Te‘o blitzed by media
Wow! Football star Manti Te‘o had a fake Internet girlfriend! I don’t think I can sleep at night knowing this! Think about how ginormous news like this affects our tiny little lives so much! I don’t think I can watch him play football anymore! NFL scouts must be super worried! Why couldn’t he have been caught with drugs, steroids, assault or cruelty to dogs, instead?
Oh, wait a minute — that was my inner child talking. Jeez. In reality, this “news” is really an indictment of American society and pop culture. What business is it of ours if he got fooled by somebody? It is arrogance that we demand answers and almost an apology from the victim for a cruel prank gone way too far.
Ask yourself, who was hurt in this affair? Only Te‘o and his family. So why victimize him further? Did the media blitz help or simply humiliate our hometown hero further?
The reality is that thousands of people across America are fooled on the Internet. The only difference is that Te‘o is famous. What man has not done something foolish for what he thinks is love (my wife does it to me all the time!)?
Te‘o has learned both the awesome perks of fame and now the cruel cost. Some of those that hail him as a hero are rabidly eager to find fault in him — even in the land of aloha. We make ourselves small by making this story big.
Someday, he will look back on it and laugh, because he will know that the real things in life are his family’s love and God’s grace — not the opinion of a fickle public.
Leighton Loo
Honolulu
But cops do it …
Cellphone citations may be up on the Big Island (Tribune-Herald, Jan. 20), but cops are still the biggest hypocrites when it comes to cellphone use! I’ve seen any number of them texting while driving and talking on their cellphones in situations that are illegal for the common user.
Until the hypocrisy is addressed, the use of cellphones will always be high. Let’s change the law to be more inclusive.
Sean Hannah
Pahoa
Bags vs. guns
Let’s see now … do I have this right?
Plastic bags are banned; assault weapons are OK?
Gene Barber
Hilo
Why we need guns
In response to Pradeepta Chowdhury’s letter of Jan. 19: True, we are living in a different time than when the Bill of Rights was written. That does not change the intent of the Second Amendment, which was not to ensure citizens could fill their table.
The intent of the Second Amendment was, and still is, that free people could not be subjugated by an oppressive government due to sheer superior firepower.
The hardware is different, unfortunately, but the intent remains the same. A musket in 1776 is the equivalent of a fully automatic assault rifle today.
A free people must be able defend themselves from enemies, both foreign and domestic. If only the “military, law enforcement detail and security detail” are legally allowed to possess such weapons, then we are at the mercy of criminals who will obtain them anyway, and the political “elite,” who direct the “legal” bearer’s actions.
I think free people deserve equal footing with both.
Jeff Lux
Keaau
