Island Air’s low fare is short-term tactic

Island Air has launched a newlimited campaign of low fares: $68 each way with all the usual restrictions,atypicalploy to raise cash quickly for the airline but with no lasting benefits for the consumer.

The real way for Island Air to compete should not be by throwing into the market those artificially limitedlow fares that smack more of an act ofdesperation than an intelligent marketing ploy. It should compete with prices that are affordable and sustainable, and with the innovation, quality and reliability of its service. That is to say, healthy competition without dumping prices.

Island Air can be competitive by implementing rigorous cost control and offer the public a clearer and comprehensible fare structure. In this unrealistic scenario of illogical fare dumping, this strategy could backfire and it could get hurt from self-inflicted wounds. In a fare war there are no winners, only survivors.

Franco Mancassola
Hawaii Kai

Scams should get more coverage

When the newspaper is hurt by a scam, it gives the scam attention ("Scam targets newspapers," Star-Advertiser, Oct. 8).

But scams victimize our citizens every day. Reporting incidents to the Federal Trade Commission and the Internet Crime Complaint Center does not even get acknowledged.

The FBI cannot do anything about the known scammers in Nigeria because our own government does not challenge countries that refuse extradition of known offenders.

Now these foreign scammers use U.S. citizens, some unknowingly, to hide their obvious accents.

Obviously we have no recourse and must be cautious. But how do we know what to be aware of? How can we protect ourselves?

It’s time that more coverage is given to expose these daily occurrences and pressure our government to protect and help us.

Gail Hedani
Makiki

Maui initiative about health and safety

I agree with Allan Parachini regarding confusing language in the GMO initiative on Maui ("Anti-GMO initiative on Maui is imprecise and alarming," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Oct. 2).

But I take issue with calling chemical companies "rational" and those seeking a temporary halt to GMO crop-growing and chemical-spraying to test for impacts as an "extremist fringe."

This issue is not about farming. It’s about safety and health.

Farming will not stop with this moratorium.We estimate that only 1 percent of farming in Maui County uses GMO seed, and most of that is owned by Monsanto and Mycogen.

Hawaii has the third-highest number of genetically engineered field-test sites in the U.S., and the majority of tested plant varieties were engineered to increase their tolerance to pesticides.

According to reports by these companies, they are spraying chemicals seven out of every 10 days, leaving communities to wonder what is blowing in the wind or flowing in the water.

Autumn Ness
Kihei, Maui

Condos get raw deal for trash pickup

For the city to continue to provide trash pickup for single-family homes in January and not condominiums due to cost provides a benefit for all single-family-home owners, leaving the less-affluent condo owners twisting in the wind.

Clearly the single-family-home owners in comparison to condo owners are in a financially superior position. It’s like welfare for the single-family-home owners when they get free trash pickup and condo owners have to pay.

It takes about a minute for a side-loader truck topick uptrash from three homes or 12 units in a condo, using a front-loader on a dumpster. Condo pickupsare more efficient and less labor intensive andcost less overall.

Condo owners may want torecall or voteout the city officials who concocted this unjust plan.

Smoky Guerrero
Mililani

Support troops by bringing them home

Before the next time they’re sent to harm’s way, I hope everyone who wears a military uniform reads "War, what’s it good for?" (Star-Advertiser, Oct. 8).

My hat’s off to them. They are as brave as they are innocent of creating the tensions that make us ask them to sacrifice themselves for the rest of us.

But if war is worth "absolutely nothing," as Gregory Daddis suggests, then the wars we’ve been fighting pretty much non-stop for 70 years have been worthless, and so have been thousands of supreme sacrifices by our finest.

So if you’re on active duty, please accept my heartfelt salute, and at the same time vow to ask why and maybe even say no the next time you’re ordered into war.

We’ve spent so much blood and treasure on war, yet we’re in greater danger now than we’ve ever been.

Support the troops by bringing them home and keeping them here.

Jay Henderson
Waikiki

No public funds for private preschools

The two opposing views on the constitutional amendment to allow public funds to be spent on private preschools should convince any thinking person to vote no on the amendment ("Public funds for private preschools?" Star-Advertiser, Insight, Oct. 5).

Deborah Zysman starts off in the first sentence with a deceptive statement. She says 40 of 50 states offer preschool services. That may be true, but I doubt that very many have public funding for private schools. Based on the state in which I was born, two years were provided free, but only in public schools.

There is no way to guarantee that bias, religion or any other ideology will not enter education in private schools.

Any thinking person supports free preschool education, but it should be only through public schools. The only reasonable vote is no.

Rusl T. Bjork
Koloa, Kauai