Letters to the Editor for Tuesday — October 21, 2003

• Kaua‘i Pow Wow Council

• Supports

• Accidents…or

On behalf of the Kaua‘i Pow Wow Council and Circle of Friends, I would like to say thank you to all the sponsors and people who supported us throughout the year with our fundraising efforts. With your continued support and generous contributions of love, labor, personal items and money KPC was able to bring to our island community one of the BEST Pow Wow’s Kaua‘i has ever experienced.

Mahalo nui loa to our “Eagle Feather Donors”; Aloha Beach Resort and Hawai’i Tourism Authority. Many thanks to our “Hawk Feather Donors”; Visitor Industry Charity Walk and the Native American Foundation – Big Island. Plenty thanks to our “Turtle Shell Donors”; Wal-Mart and Kapa‘a Rotary Club.

Special Mahalos to all of our “Circle of Friends” contributing business, community organizations, service people and volunteers that helped create this Pow Wow and all the other events surrounding it. Some of those “Friends” we wish to give special thanks too are: Menehune Water Company, Dennis Fujimoto and The Garden Island Newspaper, The KAUA‘I, Captain Andy’s, Traditional Travel, Mayor Baptiste and the County of Kaua‘i, “Lance” at Kaua‘i Business Insurance, Inc., Lee’s Tents, HOIKE Public Television, Kaua‘i United Way, Big Save, First Hawaiian Bank, Lihue Credit Union, Jack Harter Helicopters, Joe’s On the Green Restuarant, Keoki’s, Westside Community Coalition, JJ Ohanas, Wellington Fence, Kaua‘i Sea Tours, and the many other business and services who made contributions for our Silent Auction Tent and events.

A very special mahalo to: Puna Dawson, Linda Viado, Peter Anthony, Johnnie Deckerson, Henriette Gregorio, Anne O’Mally, Valerie Kaneshiro, “Uncle Lou” Lindsey, Warren Perry, Elizabeth Kua, Edwardo Valeciano, Rose Olney-Sampson, Peter JO Olney, Stevewolf, John Dawson, Hummingbird Singers, Callin’ Eagle, and Red Thunder Singers, and the many other volunteers and participants who gave so much to our fundraising efforts and to our “Honor OUR Youth” 2003 Pow Wow, and to our elders Joe American Horse and Doris Allen.

Mahalo to each and every person who attended our events and contributed to our fundraising efforts during the entire year. Again thank you!

Sincerely,

Kaua’i Pow Wow Council

Supports

I see that Ms. Pollack in her amateur attempt at poetry, is not moved by the photos of the mass graves and the emptied torture chambers nor by the hundreds of children found and released from Saddam’s prisons. She is also not moved by the polls taken of the Iraqi’s where 70 percent want us to stay at least a year.

She is moved, however, to call our President a liar even though the President, his Cabinet and Congress all heard the same intelligence reports then voted unanimously for the war. Just who is lying? I suspect she wasn’t moved when David Kay presented his interim report on illegal weapons found so far and displayed Saddam’s plans for buying more WMD’s. But then Kay and his 1,500 scientists and inspectors could be lying too.

When Fox News reports that in a recent poll the President’s ratings as raising, she accuses the majority of her fellow Americans of being duped. It must be difficult for you Bush Bashers when Fox and other major media like MSNBC report that great progress is being made inside Iraq, and the American economy is developing faster and stronger than expected. Are IBM and other large American companies also lying when they say they are planning to increase their work force in 2004 or are they only trying to drive up the ratings?

In response to Fox’s own high ratings, the head of ABC announced today that they plan to start reporting on the positive aspects of life in Iraq as well as the negative. Will that move you or don’t you trust ABC either? Then please be so kind to tell us the source of your information so all of us “duped ones” might be better informed.

How anyone can live on this precious island with aloha all around and still be so distrusting and so negative, and believing that only “bad news can be good news”.

Ada Koene

Koloa

Accidents…or

Sunday was a beautiful day. My husband and I were going to take a hike. As we were driving down Kuhio Highway we saw miles of the road littered with newspaper and it made our beautiful island look trashy. I commented that the newspapers had been there for a few days and was surprised that nobody had cleaned them up. That’s when I suggested that maybe we should pick them up. At first my husband thought I was joking, but he quickly realized I was serious. We drove to a store and bought garbage bags and spent three hours picking up the newspaper, and other garbage, that was strewn along Kuhio Highway. We started at the Tree Tunnel and collected ten large bags by the time we reached the Humane Society. That’s a lot of newspaper, and interestingly the papers were The Honolulu Advertiser Sunday editions for October 12 and 19. Perhaps they fell off a truck…and I’d like to think the person responsible didn’t notice the accident. What really disturbs me is that the mess was left for several days with no apparent action by the County to clean it up. There is a road sign that said KIUC had adopted that section of the highway. Where was their clean up effort? We need a better, quicker response to these types of litter accidents. We didn’t mind cleaning up, but this sort of “freak” accident impacts residents and visitors and leaves our island looking ugly. It required a rapid response that didn’t happen.

Ann O’Halloran

Kalaheo