• Whales on display • I am Stephen Shioi, and I wrote this message • This is not about Stephen Shioi • Firefighters rescue cat • Congress bans its members from breaking the law? Whales on display This annual visitor
• Whales on display • I am Stephen
Shioi, and I wrote this message • This is not
about Stephen Shioi • Firefighters rescue cat
• Congress bans its members from breaking the
law?
Whales on display
This annual visitor is extremely grateful to the volunteers who religiously serve the public by counting the whales at the same time every year. After watching with delight the steady activity out there on the North Shore, I am wondering if the whales know they are on display.
Sandra J. Abrajano, Chicago, Ill.
I am Stephen Shioi, and
I wrote this message
Hah! I just read James “Kimo” Rosen’s reply to my “Who is Kimo Rosen?” Letter to the Editor of Feb. 3. I’m shocked! Unbelievable! How can this possibly be? I actually agreed with something he said. It must be true because I pinched myself just now and it hurt.
Kimo wrote that he “wakes up every day glad not to see his own name in the obituaries.” Sheesh, me too. Oh, wait, let me see. Ouch! Yup, pinched myself again. I’m awake.
Stephen Shioi, Kapa‘a
This is not about
Stephen Shioi
The Hawai‘i State Senate has its hands filled, most recently with proposed Senate Bill 3032, which would allow dogs in restaurants at the restaurant owners’ or managers’ discretion, if certain conditions are met.
On the Big Island, there is also a hospital under construction exclusively for monk seals.
Just imagine, if Senate Bill 3032 passes and dogs are allowed in restaurants, and let’s say a dog chokes on a chicken bone and needs to be rushed to the hospital and all dog hospitals are filled to capacity. Do you think the monk seals will allow for a dog in their new facility?
These are tough questions that the Hawai‘i State Senate faces during these rough recessed times, or should I say “ruff ruff” times. I must admit these men and women in the Senate sure have their hands filled.
May I suggest separate sections in restaurants — one section for dogs, one section for monk seals and, space permitting, one section for Homo-sapiens (that’s us).
On a serious note, this is an election year and remember to “re-elect nobody, unless they’re a somebody.” The only path to true change is to get most incumbents out.
James “Kimo” Rosen, Kapa‘a
Firefighters rescue cat
I want to give a big mahalo to the Kalaheo Fire Department, which came and helped me rescue my cat, Ginger, who was trapped in the storm drain where we live in Lawa‘i Valley Estates on Feb. 4.
I was so upset and scared, and they were so wonderful. They were not going to give up until we had him back safely. They had to open two big heavy grates.
My heart goes out to these wonderful firemen who help us in so many ways. We are blessed to have you here on Kaua‘i, my angels. I can’t thank you enough.
Rev. Christine Kube
Kalaheo
Congress bans its members from
breaking the law?
In an article published in The Garden Island Feb. 3, we read that Congress passed a law that would make it illegal for its members to break the law banning insider trading in the stock market. What’s wrong with this picture?
Capitalism and democracy rank high among the many great achievements of human civilization.
Capitalism has been defined as a free-market economic system based on the privately owned means of production and distribution of essential goods and services, a system characterized by a free competitive market and a financial profit for the owner.
Democracy has been defined as the free and equal right of every person to participate in a system of government, often practiced by electing representatives of the people by the majority of the people.
It is often assumed that a free-market system is self-regulating and self-correcting. Our current economic fiasco disproves that assumption.
It also has been assumed that a governing democracy can and must solve the social and economic problems created by a free-market system. It is clear, however, that our government (democrats and republicans alike) has been unable to solve such problems, and in fact has contributed to the exaggeration of them, only one example of which is insider trading.
Perhaps the fault lies neither in capitalism nor in democracy but in a distortion of the essence of capitalism, a distortion sanctioned by our financially-controlled democracy.
An efficient and effective, democracy-supported capitalism would obey, in order, the following steps:
— Investment in research to come up with a “better idea.”
— Development of that idea into better products and services.
— Production and delivery of those products and services.
— Benefit of an improved life-style for the consumer.
— Financial profit for the owner.
Financial profit needs to be the “bottom line,” but has become the “top line”; it is only a by-product, not the primary goal, and only one measure of the effectiveness of healthy capitalistic and democratic systems. Major problems are created when this sequence is reversed, placing financial profit as the top priority.
In systems like our current financially controlled government and profit-obsessed financial industry, in which investment is concentrated on generating a financial profit for the owners and their political supporters, the consumer does not benefit, essential products and services deteriorate, distribution falters, research and development is diverted to the creating and marketing of non-essentials, all of it resulting in a failed economy and a flawed government.
Thanks to the Tea Party, the Occupy movements and a growing restlessness among the not-so-silent majority, there is at least a small glimmer of hope that the health and legitimacy of capitalism and democracy can be restored.
Robert P. Merkle, Koloa
