Laura Thielen calling kettle black

Methinks Laura Thielen doth protest too much.

As head of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, she attempted to pass the Recreational Renaissance, a program strikingly similar in many respects to the Public Land Development Corp. she now so stridently criticizes in the media.

Her program would have, among other things, filled in nearly 300 acres of state marine waters at Keehi Lagoon to provide footprints for private leases. At the same time, she attempted to push through a broad set of exemptions to Chapter 343, the state’s environmental protection law, for the DLNR divisions that would have been involved in implementing her program.

Just like her sudden conversion to the Democratic Party in the recent election, her current stance on the PLDC smacks more of opportunism for the sake of short-term political gain than of any deep and underlying philosophical conviction. Her recent comments are like the pot calling the kettle black.

Dan Polhemus
Kailua

Try voting before civil disobedience

The author of "There are reasons people don’t vote" (Star-Advertiser, Letters, Nov. 20) misses the point.

If we know money buys elections, it becomes self-fulfilling: Only the people spending the money bother to vote. The rest stay home feeling defeated.

In the last primary, I took a party ballot other than my choice for the general election to vote for my preferred second-best choice, in expectation that that party would carry the vote. (It did.) If everyone votes, then they will have influence and elected officials will pay more attention. Civil disobedience is an extreme form of voting carrying a different set of risks; try full-attendance voting first.And rule by pure democracy is too close to mob rule for comfort. We were formed as a republic with electoral college so smaller states would not feel overwhelmed by the mob of the larger.

James Murphy
Mililani

Effort to snag rich threatens to hurt all

We need a flat tax, and the reason is in the Star-Advertiser ("Lack of fix would expose 33 million to higher tax," Star-Advertiser, Nov. 24).

The alternative minimum tax (AMT) was devised tosnag the rich — millionaire landlords,investors, and trust fund heirs — who don’tget their hands dirty.However, Congress hasn’t adjusted it for inflation yet, so for 2012, it looks like the AMT will catch every ILWU dock worker, every IBEW mechanic and electrician, every Teamster, every construction worker, and every nurse and teacher.Tax the rich, huh?It’ll hurt us all.

The problem with setting a trap for the other guy is that you might fall into it yourself.It’s best to get rid of the traps and set up a simple system.Then we can file our tax reports on postcards and focus on becoming rich.

Gordon Kitsuwa
Kaimuki

Electronic voting is the way to go

I thought Gov. Neil Abercrombie embraced technology. Unless he just wants to help the U.S. Postal Service out of its financial mess, his suggestion that voting be exclusively by mail seems archaic.

Electronic voting — either from home, from a shopping mall or from a satellite City Hall — can certainly be made possible (and secure) and, once implemented, would certainly cost less than voting by mail.

Ballots not available to registered voters would be a thing of the past, and the manpower required to check ballot signatures against registration signatures would be eliminated. (Mine changes periodically.)

A user ID and password would enable voters to vote early, optionally change their votes as Election Day approaches, and make a final check of their ballots on the deadline. And if voters don’t understand electronic voting instructions, they can just get their kids to explain it to them.

Gerrit Osborne
Honolulu

Spending $5 million for rail art is absurd

The rail transit project is setting aside $5 million for artwork?

Absurd. Whoever is in charge of this waste needs to get a reality check.

Families are homeless and living on the beach or in the streets; teachers have to buy their own pencils because the state doesn’t fund them adequately; there exists a huge meth drug crisis statewide; public schools in Hawaii consistently rank at or near the bottom; and on, and on.

Yet $5 million is going to be spent on artwork in transit stations? Absurd.

Paul Fasi
Kula