Letters to the Editor

Traffic showed city unprepared

The traffic tie-up on Aug. 20, caused by a water main break on Ala Moana Boulevard, is an indication that Honolulu may not be ready for an actual emergency that requires immediate excavation of a populated area.

Traffic was rerouted in the morning, but by mid-afternoon gridlock on major roadways occurred.

Did the city’s traffic division do anything to control traffic signals to accommodate the change in volume? What good are traffic cameras and computers if they cannot be used in an emergency? The backup solution would have been manual traffic direction by the Honolulu Police Department. This traffic tie-up should serve as a test of the city’s ability to respond in a real emergency.

Elephants need room to roam

As a former director of Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, and of the Werribee Open Range Zoo and the Melbourne Zoo in Australia, I have increasing concern about the lack of commitment to elephant welfare among many zoos.

Honolulu Zoo must surely be aware that building an exhibit space of less than one acre is not sufficient for three elephants ("After 12 years, zoo ready to build elephant habitat," Star-Advertiser, Aug. 14).

If they could speak, elephants would say they just want the company of many of their close relatives, very big complex areas with abundant vegetation, lots of space and deep water for swimming.

Mostly, this new exhibit will merely show how ignorant the zoo is about elephants’ complex social, behavioral and psychological needs. That is something to grieve about, not celebrate.

Manslaughter charge too light

We need to enact a new law: If you have been convicted of DUI and are driving without a license or are driving with a suspended or revoked license and you are in an accident and kill someone and you are driving under the influence again, you should be charged with first-degree murder.

Manslaughter is too lenient a penalty. We need to keep these guys locked away and off the roads and make them pay for disobeying the law.

Timing is wrong for N.Y. mosque

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf may genuinely feel that building a mosque near ground zero in New York City would help heal wounds and be a gesture of goodwill on behalf of the Muslim community.

What the imam and others forget is that Americans’ memories of 9/11 will fade in time and be less raw than the open wound it is now.

But if the imam builds the mosque near ground zero now while Americans are still in mourning, it will assure that Americans will never forget who were the culprits on 9/11.

The mosque will cause more resentment than goodwill; a mosque will become a symbol not of a religious nature, but of a geo-political message to America.

Double murder-suicide raises questions about social policies

We are diminished as a society if we fail to learn from the horrific double-murder-suicide that occurred in Makiki Heights early Friday morning.

I knew the man who became the shooter, Clayborne Conley, as an intelligent, sometimes charming individual, intensely proud of his military service but also tortured by — indeed, sometimes brought to his knees by — his recollections of combat situations.

I did not, however, know that he had a history of violent criminal offenses on Oahu that led to his commitment to Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe. Neither did his victims, Kristine Cass and her daughter Saundra — at least not until his monstrous obsession was beyond control.

It is crucial that Oahu providers of mental health and, specifically, post-traumatic stress disorder treatment carefully investigate their shortcomings in this tragedy. Why, when he was released from the Kaneohe hospital, was he not sent to mandatory in-patient treatment for PTSD? Why, when he failed to attend multiple voluntary sessions, was he not taken into custody?

Above all, why was it so easy for a man with his background to obtain weapons at will?

More broadly, why can’t we see the true cost of conducting foreign policy by violent means? There are thousands of Clay Conleys in this country, more every day. I know Vietnam veterans who are still attending PTSD sessions, 40 years later. When will we ever learn?