Waving signs can be moving

I went and waved signs in front of the Capitol for one of the candidates running for governor. I hadn’t done that before. It was different and interesting to observe the sign-waving experience from the sign-waver’s perspective.

Drivers and passengers have different ways of showing their support for their candidate. Sometimes they honk with short beeps or one long steady amplified sound. Sometimes they do a thumbs-up or wave at us. Many smile.

It’s an interesting and moving experience to see the connection between the drivers and passengers and the sign wavers when their heads turn and eye contact is made for a brief moment.

Sign-waving is dangerous

Roadside political sign-waving is wasteful, dangerous and unnecessary. The time is long overdue for this uniquely Hawaiian tradition to stop.

Living in Hawaii Kai, I am very familiar with the traffic jams caused each political season by sign-wavers. In addition to being frustrating, this wastes gasoline and productive time.

Their goal, of course, is to divert my attention from my driving to their candidate. This is dangerous.

Now that political signs can be posted in yards, the sign-waving practice is also unnecessary.

Please, let’s end the sign-waving and restore some safety and sanity to our roadways.

Star-Advertiser is looking good

Now that the dust has settled on the furor surrounding the merger of the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser, it is time to compliment you on the new art direction. Television and movies have successfully reached people with their visual presentations, but newspapers have long followed The Wall Street Journal format of presenting the facts in dreary, colorless columns.

It is understandable that it has taken such a long time for newspapers to understand how to communicate, since they employ mostly wordsmiths. Those bold images speak to the rest of us.

Judges subject to age bias

Why does Hawaii’s Constitution mandates retirement of state judges at the age of 70? This constitutional requirement was recently in the news when Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Moon was forced to retire upon turning 70.

What’s puzzling is that while we require our state judges to retire at 70, we have no such restrictions on our elected congressional members. In fact, we seem to cherish their age and experience, as both our senators just turned 86. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, if re-elected, will be 92 when his term ends, and Sen. Daniel Akaka will be 88 when his current term ends.

Isn’t it time we end age discrimination in Hawaii and update our constitution to do away with a mandatory retirement age for our judges?

Del Castillo also in House race

I received an e-mail from Colleen Hanabusa. In it, she solicited funds and mentioned her "opponent’s [later identified as Charles Djou] campaign."

Evidently, Hanabusa thinks she has a "lock" on the Sept. 18 primary election. I’m supporting Rafael Del Castillo, who has been doing his hardest in the finest democratic tradition to make himself known to voters who may want a change from a career politician tied to special interests. Del is a lawyer of excellence and compassion as he battles the state health bureaucracy and corporate medical giants on behalf of health-challenged children, seniors and others tossed aside by the system.

Governments create ‘traffickers’

The editorial on human trafficking misses some fundamental issues ("Human trafficking must stop," Star-Advertiser, Sept. 7).

By concentrating attention on traffickers and pimps, governments have managed to neatly deflect attention from their own role in promoting abuse. Migrants are victimized because immigration laws make it difficult to travel freely around the world in search of a better life. Children are victimized because, as minors, they lack legal rights and an understanding of how to protect themselves. People working in the sex industry are subject to abuse as long as criminal prostitution laws remain on the books. They are also harmed by anti-prostitution advocacy groups who oppose giving sex workers rights.

Prohibition created Al Capone and bootleggers. Our current legal structure is largely to blame for traffickers.