Post Office doing fine job at good rate

For all the jokes, I, for one, feel the U.S. Postal Service does a fine job at an incredible price.

In 60 years of mailing, I have lost only one item.

Many people probably don’t realize that the private UPS and FedEx rely on USPS for countless "last mile" deliveries. Discontinuation of Saturday delivery would be a hardship on millions, especially in rural states and isolated states like ours. Companies like Netflix will make undeserved millions by having slower DVD deliveries.

There are two solutions. First, increase postage. It’s still a bargain. Second and most important, Congress must repeal that requirement for front-end loading of its pension system, a burden not placed on any other agency.

Mark Stitham
Kailua

Maybe put Foodland in Kalama Valley?

While listening to representatives of Foodland speak at the March 21 Hawaii Kai town hall meeting about building an entire new shopping center across from Maunalua Bay, I had the sudden urge to add a four-letter word that begins with "F" to their "Food, Family, Friends" tag line: Fake.

Foodland should stop forcing its self-serving agenda on us. Know that we are a community that values our open space far more than the type of convenience it is pitching.

If Foodland really wants to serve the community, help the landowner revitalize the Kalama Valley Shopping Center.

Kekoa and Kaumaka Wong
Kuliouou

GMO labels debate really about Earth

The debate about GMO labeling ("Anti-GMO hysteria puts workers at risk," Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 24) is short-sighted about the planet’s future.

The debate over the healthfulness of food versus the jobs of 1,000 Monsanto workers demonstrates how we continue to dodge questions of long-term care of Earth.

Imagine that in 50 years GMOs are proved to be safe and the 1,000 Monsanto workers keep their jobs.The fact will remain that the aina will have been drenched with pesticides and the ocean polluted with the runoff for more than a century of pineapple, sugar cane and GMO experimentation. The aina never agreed to pay the costs of agribusiness and our unreflective consumer culture.

Isn’t it time to change the debate from inter-human concerns to human-Earth relations, recognizing "our human presence on Earth must … transition from being a destructive force on the planet to being a pervasive life-giving presence" (Thomas Mary Berry, "The Sacred Universe")?

Maybe all of us could chew on that.

Daniel Benedict
Waialua

Explain what skills kids should know

Regarding Allen Uyeda’s commentary, "Hawaii in unique position to adopt early childhood education system" (Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, March 24): Wouldn’t it be less expensive and just as effective if our educators would let our parents know what the skills a 4-year-old child should know or begin learning?

Parents are a child’s first and most important teacher, whose jobs begin at the birth of their children.But unlike school teachers, they may lack a college degree or even a high-school education. Worst of all, they don’t even know of the basic skills the average child learns by age 1 through 5.So why don’t we tell them?

How? By using the Star-Advertiser and publishing a few skills at a time on a regular basis.

We shouldn’t blame parents for their children’s skills deficiencies if we don’t tell them what skills we expect them to know.

Bill Prescott
Nanakuli

Same-sex marriage has public approval

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the future of the Defense of Marriage Act, conservatives and liberals are anxious to see how the court redefines marriage.

James Hochberg points out in "For better … or worse?" (Star-Advertiser, Insight, March 24) that one necessity for a healthy, natural family is a mom and dad.

I grew up in the traditional home with loving heterosexual parents, and still turned out to be gay. And the idea of letting the people vote on the issue would reflect only that more than half of Americans say it should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry — a first in nearly a decade of polls by ABC News and The Washington Post.

Heterosexuals stand in front of their family and friends to exchange vows and show the world they love one another. Arguing that marriage should be between a man and woman discriminates against an entire community in our society. If two people, gay or straight, want to spend their lives loving one another, why should we try and stop it?

Brian Donnelly
Aiea

Kyo-ya has only itself to blame

Greg Dickhens complains that we want to "delay, delay, delay" his project ("Isles are near a ‘tipping point’ to boost capacity," Star-Advertiser, March 10). That is false. We are using the appeals process and the courts to enforce existing laws intended to protect Waikiki Beach for the future.

In 1976, the city enacted Bill 144, the Waikiki Special Design District, which includes specific setback and height restrictions along Waikiki Beach. Kyo-ya’s proposal for a 26-story beachfront hotel/condo tower violates these long-established rules in the extreme:Kyo-ya asked the city for a 60-foot exemption from the mandated 100-foot coastal setback, a doubling of the allowed height, and a quadrupling of the allowed volume for its tower. And the city said yes! That is wrong, and dangerous for the precedent it sets.

If Dickhens didn’t want the delay, he might have been wise to pay more attention to our city’s established laws.

Donna Wong
Hawaii’s Thousand Friends

Stuart Coleman
Surfrider Foundation

Curt Sanburn
Ka Iwi Coalition

Bianca Kai Isaki
KAHEA-The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance

Michelle Matson
Diamond Head