• Where is Robin Hood? • Heaven forbid we hear diverging viewpoints • Trade hateful rhetoric for rational arguments • Respect the locals Where is Robin Hood? On this furlough Monday, a day in which our kids should be in
• Where is Robin Hood? • Heaven forbid
we hear diverging viewpoints • Trade hateful
rhetoric for rational arguments • Respect the
locals
Where is Robin Hood?
On this furlough Monday, a day in which our kids should be in school, I felt compelled to respond and offer budget “guidance,” as requested, to Sen. Kouchi and his counterparts.
In the past few years, state workers, and public schools in particular, have already taken it on the chin and endured painful budget cuts. To tell middle and lower income state workers that more cuts are coming and that the state budget shortfall will rest on their backs is absurd. And to think about “raising public school class size to more than 30” is idiotic.
I do not want anymore state services to be cut. I want our politicians to do the right thing and find additional money to continue operating our libraries and public schools.
Recently, it has been reported that 7 percent of Hawai‘i’s population are millionaires. In addition, Hawaiian Airlines recorded $70.6 million in profits from October to December of 2010.
If the state needs to raise more money, and clearly it does, where should it direct its efforts? Hhhhmmmm? Where’s Robin Hood when we need him?
Charles Fulks, Lihu‘e
Heaven forbid we hear diverging viewpoints
I think Christopher O’Brien (March 21) and Ann Bjork (March 23) both make excellent arguments for Big Brother.
We should shut down the voices of Michelle Malkin and Diana West and their “media kin.” We need to get rid of those pesky opposing view points!
I really don’t care what the first amendment has to say about it. The world would be a much more civil place and more receptive to civil discourse if we all just agreed on everything.
I mean, the truth is the truth right? I know the truth — I watch CNN. I don’t understand why we even allow other channels? They just spew lies, and hatred, and fear-mongering, and racism and I know that none of it can be true.
I think we should have one government-run news channel that we can all trust!
Mr. Editor, please take care not to introduce ideas that might potentially offend anyone. That would be in opposition to democratic free speech.
We all know that Donna Brazile and Gene Lyons speak the truth and always have opinions that are correct, because they too get their news from CNN.
Jane Plant, Kapa‘a
Trade hateful rhetoric for rational arguments
I want to thank Christopher O’brien for the views he expressed in his letter to the editor on March 21. I feel exactly as he does.
While applauding The Garden Island for providing columns from both sides of the political spectrum, I question your approach in that the ones you choose from the right are at the extreme edge. It would be so much more valuable to me if I was given a more cogent Republican position with less hate and derision.
To highlight my and Mr. Obrien’s point, alongside his letter was another column by Diana West. It was about energy policy and for most of it she relied on the wisdom of Sarah Palin as if she was an expert on the subject. In it Ms. West referred to an Obama position as his “Third World, anti-imperialist, Frantz-Fanon-imbued vision of Diminished America.”
I think TGI could and should provide us with a lot better. I’m not afraid of name-calling but I wonder about someone who has to resort to that to make a point. And I would think a column on energy policy could be based on someone who knows a lot more about the subject. (I was tempted to say “someone who knows something about the subject” but then I would be in the same league as those I’m criticizing.)
Kaua‘i is an island that prides itself with trying to live the ideal of all different kinds people getting along. Yet many of the conservative columns you publish are designed to do the opposite.
There are plenty of columnists that provide a rational argument for their point of view without the hate and without purposely misleading.
The two columnists on the PBS News Hour every Friday, Mark Shield of the Boston Globe on the left and David Brooks of the New York Times on the right, come to mind as two perfect examples of this.
Robert Rosen, Lihu‘e
Respect the locals
Kudos to TGI (“Protect Kaua‘i’s resources,” In Our Opinion, March 28) for rapping the knuckles of the County Council, because they didn’t do what they were elected to do — protect the people and the ‘aina.
Shame on those who issued the permit to Sunrise Capital. And finally, shame on Sunrise Capital (notice that Sunrise lives in Missouri) for polluting Kaua‘i’s pristine environment and then concocting such a preposterous story.
Oh yes, shame on the County Council for swallowing this tale, which stinks worse than the contaminated shrimp present in the avian vomit.
Michael Diamant, Kalaheo
