‘Pork’ looked more like beef

After looking at the image of the earmark pig on the front page of Wednesday’s paper ("$321M in pork gone," Star-Advertiser, Feb. 2), the question is: "Where’s the pork"?

We see only beef.

These are projects in the general public interest, such as health care, disaster preparedness and police services — the kinds of tax-funded projects that benefit all Americans, not just the wealthiest 2 percent that are getting a $40 billion tax break in 2011.

Maybe that pig should be replaced by a healthy Black Angus steer. Looks like the real pork already went to our wealthiest citizens for their private spending.

Middle class rose with unions

With the rise of labor unions, there was an equivalent increase in the development of the middle class. Now that there is a diminishing base of support for these bastions of collective bargaining due to constant attacks since the Reagan era, the middle class has been put on the endangered list. The rich have gotten richer and the general population (the once-proud middle class) has gotten poorer.

Cayetano’s view on rail welcome

It’s nice to know we have people like Ben Cayetano speaking out in opposition to the rail and not having a stubborn and one-sided view of why we should or shouldn’t have an elevated rail system.

All our present elected officials should have the same integrity and think of what is best for the people who voted for them.

And they should stop interpreting the 2008 vote on rail as "the people have voted on it" when we were bombarded with twisted untruths and biases prior to that election.

Pension tax adds to struggle

A Star-Advertiser editorial gives new life to taxing pensions that most retirees thought was dead ("Give pension taxes a hearing," Our View, Feb. 2).

What is not considered are the unintended consequences of such actions.

While retirees live on fixed pension income, the most intrusive threat to that income is not inflation but taxes.

Retirees have to reduce other expenses to cover ever-increasing gasoline prices, electricity prices, vehicle weight fees, property taxes, sewer fees (up more than 100 percent in six years) and the general excise tax increase to pay for rail. Not only would taxing pensions force seniors into poverty, but those close to retirement would have to work three to five more years.

Start schools when it’s cooler

How can we cool our schools? How were schools cooled when you were a kid? I’ll bet school didn’t start in the hottest part of the summer, right? Now there’s an idea!

Library Friends sorry for snafu

Friends of the Library of Hawai’i, the nonprofit support organization for Hawaii’s 51 public libraries, would like to thank the National Football League for its generous gift of 500 Pro Bowl tickets last Friday. This donation is in keeping with the NFL’s commitment of "giving back to our community" for the 30-plus years the Pro Bowl has been played in Honolulu.

FLH sincerely apologizes to the many fans who stood in line for several hours and went home without a ticket. Their disappointment is as understandable as our own in not having enough tickets to accommodate everyone. We truly felt badly about that. As there were no conditions placed on the distribution by the NFL, the Pro Bowl tickets were distributed as follows:

» To our hard-working, year-round volunteers, who process hundreds of thousands of books annually, work at all our fundraising events, and give of their time and effort whenever needed.

» To the high school football teams from Farrington, McKinley and Saint Louis, who have helped us haul thousands of heavy boxes of books at our annual book sale.

» To members of the general public, who received all of the remaining tickets. We realize we should have stated "a portion of the 500 tickets" would be distributed to the general public, as we honestly didn’t know how many of our volunteers we’d be able to reach in a time frame of less than 24 hours. For that we sincerely apologize.

We hope that all of the recipients enjoyed a great event at the Pro Bowl. We eagerly await the Pro Bowl’s return in 2012!