Tsunami trash holds family treasures

My friend moved from Sapporo to Sendai on Christmas 2011 so he could take care of his elderly mother. On that day he and his wife had gone to work early. When he came home, his mother, her home and all the family heirlooms were gone — along with the rest of the neighborhood.

Family and family history is paramount in the Japanese culture. Everything from his life and his family history was gone. If he could get back any tiny thing from his past he would be so grateful.

The tsunami trash is coming, but mixed in the trash are the heirlooms of many Japanese families — in many cases it is all they have left of their past ("Big debris from Japan could arrive in a year," Star-Advertiser, Feb. 29).

We need to understand that the things we find in the tsunami trash are family treasures and need to be returned. If you keep these things for yourself you are not a beachcomber — you are a grave robber.

We need a website where people can post their finds and people from our sister Japan can look for their family keepsakes.

Annette LaBonte
Waikoloa

Press adds to decline of civil discourse

The commentaries "You’re wrong, I’m right" give voice to the conflict between self-identified liberals and conservatives (Star-Advertiser, Feb. 28). Unfortunately, they promote the notion, popular with media, that there are only two points of view and Americans must choose between them.

From a libertarian perspective the differences between Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama represent less than 5 percent of the total activities of the federal government. Obama continued Bush’s wars. His bad economic policies and bailouts were largely expansions of Bush ideas. Even a good deal of Bush’s social policy, such as the anti-prostitution pledge tied to foreign aid, remains in place.

Political campaigning now revolves around schoolyard name calling. Intelligent discussion of issues and a search for truth have been marginalized. Libertarians, as well as Greens, Constitution Party folks and others all have things to say on real issues. Maybe the press should reconsider its role in promoting the decline in civil discussion.

Tracy Ryan
Honolulu

Politics have given up art of compromise

The news that Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is not running for re-election was deeply disturbing. Not that long ago, the relationship between Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye was such that it did not matter which party was in power. They supported each other as co-leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Nor did it matter to Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich and our own Sen. Daniel Akaka as to who was the chairman and who was the ranking member on the Senate subcommittee responsible for oversight of the federal workforce. In Inouye’s words, "40 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing." Compromise and cooperation were necessary for the greater good. After all, politics is the art of compromise. How long will it take for the word "dysfunctional" to no longer be an adjective in front of the words "congressional governance"?

John Priolo
Pearl City

Emphasize solar over large-scale wind

The recent article on the Kawailoa wind farm said that the 69-megawatt rated capacity of the Kawailoa project will "achieve nearly twice the generating capacity of all the rooftop photovoltaic systems installed on Oahu in the past 10 years" — enough to power 22,200 homes ("Largest wind project to break ground on North Shore," Star-Advertiser, Feb. 24).

So what? If 22,200 homes each installed 3.1-KW photovoltaic systems, they would achieve the same 69-MW capacity, and could start coming on line next week. Further, 22,000 roofs is a small fraction of the rooftops available on Oahu. We could readily put solar PV on at least 10 times as many roofs. How many Kawailoa-style wind farms could we really have on Oahu?

It seems to me that the public interest would be better and less expensively served if HECO stopped insisting on large-scale centralized projects and focused instead on implementing rational, objectively supportable infrastructure improvements that would enable us to move to a 21st-century power system that can serve all of Oahu.

Mary A. Guinger
Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party Alternative Energy Committee

GOP attacks show misogyny still lives

As a male citizen of this country, I couldn’t help but stand in disbelief and revulsion at the blatant attacks by Republicans in Congress on birth control coverage and the reproductive rights of women across the country, who make up roughly half the population. It is surprising enough that in recent weeks we have seen a crew of aging men make ex cathedra pronouncements in committee on matters of intimate relevance to the lives of women without as much as attempting to include any input from the latter. And when they finally conceded and allowed Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student, to testify, Republican shock jock Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut" as if to shame women into silence.

This controversy serves only to reveal the presence of an insidious undercurrent of misogyny across our culture, which may not bode well for the nation as a whole if it is allowed to flourish.

Al Braidwood
Kaneohe

FROM THE FORUM

“Kiss at homecoming sparks many ‘likes,’” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 28

>> They care about each other! That is not disgusting. They are just being honest. I respect that.

>> Love the people, Hate the sin.

>> Glad he returned safely after serving our country. What is he suppose to do, suppress his feeling because of his sexuality? I say, let him kiss his partner. Time to move on … and say, Thanks for serving our country and to protect our freedom.

>> Why is this newspaper making it a highly publicized article? Knowing the controversy it may cause is journalism? Our society is not ready for this so stop shoving it in our faces!

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“Officials lay out plans to bring home inmates,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 29

>> “Prison admissions can be lowered by providing programs, such as job training, to reduce the probability of prisoners re-offending and by releasing them into well-supervised parole or probation.”  Well-supervised parole and probation? How so, with limited manpower and resources?

>> If we are spending $29 million for improving the Waiawa Facility, going to build additional facilities for over 900 prisoners, hire more guards and supervisors, support staff (medical, administrative, food service, trades personnel, etc.) and are all civil service employees with no spiking of overtime cap for pensions, I don’t see the $20 million-$30 million savings. Show us the calculations. It’s all a shibai.

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“Rail needs more seats,” Star-Advertiser, March 1

>> Kapolei needs to stop building houses and start building commercial property. Allowing more homeowners in that area is just piling on to the traffic woes. Split the workforce between Honolulu and Kapolei and one-directional traffic will surely be decreased.

>>  I fully support the rail system. Standing up while riding a rail system to work or home is the norm. I’ve been on rail systems all over the world and there are always more people standing than sitting down. It’s really not that big a deal!

>> I hear “Change order,” ka-ching! Wasn’t it mentioned a long time ago that the trains lacked sufficient amount of seats before the awarding of the Ansaldo contract?

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“Agriculture experts bash Ho‘opili project,” Star-Advertiser, March 2

>> Just as the developer’s experts say there is other land for farming, the point could also be made that there is other, less arable land that could be used for development. Why does Horton feel they have to develop this particular parcel? There are plenty of other parcels mauka of H-1 that are less arable.

>> The majority of housing in Ewa and Kapolei was built on land that previously was utilized for agriculture — is the Sierra Club’s Hawaii chapter, the community group Friends of Maka­kilo and state Sen. Clayton Hee against these locations also?

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“Bill would let rolling restaurants park for hours,” Star-Advertiser, March 2

>> Doesn’t HPD have anything better to do than clock these vendors? Times are hard and these people are just trying to make a living. There are food vendors, besides food trucks, all over this island, which tourists enjoy. So do I. I saw on national news today that Hawaii ranks #1 as the worst state for new companies. Better food trucks and vendors than more people on welfare. Give them a break.

>> When the brick and mortar restaurants go bankrupt, who will pay the real property taxes, at commercial rates, not residential, that the city uses to pay for fire, police, trash, city parks and road repair? Will all those truck owners pick up the slack? Of course not. That means that more taxes will have to be imposed on the rest of us.