Letters To The Editor

City’s absurdity

Sometin’ ain’t quite right in Larry Price’s column “DOT’s Past Construction Success.” It is not the state Department of Transportation that would build rail. It’s the City that is pushing that absurdity/monstrosity.

Gerhard C. Hamm
Waialae Iki

Candidates’ voice

I want to applaud your latest initiative in MidWeek which features non-incumbent candidates! It is an inspiring invitation to your readership to become better informed citizens and to give voice to many candidates who are otherwise drowning in the flood of advertising available only to those with “deep pockets.” I’ve read all of the candidates statements and there are some winners (I hope) among them, thanks to your effort and theirs.

Let’s hope your readers respond and that this fine idea, as they say, “goes viral”!

Thomas E. Jackson
Honolulu

Milk fat facts

Had Bob Jones even attempted to do some research, he would have found that Robert Cohen is absolutely right. Unless one can consume raw, unpasteurized cow or goat milk, there is nothing there but liquid FAT. When you boil something to 200 degrees (F) all nutrients are lost. All that is left is the fat. As if our obesity epidemic isn’t bad enough, Mr. Jones promotes it by encouraging MidWeek readers to continue consuming milk. Food for thought: I am 73, take no meds, have no health problems and have abstained from dairy and eggs since 1990 and have been vegetarian since 1975. I’m in two softball leagues, race-walk, do stand-up paddling, do other cardio and weight training and teach women’s self-defense classes based upon 20-plus years of Wing Chun training. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

Hesh Goldstein
Honolulu

Roberts’ justice

In reference to Jerry Coffee’s column on Justice Roberts and the Affordable Care Law, Justice Roberts could have simply opposed the law on the basis that the mandate was an intrusion in people’s lives and therefore unconstitutional, ending the matter. What is intriguing is: Why did he save the basic provisions by calling it a tax rather than a penalty under the Commerce clause?

I believe that Justice Roberts, following his conscience, understood the principle of risk pool and would rather see the law amended, but preserving the good parts.

Mr. Coffee indicates that the law is hated, yet reports show that individual provisions are favored even by Republican voters. This disjunction is a result of the Republican leader-ship’s effort to topple the Obama presidency by opposing everything he supports, regardless. Obama’s basing his law on earlier Republican proposals, and the Romney law in Massachusetts has left Republicans with only the mandate to focus their attacks.

Despite the Republican obsession against taxes, Justice Roberts has called it a tax and saved the law. Eventually people will realize that it is not an across-the-board tax, but only on the financially capable who refuse to purchase insurance. Others will receive assistance.

The law offers a solution to a major problem of 40 million to 50 million people without health care and the excessive power of insurance companies to withhold coverage. As a humane society, the needy and vulnerable must be cared for. Shared risk with government assisting is the reasonable way. Anti-government and anti-tax obsessions have brought us to the brink of disaster.

Alfred Bloom
Kailua

Rail crossing

The city administration’s latest fixed-rail commercial is a sad attempt to drum up support for the project using the propaganda technique of association. The commercial begins by extolling the benefits of HPOWER. This is followed by a middle-aged woman making the assertion that because the city built HPOWER 20 years ago and it has been beneficial, the fixed-rail should be built also. There is serious disconnect in her reasoning.

If the city had built a fixed-rail system years ago, there would have been no money to build HPOWER. The same choice exists today. Building the fixed-rail today means no money for fixing our sewers, water mains or upgrading our sewage facilities. In addition, the city has already begun to cut back on bus service to make traffic even worse.

As for me, I am reminded that HPOWER was the vision of one of the greatest mayors that Honolulu ever had, Eileen Anderson.

Gloria Kaneshiro
Honolulu

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