Lee Cataluna sometimes gets it right and sometimes gets it wrong (“At UH, ‘most beautiful’ depends on where you look,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 23).

She was right that the University of Hawaii at Manoa is beautiful in places but certainly not in others. But she was wrong to suggest that feral chickens, feral cats and feral pigs augment the beauty of the lush, quiet Windward Community College campus and the Koolaus rising behind it.

Feral chickens are a serious nuisance, whether on the WCC campus, in the Kailua Safeway parking lot, or all over Kauai.

Feral cats are a significant threat to Hawaii’s wonderful native birds. And feral pigs are arguably the most devastating invasive species in Hawaii’s unique native forests.

Invasive species have caused widespread destruction of Hawaii’s native ecosystems and the species they once supported. Many are major public nuisances. And some cause disease in both humans and animals. We should not think of them as cute additions to our environment.

Robert Cowie

Kailua

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Confederate icons retain culture of hate

Here’s another angle to the discussion on perpetuating the Confederacy.

Years ago I used to hear that people in the deep South were still mentally fighting the Civil War. It became a reality when I went to Chicago for a company meeting. At lunch I was seated at a table with a company from the deep South. When they found out I was originally from Massachusetts, they landed on me.

“If we had fought that war the way you Yankees, uh, you Northerners did, we would have won.”

I still remember the shock of seeing a “whites only” sign on a toilet in Virginia in 1961.

Statues and flags are not for history. They are kept to continue the culture of hate, racism and slavery, as evidenced by the attitudes and actions toward African-Americans by white supremacists.

Fred Metcalf

Kalihi

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Kaahumanu was key champion of rights

Beverly Munson wrote about “Kaahumanu, the favored wife of King Kamehameha II who used her position to champion for the rights of Native Hawaiian women” (“Hawaii has proud history of women in leadership,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Aug. 15).

Kaahumanu was actually the favorite and most powerful wife of King Kamehameha I, and upon his death on May 5, 1919, she became a regent of the Kingdom of Hawaii serving as kuhina nui, sharing power with King Kamehameha II, the son of Kamehameha I.

Fourth-graders in Hawaii are taught that Kaahumanu ate at the same table as King Kamehameha II, in effect breaking a major kapu forbidding men and women of eating together. The result changed the rules of Hawaiian society.

In effect, Kaahumanu championed the rights of all Native Hawaiians and continued to play a key role under the reigns of King Kamehameha II and King Kamehameha III.

Robert Mumper

Kailua

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Tax ‘upzoned’ land to help pay for rail

When a community objects to a development proposal, the landowner always mounts a press campaign charging that downzoning to conservation or agricultural status is a “taking of value.” Well, it seems reasonable that the same logic applies to “upzoning” from agricultural to residential.

The City Council should not be giving away our money. The agricultural land belongs to the landowners, but the additional value created by our zoning upgrades belongs to us, the taxpayers. We created that value.

Let’s tax it at 100 percent in order to pay for the rail project.

I’m sure landowners and developers will support this tax, since it would would remove suspicions that they are manipulating the political process to get taxpayers to fund a rail infrastructure to facilitate their mega- projects — and their mega- profits.

Jan Becket

Manoa

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Residents pay taxes for trash pickup

Would someone please explain to city Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina the difference between essential city services and subsidized services (“Bulky item call-in system in works,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 24)?

Residential property owners pay for refuse pickup through our property taxes; we do not receive a subsidy from the city. Nothing the city provides to residents is free. Kahikina states the $100 million paid for refuse pickup is “taking that from parks, police and fire.” She could have said it’s taking away from union salary increases, rail administration, bus subsidization, homeless sweeps, etc.

If bulky-item pickup goes back to a previous system of appointment scheduling she will quickly see what happens to an island where every corner is used as a dump.

Kahikina should just do her job and make the current system work.

Pam Smith

Ewa Beach

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Political columnists call things as they are

Praise to the only columnists worth reading in your paper: Richard Borreca (“Time is running out for HART — and Oahu taxpayers,” July 30; “Workings of Hawaii government hew to satirical Parkinson’s Law,” Aug. 13), and David Shapiro (“Isle leaders intently keep blind eye on rail’s budget,” July 23; “Management, not funding, of rail needs to be explored,” Aug. 20).

Both columnists are on point and factually sarcastic. In numerous articles they have exposed the rail folly that the Star-Advertiser continues to endorse.

It would be refreshing if management took a more unbiased view of city politics and mismanagement and start calling a spade a spade, like both of these columnists.

There is nothing “state of the art” in Hawaii compared with other tourist destinations. Government officials are fully to blame for the dilapidated condition of the airport, Blaisdell Arena and, of course, rail.

Stop promoting incompetence.

Byron Wailani

Kakaako