• Look at the facts • Police make homeless struggle harder • Help shelter rather than criticize • Water failure sign of poor leadership Look at the facts Thank you to Allan Parachini for his thoughtful analysis of the so-called charter amendment regarding GMO
• Look at the facts • Police make homeless struggle harder • Help shelter rather than criticize • Water failure sign of poor leadership
Look at the facts
Thank you to Allan Parachini for his thoughtful analysis of the so-called charter amendment regarding GMO agriculture on Kauai, “Don’t be fooled by ‘charter amendment,’” May 30, The Garden Island. I would like to add a point that demonstrates how confused people can be about the topic of GMOs.
At a recent farmer’s market on Kauai, I observed a vendor advertising Rainbow papayas as “organic” and “non-GMO.” This is despite the fact that the Rainbow papaya is the very GMO product that saved the entire papaya industry of the state of Hawaii. If the vendor herself doesn’t understand the issue, how can the buyer? In fact, Hawaii’s organic papaya growers are benefiting today because the GMO Rainbow papaya does not allow the papaya ringspot virus to replicate. With fewer hosts, there is less papaya ringspot virus in circulation. This has been a win-win situation: Hawaii’s papaya growers can continue to produce plenty of Rainbow papayas, and the organic papaya trees are protected from the papaya ringspot virus better than they were before this GMO success story. Instead of emotion and rant, could we please look at facts and evidence?
Janet Nelsen
Kapaa
Police make homeless struggle harder
I am homeless, five months, in Lihue. I am a very educated, mature professional woman who worked and paid taxes over 20 years in Hawaii. I have been long-term abused and attacked, with no police or YWCA OR KEO aid. All my homeless belongings have been confiscated by Kauai police, four times, in five months, at local libraries and fast foods.
B.A. Wells
Kauai
Help shelter rather than criticize
I have been an animal lover all of my life — to a fault, at times. In both California and Kauai, I have been involved with the local humane societies and find the current wave of skepticism printed in your “opinion” section almost ridiculous. This is an opinion page. Why waste energy, you few writers, on an organization you do not bother to understand? Of course, a humane institution does not run on volunteers. There is payroll and numerous other expenses, like food and supplies. This humane society is being run by an administrator with an incredible background and a keen eye to the present and future. Kudos to the folks who volunteer as well, and I invite anyone with an adverse opinion to visit any other facility anywhere to compare to our own. How lucky we live on Kauai.
Let’s help our shelter be the very best it can be by supporting it in every way!! After all, it’s all about the animals.
Su Haynes
Kapaa
Water failure sign of poor leadership
Memo to Hizzoner, our mayor: 3-5 percent of our island’s residents do not have any water. (The exact number is unknown, since it rises with each new communication from the Department of Water). What would happen sir, if your beloved (and likely next employers) the Frankenseed GMO “farm” companies on the Westside were to lose their water? You’d strap on your football helmet and helicopter over there post haste, and run hoses from the Roundup Rivers (formerly the Waimea and Hanapepe) to get them what they needed. But we are only people. How much have they given your re-election campaign, so far? Just wondering.
And, yesterday, in the latest Grand Solution from Quirky Kirky Saiki, the KWD manager, I and my neighbors were given a case of drinking water, accompanied by a slick PR letter reeking of “alohas, mahalos and kokuas.” But with no clue as to when we will get back our most basic service. I was surprised they didn’t tell us to have the tallest member of the family hold a bottle overhead and poke holes in it with a fork so we could shower. Their letter calls it a “water failure.” Oh, really? Their Facebook page minutes from last January’s meeting discuss a failing pump No. 2. It’s not a “water failure,” it is incompetence, malfeasance, or both, by the department.
Thanks to the “leadership” of our island, thousands of us are living in Fourth World conditions, with no timetable for relief. Did they all get one-too-many concussions on the football field?
James Sullivan
Koloa
