• It’s time • No agenda, just tolerance • Prince of Fools • Dear Mayor Carvalho • Kaua‘i compensation It’s time It’s time to discuss it openly, rationally, and responsibly. It’s time for us to weigh and consider whether the
• It’s time • No agenda, just tolerance • Prince of Fools • Dear Mayor Carvalho • Kaua‘i compensation
It’s time
It’s time to discuss it openly, rationally, and responsibly. It’s time for us to weigh and consider whether the current laws on marijuana have exacerbated the flow of other drugs like cocaine and crystal meth becoming prevalent, destroying lives.
Is marijuana truly a gateway drug? How come liquor is legal with all the statistical data available that clearly indicate how lethal alcohol consumption can be?
Have other countries dealt with marijuana usage effectively? Why are there laws allowing access to medical marijuana passed? Are there mixed messages here that confuse the population about what is right or wrong?
We can no longer offer only tidbits of information. Too much is at stake. It’s time to focus on marijuana thoroughly and completely with extensive research, relevant facts, and clearly articulated presentations from qualified and respected representatives from the fields of education, law and medicine. We need to concentrate on the substance of marijuana; we need to know it’s history; we need to know how it was and is used culturally throughout the world.
We need to get beyond the rhetoric of proponents and opponents squabbling over the legalization of marijuana, once and for all. It’s time for validity and clarity on this matter.
Jose Bulatao Jr., Kekaha
No agenda, just tolerance
I read with frustration Mr. York’s Op-Ed asserting that the Southern Poverty Law Center was somehow stirring up anti-tea party sentiment.
His derogatory comment that “in the world of the SPLC the threat is always growing” was a little bit like criticizing the AMA for finding diseases everywhere they look.
Tracking hate groups is the main purpose of the SPLC! It was this organization that drove the nail in the coffin of the KKK, and they do society an admirable service tracking the occurrences of hate crimes all across our nation. They have no agenda other than tolerance.
Margi Wilding, Calabasas, Calif.
Prince of Fools
News reports amplify the Pakistan connection to the Times Square culprit’s failed bomb plot. The Pakistan Taliban take credit for the plot.
The novelty act that now occupies the White House was in Pakistan once while at Occidental University and again after transferring to Columbia University. Pakistan was considered a rouge nation during those visits.
The president read his comments to the world that we were not a Christian nation while praising Islam. Most Americans learned all they need to know about Islam on 9/11.
The president wrongly criticized the Cambridge police officer for being on task while sympathizing with the Muslim psychotic physician who murdered our soldiers at Fort Hood.
Apparently, the impact of the years the president abused drugs is now coming to the surface as well as the influence of his visits to Pakistan. Fortunately, the Pakistan Taliban have not taken credit for the Prince of Fools’ election to the office he now holds.
Joel Whitley, Lihu‘e
Dear Mayor Carvalho
I would appreciate you considering to be the Mayor of all Kaua‘i and not just the Mayor of the evangelical Christians.
I called your office to complain about the County National Day of Prayer. The person I spoke with in your communications department tried valiantly to explain that “those people just happened to call first.”
I take issue with this for the same reason I take issue with the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. This is not a Christian island or county. You were elected to represent all Kauaians. If your minister or a minister of any denomination requests your attendance at or the use of county facilities for an event, if it is considered at all, must be inclusive. At the Po‘ipu National Prayer observance, anyone who desired to share a prayer was welcomed. At your event, only Christians could share a prayer — how inclusive is that? If you can’t have the prayers and program of the prayer breakfast and the national day of prayer be open to all Kauaians, then perhaps these events should not be celebrated on Kaua‘i.
It is incumbent upon you to set the guidelines of an event, not the ministers! Mahalo for giving this matter your serious consideration.
Judie Lundborg Hoeppner, Kapa‘a
Kaua‘i compensation
Money shortage closing schools … do our brave rescuers generate monetary compenensation for our beautiful Kaua‘i?
Barbara Beissert, Kilauea
