Maintain plants so they don’t die

Driving down Nimitz Highway, I saw yet another "beautification" project.

How much money is this costing the taxpayers? We all know nothing this state does ever comes cheap.

I get upset seeing these projects, knowing fully that in a few months it will all be for naught because there will be no maintenance done to keep these plantings alive.

There have been three different plantings along the freeway by Kahala Mall. In the last one, bromeliads were chosen that would withstand the lack of water and the high winds. Unfortunately, no one can see these beautiful, expensive plants because, due to lack of maintenance, the weeds have overtaken them.

Why don’t we maintain what we have instead of letting plants die, then spending hundreds of thousands for new projects?

Denise Mazzanti
Hawaii Kai

Brooks nailed it about empathy

One of the best commentaries I have ever read ("Empathy doesn’t always translate to moral action," Star-Advertiser, David Brooks, Oct. 3).

Peace activists, school leaders, shelf loads of books, psychological theories and even religious beliefs, once again, cannot define empathy.

Why?

David Brooks sums it up: We all choose the level of empathy based on our own experiences with others, whether it would be from local or world events via the media, our local church, a personal tragedy, or from a child who acts according to his or her intuition without understanding why.

Could this be a positive form of learned behavior or a form of selfishness?

Jonathan Norris
Waikiki

Article on mold was excellent

"Living with mold" by William Cole (Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Oct. 2) described the problem so well that one familiar with the subject can deduce both causes and potential solutions.

This is good investigative reporting.

Bob Martin
Paia, Maui

Name a school after Steve Jobs

Honoring Steve Jobs with a school named after him would be a fitting tribute to the co-founder of Apple Computer. He stood for excellence, brilliance, achievement and many more things that most of us hopefully wish our schools would turn out with our youngsters.

He was a giant in the computer industry and will be sorely missed. A school honoring him is only befitting.

Jim Delmonte
Honolulu

U.S. media is so America-centric

It’s been very interesting to note the small amount of attention in your newspaper, as well as television, paid to Amanda Knox’s boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and the fact that he, too, has been released from jail and found not guilty of murder.

His name appeared briefly when both were released.

Perhaps were he an American citizen you might have found his release more noteworthy.

This is another example of America giving itself more importance than it deserves and minimizing the value of the rest of the world.

Jean-Jacques Dicker
Hawaii Kai

Block access to beneath freeway

Why doesn’t the city use the money to move the homeless instead to fill the underside of the H-1 viaduct once and for all?

Fix or replace any gas lines, water pipes or electrical lines and just backfill it and build concrete walls along the sides to keep it secure.

The $400,000 a year that comes from driver’s tax should be used on roads to fix potholes, not to remove the homeless.

Robert Thomason

Mililani