• Rebuild Pine Tree Inn • Money is merely a concept • High praise for trail restoration • Teacher abuse cannot be tolerated Rebuild Pine Tree Inn Let’s face it. The local people and their families that frequent the Kalapaki
• Rebuild Pine Tree Inn • Money is
merely a concept • High praise for trail
restoration • Teacher abuse cannot be
tolerated
Rebuild Pine Tree Inn
Let’s face it. The local people and their families that frequent the Kalapaki Park and Beach area, including both the river mouth the Pine Tree Inn, are considered a nuisance to the hotel- and tourist-related businesses in the area. They are not welcome. They are not welcomed unless they can spend $10,000 a week for a vacation and $1,000 for helicopter rides, according to a strong supporter of shutting down the laid-back hang out.
Chief Perry of Kaua‘i Police Department is using the criminal activity by a small minority of idiots to shut down a place (Pine Tree Inn) that a good number of retired folks used to visit and regularly, cleaned and took care of. I can even remember my family having a number of parties there when my kids, their cousins and friends were younger. No one gave us any flack.
Chief Perry of the KPD and the so-called “respectable” government officials and the self-centered business types who came up with this mean-spirited idea of tearing down the place, should hustle up some tools and building supplies to rebuild it. This is the least they can do, along with some sincere apologies. They didn’t have the decency to talk to the users. But don’t expect a peep from them because they’re probably high fiving and back slapping each other right now.
Raymond Catania, Lihu‘e
Money is merely a concept
I remember hearing the saying as a child that “money is the root of all evil.” But as I’ve matured, I’ve realized that money is merely a concept that humans have adopted as a vehicle to drive our society forward, which has allowed for great advances in technology and global trading that were not possible when we were simply bartering things like animal skins and fabrics for food or medicine. But the accumulation of massive sums of money in the hands of a tiny minority has lead to an awesome power that has been too easily abused to the detriment of the vast majority of people who are now mere economic slaves to the tiny minority.
It seems that the majority of us have simply forgotten that money doesn’t really have any power over any of us unless we continue to believe in the idea that the monetary system is the only way we can live together in a functioning society when it is blatantly obvious that those who are succeeding in it are the most unscrupulous and least representative of the best of what humanity is capable of becoming.
I personally don’t believe dropping out of society or trying to go back in time to the barter system are the only options we have to escape the inevitable collapse the failing monetary system is careening us towards. The solution is simply achieving a critical mass of awareness that we are capable of moving forward in another more positive way.
Jason S. Nichols, Koloa
High praise for trail restoration
The recently completed trail restoration improvement done to the first two miles leading into the coastline deserves high praise and support for what was completed. As an avid and experienced backpacker who takes every opportunity to hike and explore the wonders of God’s creation, I came away impressed by the renewed improvement done to the first two miles of the trail.
Kudos to the Hawai‘i Legislature for providing the grant funding, to the lead non-profit organization KAPPA, which administered the project’s undertaking, and to Charlie Cobb Adams and his team for doing such a wonderful and great restoration to the trail.
I wish to assure your readers that this work was not easy by any means but challenging throughout. I later did some research and learned that, on average, Napali greets between 300 and 400 avid trail seekers looking for that time to experience our island history. That’s a lot of footprints. Its a no wonder our trails are severely decomposed.
We all have a responsibility to kokua and malama. Thank you and mahalo for the work!
James “Jimmy” Torio, Anahola
Teacher abuse cannot be tolerated
I understand that a teacher can get frustrated and angry when a student is unruly. However, swinging a hammer over his head and having the hammer slip out of his hand, hitting a student on the head (is another story).
A few years ago at Waimea High School, my son, an 11th grader at the time, accidentally got hit by a shoe box that a teacher intended to throw at another student. So, my son wanted an apology from the teacher. He never got one. So out of anger, he swore at the teacher.
What would have happened if the shoe box hit my son’s eye?
To make a long story short, we (my son and I) ended up in the principal’s office, along with the teacher and two counselors. My son ended up getting suspended for two days and there wasn’t any apology from the teacher, even after the teacher admitted to throwing the shoe box.
My point is that no matter how light or heavy the object is that a teacher throws or swings, it can accidentally hit a student. The teacher should be terminated on the spot, because that action shows that the teacher isn’t fit to teach.
If any teacher’s actions out of anger is like what is mentioned above, I have no sympathy if they are terminated. Excessive abuse by a teacher unto a student cannot be tolerated.
Howard Tolbe, ‘Ele‘ele
