Hawaii island roads seem well-managed

Since moving to Puna from Oahu, my wife and I have been favorably impressed by Hawaii island road safety measures.

Often, when approaching a curve or by a school, the road is painted with zig zag lines or the edge of the road is painted with 2- or 3-foot diagonal lines.

When driving, especially at night, a roadside sign with a curved arrow is nice and conventional. You see the jagged and angled lines much more clearly than a sign in the dark — cheap and effective. I have never seen it done on Maui or Oahu.

Oahu in particular is sign crazy. Overuse of signs reduces their impact. I once counted more than 20 signs right as you round the narrow curving entrance to Lanikai. It’s impossible to read even half, much less pay attention to the crosswalk that is also right there.

Mahalo to the Hawaii island road crew.

Peter Easterling
Puna

Pension fund needs to be replenished

If paying the health benefits of public retirees "keeps the state’s budget in the red," as letter writer Richard Manetta alleges, perhaps it is due to the skimming of Employer-Union Trust Fund investment earnings in the past and not replacing them ("Public retirees slowing the canoe," Star-Advertiser, Letters, April 15).

Repayment is overdue.

Charles Luce
Waikiki

Kudos for article about closed school

Thank you for the article by Nanea Kalani ("Tradition continues at closed Liluokalani," Star-Advertiser, April 13).

My mother Setsuko Kabayashi (maiden name), was a graduate of Liluokalani Elementary School in the 1920s. She also was a 1931 graduate of Roosevelt High School in Makiki.

The elementary school prepared my mother to become the first AJA (American of Japanese Ancestry) to be admitted to Roosevelt High.

As a former Kaimuki resident, it pained me to see Liliuokalani Elementary shuttered. It was a slap in the face of the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Arvid Tadao Youngquist
Kalihi Valley

Sugar an ingredient in so many foods

Susan Smith fails to mention one important fact: Today sugar is added to every processed food we eat ("Sugar is a treat in moderation," Star-Advertiser, Letters, April 13). So moderation is hard to come by.

As humans we didn’t evolve in an environment with lots of intensely sweet foods, but we are drawn to them and lack a natural ability to recognize when enough is enough. The highly competitive processed food industry uses our desire for sweet taste to sell its products, and the result has been overindulgence and a significant decline in health.

Smith works for the National Confectioners Association, so I understand that the idea of cutting back on sweets would directly affect her members’ bottom line. But I think it is time that we all recognize that the processed food and confectioners industries are taking advantage of our sweet tooth to sell their products. Our health is really not their concern.

James B. Young
St. Louis Heights

‘Hawaii Pono’ still good starting place

Lawrence Fuch’s book, "Hawaii Pono" was indeed an important book on contemporary Hawaii at the time of its publication in 1961 ("Lawrence Fuchs set pace for books on isle politics," Star- Advertiser, Richard Borreca, April 12).

Needless to say, it was not well-received by the Big Five companies that still dominated Hawaii socially, economically and politically at the time.

As a young retail manager for the old Liberty House (an Amfac subsidiary), I managed the Kailua store’s book department. Upon the book’s publication, I was ordered by the downtown powers to remove all copies of the book from my shelves and instructed not to re-order it.

To this day, I still recommend this seminal book to anyone interested in how and why Hawaii was shaped the way it was in the post-war, post-statehood years that followed.

Douglas Miki
Kuliouou Valley

Homebuyers might end up along track

The article on the Hunt development in Kalaeloa ("Developer plans to build 4,000 homes in Kalaeloa," Star-Advertiser, April 11) does not mention that the proposed "Main Street," Saratoga Avenue, was selected by the City Council as the route for one of the extensions of the rail line under the locally preferred alternative.

At this stage, it is not "buyer beware" but "buyer take heed" of the possibility your home or business may be facing an elevated rail guideway sometime in the next decade.

Frank Genadio
Kapolei

Pacify North Korea with food offerings

Your editorial, "War not answer to North Korea’s deep problems" (Star-Advertiser, Our View, March 30) should remind us of how Indonesia, under Sukarno, reacted to its "problems": It went to war against Malaysia.

Gen. Douglas McArthur’s driver, the late Charlie Corn — who became quite wealthy because of the scrap metal left behind from World War II — told my father, then the district administrator for the Northern Marianas, that to cut down on human losses on both sides during U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the United States and allies might think about dropping bags of rice rather than bombs.

In other words, as long as the majority of North Koreans are starving, give them food, not so much to appease them, but to pacify them.

Peter T. Coleman Jr.
Makiki