickup. If you don’t want to stand in line for nickel refunds on bottles and cans, donate them to a school. I’m glad to hear Mayor Hannemann plans to add more drop-off points.

All these crybabies who are seem to think that curbside recycling is some kind of magic solution. What assurance do we have that people who are too lazy to take their recyclable trash to a school bin would actually bother to separate it into a blue bin and wheel it out to the curb?

Aloha 'aina starts with individuals. Enough whining already.

NEW CITY PLAN

SHAPIRO PREMATURE ON CURBSIDE CRITICISM

If only Dave Shapiro could have been a little more patient and done a better job of verifying his facts ("Stop talking trash about curbside recycling," Nov. 2).

Had Shapiro waited another two weeks, he would have learned about the city’s new plan to bring about a meaningful curbside green waste recycling program.

Mayor Hannemann has shifted the focus on curbside recycling to where it can do the most good. We estimate that there are 200,000 tons of green waste generated on our island every year. Of that, we are currently recycling only 50,000 tons. The potential amount of glass, cans and bottles that might have been recycled under the previous administration’s plan now that the state’s HI5 program is in place was only 20,000 tons. So there is a greater potential to remove more from our waste stream if we make green waste curbside recycling the priority because potentially we can recycle an additional 80,000 tons. We would remove more solid waste going to either H-Power or the Waimänalo Gulch Landfill, and that, in the end, is the ultimate goal.

In addition, green waste represents a closed loop — that is, what is picked up curbside can be processed or turned into compost right here on O'ahu without the need to ship it elsewhere, as is the case with the mixed recyclable material.

Shapiro claims the mayor solved the privatization problem with the UPW by “giving in.” Again he is not accurate. The mayor took his ideas for implementing recycling to the union to see if it could agree. In not one but two instances now, the UPW has offered to help the mayor make both curbside recycling and islandwide bulky item pickup proceed.

HYPOCRISY

WAR CRIMES TRIALS DID NOT SEEK JUSTICE

The Indian jurist Radhabinad Pal wrote of war crimes trials, “A trial with law thus prescribed will only be a sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge. It does not correspond to any idea of justice.”

Justice, to be a lesson in how to conduct one’s life, must be impartial. This, emphatically, is what these war crimes trials were not.

Instead of World War II initiating soul-searching by all individuals and nations, the world since then has seen any number of nauseating crimes against humanity committed by the victors of World War II. Siegfried Ramler (Island Voices, Oct. 23) should know history better than to have written such an intellectually dishonest essay.

His central thesis regarding the need for justice as the foundation for democracy ignores the many bloody dictatorships promoted by the victors of World War II.

When an American comes before a war crimes trial as a defendant, then I will believe that America is more than a study in hypocrisy.

FOX RESIGNATION

HEADLINE UNFAIRLY DEMEANED STATE GOP

It’s always been obvious what the politics and ambitions of The Honolulu Advertiser are, but you seem to have hit a new low with the Nov. 1 front-page headline, “GOP legislator quits over sex conviction.” Shouldn’t it have read, “State legislator quits over sex conviction”?

What exactly does state Rep. Galen Fox’s political persuasion have to do with it? What exactly was your intent if not to slander and demean the state GOP? Whatever happened to fair and unbiased reporting?
If you have a point to make regarding political affiliation and crime, save it for an op-ed piece in the editorial section, where it belongs.

BAN WON’T WORK

LET STADIUM DRUNKS BE PUT ON PUBLIC DISPLAY

Banning consumption of alcoholic drinks in the Aloha Stadium parking lot makes no sense. There have been little or no complaints that rowdiness and fights are commonplace in the parking lot.

Second, how will enforcing this ban take place? Will the stadium employ hundreds of security officers to inspect coolers and sniff beverage containers? I think not.

A good idea would be to convert one of the baseball dugouts into a jail cell to house drunks while waiting for transportation to the main jail. Maybe an even better idea would be to construct two holding cells at each end of the stadium and let those drunks be on public display.
Public humiliation on top of a fine would be appropriate punishment for those hooligans.

MASS TRANSIT

TAX SURCHARGE CAN’T BE USED FOR HOT LANES

Cliff Slater’s Oct. 25 column indicates his displeasure with whatever (he anticipates) will be announced next year as the result of an alternatives analysis on transit for Oçahu. He complains about the lack of mention for his high-occupancy tollway (HOT) lane concept. Since he was present for the final City Council vote on Bill 40, he knows
perfectly well what the bill calls for:

“All moneys received from the state derived from the imposition of the surcharge established under this article shall be deposited into the general fund and expended for the following purposes authorized by state law: Operating or capital costs of a locally preferred alternative for a mass transit project.” The bill also states that “No moneys received from the surcharge shall be used to build or repair public roads or highways.”

Neither a HOT lane or other road project, nor a bridge, nor a tunnel, nor a bikeway, not even the ferry as proposed, qualifies as mass transit. For O'ahu, it is TheBus and/or rail. Any attempt to divert funds received through the general excise tax increase (which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2007) from mass transit to others’ pet projects would violate the provisions of Bill 40.

Mr. Slater’s continuous criticism of rail, particularly in light of new rail projects currently being developed in municipalities worldwide, is getting tiresome and is certainly nonproductive.

TROOPS

U.S. ENVOY CONTRIBUTED TO FALL OF THE KINGDOM

What can I say about Thurston Twigg-Smith? You gotta love him. Once again his “we stole it fair and square” version of history shines through.

The one thing that stands as true is that the United States did not overthrow the kingdom of Hawai'i. However, Minister Stevens, by aiding and abetting the treasonous committee of business/missionary interests, caused American troops to be landed and contributed to the fall of a sovereign nation.

The Hawaiian people could not stand up to armed U.S. troops with rifles and cannons. That is the truth, Mr. Twigg-Smith. Please don’t try to cover up the wrong done by the U.S. and the traitors who brought a legitimate nation and government to an untimely end for their own personal gains.

The time for compensation to the Hawaiian people is long overdue.

LEFT VS. RIGHT

BLAME THE MESSENGER FOR ALL OUR PROBLEMS

The whining from the Right is becoming unbearable!

To hear them talk (or write), all of our problems are due to the Left questioning the abilities and reasoning of our leaders. How dare the Left? If the Left will just shut up, everything will be just fine.

As one writer so intelligently put it, it was Jane Fonda who cost us the war in Vietnam. We should all learn from that.