Letters to the Editor – 4/23/14

Informative read

I’ve just finished reading Don Chapman’s fascinating and informative series on Myanmar. Mr. Chapman writes as well as anyone I’ve ever encountered, with an engaging, conversational style packed with educational fare and the most perceptive, humanistic personal anecdotes. Surely his three-part achievement should grow legs and travel far beyond MidWeek and Oahu, and I firmly believe that it warrants an appropriate award for outstanding journalism.

I’ve never been to Myanmar, and at my age will not have the pleasure, and I must confess that my interaction with that country has been limited to three gentlemen my Pearl City church has sponsored over the years. One of them was Khar Bik, an early-20-something who came for and attained his college degree. Along the way, he learned that daily running was my stress relief, and we came to train up together for (I think) the 2002 Honolulu Marathon. I drew up a six-month progressive training schedule, purchased for him his running shoes, and we hit the streets together … until he found that my old legs bored him and he would bound ahead. He finished the HM in a commendable 4:45 or thereabouts.

I especially appreciated Mr. Chapman’s non-doctrinaire, inclusive view of humankind’s need for spiritual underpinnings, whether the particular society is grounded in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, et al. I do hope that Mr. Chapman’s many-faceted diamond will shine benevolently on the people of Myanmar, his cited Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and other beleaguered lands such as Palestine, Bahrain, too many countries in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia, and on and on.

Robert H. Stiver
Pearl City

Drone drama

Regarding Ron Mizutani’s column on drones:

A drone can search a neighborhood for a missing child or pet before a squad car can get there.

A drone can zoom up to the roof and down to the bottom of a cliff faster than a helicopter can get off the ground, so Sen. Hee decides such awesome power should be in the hands of criminals employed by law enforcement agencies.

Drones are vehicles, and as such, should be licensed and insured just as drone operators should be licensed and insured. Anyone who feels their privacy has been breached then can report the drone license number to the police.

Why all the drama?

Rico Leffanta
Honolulu

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