• Let’s celebrate our differences • Century 21 still in business • Buy local food • Protect fish species’ reproductive potential • Shame the vandals Let’s celebrate our differences I am a freshman at Kaua‘i High. Earlier this school year
• Let’s celebrate our differences
• Century 21 still in business
• Buy local food
• Protect fish species’ reproductive potential
• Shame the vandals
Let’s celebrate our differences
I am a freshman at Kaua‘i High. Earlier this school year my social studies class was given a question, “Do you feel local?” and this is what I wrote:
I feel that I am a local. Many people would not agree with me but I’m taking the literal meaning of local. Many people believe local is a lifestyle and way about going about one’s personal business.
I have lived on Kaua‘i since I was 5 years old. I know my way around this island and think that I generally fit in with the people that were born and raised on this island.
Yes, I do not have a super tan with sun-bleached hair or a pidgin accent but I call this place my home and have called it that since I started 1st grade.
I think being white really affects how you’re treated here, especially growing up. In elementary school I felt a little segregated because I came from California and because I am pure “haole.”
I didn’t feel so bad though because I knew that it was all a joke and that nothing is really different between them and me. People are people and everyone should be respected regardless of their culture, race, gender or physical appearances.
Sometimes not having the lifestyle or looks or just the same thought pattern that this “local” stereotype has gets you excluded from some things but I think that happens to everyone if they don’t stay within their own culture.
In the end, everybody should just celebrate their differences. In the words of the Beatles, “In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make” and people should keep that with them and treat each other in that fashion.
Justus Bieber, Kapa‘a
Century 21 still in business
In the Feb. 16 letter “Landlords should give businesses a break,” James Rosen makes a good point.
However, he states that Century 21 All Islands, which had a large (and expensive) leased office in the Safeway Kapa‘a complex is closed and the implication is Century 21 All Islands is out of business in the Kapa‘a market. This is incorrect.
The rent there was very high and in this slower real estate market, we right-sized by moving to a smaller office in suite #202 in the East Kaua‘i Professional Building. We are very much in business at this new Kapa‘a office and also in our vigorous Princeville Shopping Center office.
Donna Rice, Broker In Charge, Kaua‘i
Buy local food
Glenn Hontz makes clear the value of our achieving food sustainability on Kaua‘i. How do we get there?
I think we should commit to producing as much food as we can for our school lunch programs. We can insist that our public funds spent on food be spent on local food products. Demand creates supply.
We could reward the best students by letting them spend class time at the farms.
After the school lunch supply is working, it could be expanded to include our hospitals, food stamps and Meals On Wheels. We could even make it a requirement for permits for new hotel food service.
Steve Perry, Hanama‘ulu
Protect fish species’ reproductive potential
Thanks to Don Heacock for pointing out that taking small fish could cut into that species’ reproductive output (“Fishermen weigh in on marine rules,” The Garden Island, Feb. 3).
While the point would seem just common sense, it actually has not been a major emphasis in marine fisheries management for some 50 years now (since publication of a certain classic on fishery theory). This is now changing.
The emphasis has been on maximizing catch instead. Size limits were increased more to increase catch poundage than to protect reproduction — the idea being to allow fish to grow bigger before being caught.
But protecting reproduction is not simply a matter of increasing the minimum size allowed. Most small fish are destined to die from natural mortality anyway and their protection often just shifts fishing pressure onto the adults that are reproductively most valuable.
Fishing pressure on large fish must be reduced too, such as by restricting fishing to certain days or months only.
It is worth noting that the concept of protecting a fish species’ reproductive potential was well understood by pre-contact Hawaiians.
Dave Au, San Diego, Calif.
Shame the vandals
The vandals of Isenberg Park are the poster boys (assuming they are boys) of a dysfunction in a society.
Born and raised on the streets of East Los Angeles, I have had to deal with this dysfunction from the atmosphere most of my early years. So I will give no lectures but provide an answer that truly works.
Since these idiots put their “tag,” most people in the community know who they are. When they are discovered, not only is the county to hold their parents financially responsible but both the vandals and their parents must repaint the destroyed property.
If this works in East L.A., the graffiti capital of the world, then it will work here.
The key element in this type of punishment is “shame.” Someone who tags is seeking attention; shame is the deterrent they will never forget.
I hope lawmakers are listening because this type of behavior usually spreads very quickly.
Eduardo Valenciana, Lihu‘e
