Large political banners not necessary
I was disappointed to see political banners start to spring up in February. I understand the point of bringing awareness to a particular candidate, and certainly smaller yard signs are fine as a show of support.
I know the campaigns are in full swing, but please realize that the large banners along our roadways are really not necessary. Mahalo for your consideration.
Tyler Chihara, Lihue
Rule-of-law should prevail
Mr. Somit’s letter (TGI, March 10) is making two erroneous assumptions about “minor” children brought in by their “parents”: are they really minors and are the adults who brought them in really their parents?
In Germany, for example, the government is starting to do medical testing to determine if those claiming to be minors are really under 18 years of age. H.R. 4760 (Goodlatte House bill) includes DNA testing to verify parental claims.
Illegal entry does not end there but often includes other illegal activities such as human smuggling, fake SSNs and identity theft and fraudulent tax and other documents. We are a nation of immigrants but also a nation where the rule-of-law (should!) prevail.
The rule-of-law is why the U.S. is a better place to live than Mexico, Honduras, China, etc., but is being trampled by the Democrat Party’s open-borders position.
John Rogers, Bozeman, Montana
Science must drive agriculture
We live in interesting times. Modern agriculture has given us the most plentiful, safest food supply in the history of food. Unfortunately, marketers of alternative foods have convinced many that this is not true. The letter from Linda Bothe (TGI, March 10) is a good example.
She begins with the myth that organic agriculture is not big business. The global organic food industry is valued at nearly $100 billion annually and is projected to double in coming years.
Nature produces some of the most toxic compounds known to humans. Many folks have come to believe that anything naturally derived is harmless. Ask your self this: if it is harmless then what good will it do to apply it to crops? Either it is toxic to pests or it is not.
Most of the organic food grown in the U.S. comes from California. When you look at the California state agriculture data it becomes clear that more than 50 percent of all pesticides applied to crops in the state are applied to organic crops.
All conventional agricultural pesticides are exhaustively tested to ensure safety. This is not the case for all naturally derived organic pesticides. We do not need policy decisions based on marketing. We need policy based on sound science. In the future we will need the best of every agriculture system.
Robert Wager, Vancouver Island University
John: I understand the rationale to defend the odious practice. Note, however, that the deterrence effect is lost if the children are not actually relatives, so this can’t defend a practice whose intention is to separate actual children from actual parents. Please reply with some link to a source that false claims of parent-child relationships are a problem for immigration detainees in the U.S.; without that, your comment is simply deflection and an attempt to change the subject from the practice to the alleged criminality of immigrants (although most studies show they are less likely to be arrested or engage in illegal conduct than are legal immigrants or natural born citizens). Also, please indicate a source for your statement that the Democratic Party supports “open borders”; otherwise, this is simply more false news, or more accurately, a misstatement of an actual position which considers immigrants humans and entitled to basic human decency.
John Rogers, if I referred to you as Johnny Rotten instead of your given name, it would simply be juvenile petty disrespect. It would detract from any serious argument I was trying to advance.
That is exactly what you have done in calling our Party something other than The Democratic Party which what we have chosen to call it and ourselves. Choosing to call our Party that name makes it “correct” in every way, shape, and form. What you have done detracts and distracts from the rest of your letter which was about……..about something………about something else!
Interesting about OPEN BORDERS.
In many countries a foreigner cannot own a home or any land or a business…they can own a condo so long as 51% of the condos in a building are owned by locals and not Foreigners.
So how come foreigners to the USA and Kauai, especially wealthy foreigners can own anything in America and Kauai…homes, land, or businesses, etc.
And when it comes to Monsanto and other chemical and experimental agriculture companies they may even own or have special rights with our elected officials and even the courts are allowing poisoning of our island by foreign corporations, elimination or drastic reduction in local peoples’ opportunity to own and even rent a home or land or a business while drastically raising real estate and rental unit costs beyond even the reach of whole families of local workers.
Did Monsanto sell or turn over their holdings on Kauai to the Hartung Brothers to soften their foreign appearance? What convenient deal transpired for a mega International Corporation like Monsanto to need to turn over ownership to a little known business?
Yes the OPEN BORDERS of the USA are open Wider than what meets the eye, it’s just not foreigners looking for jobs, or smuggling drugs or people, etc…it takes more than a WALL.
An illegal alien can cross either our northern or southern border in minutes to hours, while it takes almost a year of vast amounts of paperwork to bring in your foreign spouse; especially into small communities where it is hard to find a lifetime companion / spouse.
The borders are Wide Open for those who take advantage of Americans while there is only a “crack” in the door to be able bring in legal new citizens who come by following the rules.
Mahalo,
Charles
Charlie, Monsanto has never operated on Kauai, which makes your entire post ridiculously inaccurate!
Aloha Mr. Wagner of Canada, thank you for your opinion…but…
You say: Modern agriculture has given us the most…safest food supply in the history of food.
Really? How about all the food allergies, the modern gluten problems, the colostomies, the antacids, the ulcers, colorectal cancer, diverticulitis , the obesity, diabetes, and doctor-pharmacy drugs are so rampant they have become part of the modern “scientific” diet; not sure about your Canada but the MAJORITY of Americans take medical drugs daily…and what about the increasing number of drug TV ads claiming relief by ACTORS and fake doctors, all the while your science food and too much of your food in your claimed abundance is the cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, the strokes, and the too many cancers that scientists worldwide are pointing to our modern food as the cause; and the disease statistics are worsening while the amount and variety of your “science” food is also increasing. 2 peas in the same pod.
You appear to criticize organic food as an alternative…first of all “organic” is another Fake term about food. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration-USA) says in order to be ORGANIC, the food only needs to be 65% organic and the rest is rolling onto your dinner table on a Russian Roulette Wheel. 35% of organic food is allowed by government (those you trust?) to be NOT organic and be risky to eat if you believe that Mother Nature (which is a part of God’s Creation, has faithfully and perpetually controlled and nurtured food back to the time before the 1st vertebrate specie on earth…until just a few generations ago…when the scientists began to arrogantly interfere with Nature)…Mother Nature has done a good job of providing for all God’s Creatures’ food for the last at least about 500 million years…or so…give or take…!
It is hard to fathom you referring to natural food as ALTERNATIVE FOOD (meaning the no chemicals, no poison products of nature and man’s labor to “Sew and Reap” or plant and harvest). Natural food is not an alternative, to say so is non sense. Natural food was here 1st, it is the original food, and many of us want it to stay.
Consider, you have taken the time to write to our local paper in Hawaii all the way from Canada. Here in Hawaii the “original man” is called the Kanaka Maoli, and in New Zealand (or Aotearoa), the original man is called Tanaka Maori.
Mr. Wagner, these Hawaiians, these Maoli, these Maori, they are not an ALTERNATIVE…they are it, the original, the real deal, they are those who nurtured and preserved the Aina, the land, until the Euros came and took over by modern science with the force of weapons of mass destruction…i.e., guns.
What you are really proposing is that the Original food and peoples of the earth are not any good. Would you say that of the Africans, the Asians, etc., and in what tone of arrogance would that be.
Sir, you have slapped my God in the face with your words; you are promoting the De-Naturing of Nature itself. You should return to a school which respects God’s earth and all its living organisms, one of which you are.
You say that nature makes deadly poison; that’s right, and NICOTINE is well known in science to be the deadliest or one one of the most deadliest natural chemicals found on earth…there are snake poisons and others as well. Most of us know well to avoid those, compared to scientists and their lackeys spraying their deadly chemicals on our land and water and food and in our air, (and putting them into corporate made foods) without notice and refusing through the courts to even provide notice. Have you no shame….?
And the US’ FDA allows cigarettes with extremely poisons nicotine to be sold at every store in the land…cigarettes that serve only 1 purpose to negatively impact your health and not just to your lungs but all tissues and organs in your body due to vasoconstriction to your arteries that then causes less blood and nutrients to your whole body, this is one effect of nicotine besides harming your lungs in numerous ways to the point of death.
When you say that 50% of California pesticides are sprayed on organic food…well in your mind those foods may be organic, but in our minds it is poisoned food that is fake called “organic” and it is a another FAKE to call it anything but poisoned.
Whole Natural Food is what many of us seek, and for a growing number of us it is Plant Based Natural Food. So keep your poisons off our food. If the food your science is growing is so FAKE and needs poison to grow it out of God’s earth, then keep them in Canada, you can have all of ours. Final Deal…!
Further, Mr. Wagner you failed to mention that all those science chemicals, you have so much faith in, are made from petroleum, oil and coal tars, and all of them are carcinogenic, that means they cause cancer. But then fools do not fear cancer until they have it…at which point they are given more of the petroleum chemicals that gave the cancer in the first place. It’s silly and serious.
You say: “All conventional agricultural pesticides are exhaustively tested to ensure safety”.
For every corporate study, there are “bought and paid for” opinion providers saying that this or that is safe. Can we list the amount of drugs alone taken off the market after certified safe by “your scientists”; only to be found out later that the drugs are lethal and health damaging. Current drug ads clearly show us that modern drugs have very dangerous and often deadly side effects.
How about Diethylstibestrol (birth defects), how about DDT, how about Chlorpyrifos, how about what opioids are doing to America ..hundred of deaths per day…! All these provided by science. The list goes on… !
Many of us would rather tolerate a few insect bites out of our food, sharing with nature, than making us eat your deadly chemicals…don’t you realize that a single bite of poisoned food may not kill you, but the accumulation of exposure to chemicals day after week after year after decade will kill you prematurely…and you will be in the obituaries in your 50’s or 60’s…cheated out of a 1/3 of your life by your fake “bought and paid for science”.
Mr. Wagner, we think you should take your bought and paid for opinion and give it as an alternative to the Canadians.
But mahalo anyway,
Charles
Hello Charlie
We must agree I never knew Natalie Wood so in the future it would be best to use my real name when talking to me.
There are a few points in your post I would like to address. There is virtually nothing “natural” about agriculture. It is a human endeavor that changes the DNA of plants and animals to suit our needs. We have been changing the DNA of our food for >10,000 years.
Although it may be true some ailments have increased in recent history the fact remains people in NA live longer than ever before. Modern science is mainly responsible for this (medicine, sanitation, vaccines, safer food and water etc)
The beauty of our present food system is diversity. Many different types of agriculture can be practiced at the same time. You are free to practice the type that best suits your desires. Modern agriculture will continue to move to more sustainable practices at the same time. The trick with any agriculture is to produce the maximum yield with the minimum impact. In this regard modern agriculture practices cannot be matched. The average farmer in NA produces enough food to feed >150 people. The imputs are constantly being improved for effectiveness and reduced impact.
You are not alone in quickly waving away decades of sound science. This in no way invalidates the actual science. You are free to your opinion but not you own facts. Scientific bodies around the world continue to support the safe use of modern agricultural practices including GE crop technology.
I doubt we could agree on much so I will just wish you a happy life.
Cheers
Rob