HTA president owes artist an apology

Regarding the "Forgotten Inheritance" mural at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 protects the artwork, and among other things, this act grants the right to prevent distortion, mutilation or modification that would prejudice the author’s honor or reputation.

Also, the art in question was subject to a vetting process that, according to your newspaper, involved a Native Hawaiian ("Rights clash amid dispute over mural," Star-Advertiser, Sept. 16), and a Native Hawaiian blessed the mural in question.

So what we are talking about is censorship, nothing more or less, and that is wrong on every level.

In my opinion,Hawaii Tourism Authority President Mike McCartney owes the artist an apology, and the cloak covering the mural must come down now.

Elizabeth Rice Grossman
Kailua

Traffic light would sully North Shore

Keep the North Shore country.

Using traffic lights to control traffic is a "city slicker" opinion.

I cannot imagine spoiling the beautiful local views with lights and U-turns. There would only be more problems, as the land there is not wide enough for that kind of expansion.

Those who chose the North Shore did so for the peace and quiet. We contend with the traffic for tourists and big-wave watchers. Don’t take away the wonderful road that goes around our island. It has worked for years, so please let it be.

My choice would be to put up "no parking" signs. There is no space for parking lots or sidewalks. Keep it natural, please.

Patty Jensen
Waialua

‘Strive HI’ helps lifelong success

Thestate Department of Education’s Strive HI Performance System represents a movement away from the HawaiiState Assessment as a single"high stakes" assessment, relying instead upon avariety of indicators to measure success.

Strive HI will considerstudent growth, attendance, graduation rates and relevant assessments. Infact, the DOE is offering college-readinessassessments, the ACT, to allstudents at no cost, a huge advantage for our families.

StriveHI will help ensure that all children are provided the opportunity to reachtheir full potential. Ultimately, Strive HI should serve to realign the short-term definition of "academic achievement" with the far more ambitious long-term goalof "lifelongsuccess."

The HE‘ECoalition supports strong family-school partnerships, and has helped inform theDOE’s process byhighlighting priorities that are important to thecommunity and families.

While the system is not perfect, we believeit is amonumental step in the right direction.

Cheri Nakamura
Director, HE‘ECoalition

Rail project will pad big-money pockets

The Honolulu rail project is supposed to concentrate development along the rail line and "keep the country country."

At least, that’s how it was sold to the people of Oahu.

Yet the City Council recently approved the Koa Ridge project, which means that thousands of homes will be built on farmland in Central Oahu.

Now we know that rail was never intended to have all of the public benefits that were claimed. Instead, the real benefits of rail will accrue to the big landowners, big developers, big banks and other big-moneyed interests that are profiting from the $5.2 billion being spent for rail.

Those same interests are involved with Koa Ridge and other proposed large development projects. Oahu is now open to the highest bidder.

John Kawamoto
Kaimuki

UH wasting millions on air conditioning

A perfunctory glance at the facilities of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii’s flagship campus, confirms that the problems of the university are far deeper than wage inequity andfootball scandals.

Anyone who has had to deal with the campus knows that it surely places deadlast in innovation, imagination and execution, if such criteria were ever measured.

Case in point: It is a crime that the university pays Hawaiian Electric Co. millions to refrigerate its always-too-cold buildings. In this land of constant sunshine, the fact that solar energy is not the primary source of energy is an economic crime. The millions of dollars saved could actually make the campus halfway attractive, and investment in a superior teaching staff possible — if you could keep the sports teams from taking precedence over academics, that is.

Don Brown
Waialae Nui Ridge

Matson waiting for molasses to dissolve

Matson Inc. seems to think that it can simply allow the molasses spill to dissipate, but that is not even close to what it is required to do.

The molasses is moving across the ocean floor, killing everything on the bottom.Just watching the molasses move around, hoping nature will solve the problem, is unacceptable.

Matson needs to suck up the molasses to stop it from killing more sea life.Anything short of that is a failure on Matson’s part to accept responsibility for this deadly catastrophe.

Eric Terashima
Hilo

Matson might end export of molasses?

Matson’s president Matt Cox said to Hawaii, we let you down; we are very sorry; we are from Hawaii and we love Hawaii; we consider ourselves stewards of the land and ocean; and we are not going to charge you more because of the spill.

But the company is prepared, according to Cox, to quit exporting molasses if it can’t be completely sure that this will not happen again.If they can’t ever be "completely sure," how is the molasses going to get to the mainland?

Dennis Kohara
Kaimuki