‘Greedy for knowledge’
Several hundred years ago, religious authority monopolized public opinion.
Contradictory ideas — science — were banished and their purveyors “re-educated” and frequently tortured. The upside is now down — science rules the roost with its high-risk, high-gain brinkmanship.
The age of miracles is upon us, and the flipside of the coin is the end of life on planet Earth as we know is also a strong possibility.
Nature and nature’s God (Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence) would have it today that spiritually sensitive persons would challenge the totalitarian attitude of science in dealing with our generation’s environmental challenges.
Yes, it looks like and smells like a religious war: respect and love for the ‘aina versus the myopic quest for immediate solutions to the million-year-old arguments concerning the riddles of creation and existence, with a large handful of loose change thrown into the debate.
One is greedy for knowledge; the other is hungry for reverence of life.
Tomas Belsky
Hilo
Tinting problem
The “double standard” of our auto window tinting law (Chris Tamm’s letter, Your Views, June 20) became quite apparent to me a few months ago when the owner of a prominent downtown “safety check only” garage failed to pass my truck. I explained that my tinting was not nearly as dark as the countless vehicles with totally black windows on our roads, and, as a melanoma survivor, I was simply looking for a little extra UV protection.
His response was, “It’s the law. They’re really cracking down on that.” I was angry, so I decided to sit on the wall across the street and watch for a few minutes.
His very next customer was a black SUV that kept the two front windows rolled completely down throughout the inspection, and, after the usual check of lights, horn and windshield wipers, a fresh sticker was placed on the bumper.
When the car left, I crossed the street and asked why he failed to check the tinting. He claimed that he did. When I reminded him that I was watching from the time the vehicle arrived, his response was a ridiculous: “I checked them when she came in earlier in the day.”
I was angry enough to drive up the hill to share this double standard with members of our police department, who assured me they would “look into it.”
Hopefully they did. I was told the law exists to protect police, who have every right to see who is in a vehicle and what they might be holding in their hands. Increased visibility on rainy nights was another reason I was given.
If these reasons are indeed valid, then the law should be enforced and enforced equally.
Doing so could bring our county a small fortune in fines.
Dale Crabtree
Volcano
