• Mahalo to KIUC members, too • Aloha is medicine • GMO seeds create a monopoly • Think before voting • Rock and roll Mahalo to KIUC members, too Regarding “KIUC is Kaua‘i United Way’s largest corporate contributor” article printed
• Mahalo to KIUC members, too • Aloha is medicine • GMO seeds create a monopoly • Think before voting • Rock and roll
Mahalo to KIUC members, too
Regarding “KIUC is Kaua‘i United Way’s largest corporate contributor” article printed April 1: Since they were not mentioned, I would like to also thank all of those 26,000 or so KIUC co-op members for their membership, for if it was not for their membership, this aloha would not have been possible.
Christopher Schaefer
Kapa‘a
Aloha is medicine
The first person you see upon entering your doctor’s office is most likely the receptionist. If the receptionist greets you with a smile and a little aloha as is a practice at my doctors office it can be a counterpart healing to the doctors visit.
Doctors are healers and positive energies are essential to both mental and physical health.
Doctors need to learn a lesson from business and restaurants. Whenever I go to my favorite restaurant I am greeted with a smile, thank you, and yes sir, it makes my visit feel like I am wanted and appreciated. It’s essential that a good business has a good front person, and a doctor’s office of all places is no exception.
If the receptionist gives you bad vibes or is not courteous, let your doctor know, your health-care professionals need to work as a team, and that team needs to begin with aloha!
James “Kimo” Rosen
Kapa‘a
GMO seeds create a monopoly
Since man first started cultivating his own crops, he also saved seeds from one year to the next to replant them.
The hybrid seeds (GMOs) produce a beautiful crop that make the farmers and seed production companies a lot of money.
Their bottom line is making a profit to stay in business. Farming is a very competitive occupation.
But if you try to plant the seeds that are produced by those hybrid plants, they will either sprout and make a nice plant (but never flower), sprout and then stunt, or produce a fruit that is small, mis-shaped and unsellable.
That means that man cannot use the seeds that they themselves collect and must go to big companies and rely on their seeds.
When farmers use saved seeds that are given to them by seed companies, those seeds get old and are less likely to germinate. So, the following season, they have less of a crop and must go to the big companies to buy seeds.
So, by giving people seeds for free to try out, the seed companies are acting like drug dealers to get people hooked on GMOs.
Now, do you see a problem with that?
As the seed stock from people saving their own seeds start to dwindle, the big companies get more control over the market and in the end, people will have no alternative.
I farmed for 10 years, I planted the saved seeds and most of them don’t work.
Jack Custer
Kalaheo
Think before voting
President Barack Obama’s budget proposal includes unnecessary cuts to Social Security through the implementation of chained CPI and means testing for Medicare/Medicaid.
Social Security has not contributed one cent to the current budget deficit. These proposals are further transfers of wealth from the rest of us to the 1 percent banksters.
None of our representatives have signed the Progressive Caucus’s pledge to not support these theft of our money.
It is time to start thinking of support for an alternate Democratic candidate for each of these offices. It is time to start gearing up for the primaries next year.
John Zwiebel
Kalaheo
Rock and roll
I specifically follow the words of Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr., from his press conference he had while ago, published on The Garden Island.
People in general have a short attention span.
His words when closing his speech were, “Let’s rock and roll.”
How can the elderly rock and roll when they are so busy planting their vegetable garden as the prices at our Sunshine Market have risen to the point only the tourist can afford it?
I go there almost every week and talk to people who, like me, remembered when it started in Koloa years ago.
Each buyer is shocked from the price, it is almost cheaper to shop at Costco. Again the price of gas doesn’t allow us to do so.
We have the higher price on gas and taxed on it than any other state. Any way, I have said my piece.
It is a pity that many families have to work three jobs in order to put food on the table and not depend on welfare.
Leonie Dabancour
Kapa‘a
