Letters to the Editor

DOE failed needy families

As I read the "Island Voices" commentary by Lillian Koller ("DOE’s bungling of lunch program shows need for comprehensive audit," Star-Advertiser, Aug. 9), I grew hostile toward the state Department of Education for allowing so many children and their families to go hungry this past summer.

The last two paragraphs of the article added disgust to my anger when Koller stated that Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona wants the DOE audited. Mr. Aiona and Gov. Linda Lingle have been in office for nearly eight years. Why was this audit not done during their term of office? Those needy families would not have gone hungry this summer.

Let’s see if people remember this at the polls.

Recycling needs better system

Many people don’t know where to go to recycle or don’t want to drive to receive a small refund.

When I was a child you could buy a bottle of soda at the grocery store and return it to the same store for a deposit. Many states have resumed this system.

I hope our state and local governments can adopt a similar procedure. It would be win-win for everybody.

The consumer gets his deposit back at his next visit to the grocery store, and the grocery store has people returning more frequently.

Vote on Leonard was a fiasco

Elena Kagan, a woman with no experience as a judge, was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court last week while the Hawaii Senate fell all over itself when it came to considering the nomination of a well-credentialed female judge to the Hawaii Supreme Court. What an embarrassing fiasco for the 14 state senators who opposed Justice Katherine Leonard. I’m looking forward to November when it’s time for me to vote.

Hee revealed political agenda

Sen. Clayton Hee let slip the real reason Judge Katherine Leonard was rejected when, in opposition, he raised concerns about whether she would be supportive enough of native Hawaiian rights. Hee said that a court that strictly follows the rule of law may not have led to the recognition of customary Hawaiian rights.

According to Hee, then, Judge Leonard was rejected by Democrats for fear she would uphold the rule of law and fail to legislate from the bench.

Hee’s position is supremely arrogant and very deeply troubling, in a country like ours that depends on the rule of law that comes down to us from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Prop 8 ruling hurt democracy

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to overturn the voter-approved Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman in California, slices at the jugular of true democracy.

Walker’s ruling illustrates that he does not understand the essential public purpose of marriage, which is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. He replaces this public purpose with private purposes of adults’ feelings and desires.

It’s time to put a stop to judges who redefine our most fundamental social institutions and use liberal courts to obtain political goals they cannot obtain at the ballot box.

Volunteer workers should be more careful of own safety

I stand in dismay reading the article about the recovery of 10 bodies, six of them Americans, who were killed working at an eye clinic in Afghanistan. The totals through this year are 17 workers killed and 19 unaccounted for. That’s only Afghanistan. That’s through seven months.

Many volunteers have given up lucrative and promising careers to help those less fortunate in strife-torn areas of the globe and I applaud their altruism. But why go to an area that is so obviously unsecured and dangerous? Certainly there are places all over this world that could benefit from these wonderful people’s time, skill and dedication.

And that’s the point. Hopefully you volunteer to make the world a better place. But you can’t do it from a grave. There are thousands of people around the world who could have been helped by these hundreds of volunteers. Now they won’t benefit from the humanitarian aid and medical procedures that could change their lives. An enormously sad loss for all.