Ugly lot
Is the new lot at Gilbert Carvalho Park the ugliest parking lot you’ve ever seen, or what? Maybe a few small trees or shrubs would help hide those hideous cement blocks.
Michael Engstrom
Hilo
Safer rice
“Too much arsenic in rice,” says the Food and Drug Administration in Thursday’s paper (Sept. 20, Tribune-Herald). The article discusses two kinds of arsenic — naturally occurring arsenic, which is not dangerous, and the “inorganic” arsenic, highly poisonous, that comes from pesticides and insecticides.
An official from the FDA advises us to use a wide variety of grains to avoid ingesting too much arsenic. The FDA, headed by former officers of pesticide manufacturer Monsanto, does not mention the obvious alternative method of avoiding pesticide residues, which is to choose organically grown rice.
Curious, isn’t it, that the simple, effective option of avoiding poisons is not mentioned?
What we now call “organic food” is what our grandparents called “food.”
Russell Ruderman
Keaau
Support the artists
There’s been a lot of protests lately about the new Makali‘i sculpture at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Most people know about it by now.
I heard that UH recently banned music teachers from teaching private lessons on campus. I also heard that this ban has hurt the teachers so badly that some of them decided to quit teaching and move to the mainland, because they can’t afford to teach here anymore.
I would presume that the college made this decision to save money, which I can understand — except that they dedicated this new $700,000 “art piece” only a month later.
Forgive me, but it sounds an awful lot like they care more about art pieces than artists. We don’t need or want more bling-bling! What we want is for art to stay alive in Hawaii; $700,000 could have done a lot to help make new artists.
Learning to be an artist is worth more to me than any art piece.
If I have the facts wrong about what happened to the music teachers, please, I want to know. I don’t want to blame anyone unjustly. But all I know is what I’ve seen happening, and what I’ve seen hasn’t been good. Feedback would be welcomed.
A. Doi
Hilo
Hirono over Lingle
I loathe to vote along party lines, but in this case, I have to. While I recognize that Linda Lingle is the better candidate (for the U.S. Senate), I know that if she gets elected she will have to toe the party line, otherwise she won’t be able to accomplish anything.
Out in the U.S. Senate, it’s either be a team player with whatever the party wants to do, or get out. That’s why Republican moderate Olympia Snow had to quit.
I also recall a photograph, one of Lingle campaigning with George W. Bush in 2004. She’s intelligent and principled, yet she went along party lines back then by helping to re-elect a president whom she knew was bad for the country.
So that’s what it comes down to for Republican politicians: Put the party first before the country’s welfare.
No way! I’m voting for Maize Hirono. Mediocrity is better than electing someone who will become another rock weighing Obama down.
Grigor Fedan
Ninole
Lingle’s coqui battle
Mr. R. Arikawa wrote on Sept. 20 that he could not remember correctly, but thought that Gov. Linda Lingle did not respond to Mayor Harry Kim’s request for money to fight the coqui (Tribune-Herald, Your Views).
In the spring of 2006, Gov. Lingle not only came to the island to meet with the various groups that were attempting to find solutions to the coqui problem, but she released $1 million to help in the fight.
Other potential money was stopped by various other sources. Perhaps, you are confusing that?
C. Wellon
Laupahoehoe
