To be very blunt, the idea of basing highway revenues on miles driven is stupid (“Charging by mile, not by fuel,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 16).

It’s obvious that our roads need to be better maintained. To have good roads we need to spend money, which can only come from some sort of tax.

The current method of taxing gasoline is probably the best method for raising this revenue.

If we have to increase the amount of tax per gallon, so be it. With the diminishing cost of oil we already spend less for gas than previously.

The proposed formula of paying based on number of miles driven totally destroys the incentive to drive fuel-efficient cars.

The driver with the 40-miles-per-gallon car would pay the same amount of tax as the gas-eating 10-mile-per-gallon monster for driving the same 100 miles.

This is the exact opposite of what we want to encourage for the sake of our environment.

Bob Karman

Hawaii Kai

Obama does what he wants

Will we really miss President Barack Obama’s outrageous intrusions into our daily lives?

Most other presidents went out of their way to avoid the inconvenience placed upon ordinary citizens by their massive presence. Vacationing at Camp David is a good example.

But not Barry, who does whatever his whim dictates, whatever the inconvenience, expense and loss of individual liberty. We surely will not miss any of that.

Michael G. Palcic

St. Louis Heights

GMO corn seed is not benign

Advocating for the GMO seed industry, Bennette Misalucha is the executive director of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, which is composed of GMO seed companies (“Seed industry helps Hawaii agriculture, and economy, to grow,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Sept. 22).

Her argument recalls the strategy used by the tobacco industry decades ago, emphasizing economic impacts while ignoring health consequences.

GMO corn seed represents most seeds shipped out of Hawaii. One type of GMO corn produces its own insecticide because genetic material from a particular bacterium has been spliced into the corn genome. That bacterium was selected because it produces a toxin that kills an insect that commonly feeds on corn, and that property is in every cell of the GMO corn.

It was once thought that the GMO corn was safe because the toxin would be destroyed in the human digestive tract.

However, the toxin has recently been found in human blood, and research has linked it to illnesses and diseases.

John Kawamoto

Kaimuki

We need a new national anthem

Perhaps we Americans can help settle the turmoil in our domestic midst by changing the national anthem.

There are shameful racial slurs that never met the needs of America and today are intolerably offensive, and no more necessary than collectors of horse droppings on city streets so needed in 1812 when the lyrics of today’s anthem were penned.

I recommend an excellent new anthem: “The House I Live In,” as sung by Paul Robeson or Frank Sinatra. There are six inspiring stanzas that answer the refrain, “What is America to me?”

My favorite:

The house I live in, my neighbors white and black,

The people who just came here, or from generations back,

The Town Hall and the soap box, the torch of Liberty,

A place to speak my mind out, that’s America to me.

The song can be heard at laborarts.org/exhibits/paulrobeson/ thehouseilivein.cfm

Tomas Belsky

Hilo

Filled with aloha for Island Air

Mahalo for staying positive about Island Air (“Island Air optimistic after $5.1 million loss,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 21).

I flew round-trip the other day and the plane was full in both directions, and there was a lot of extra aloha to go around. I really think they’ll hang in there for the long run.

Bob Gillchrest

Pawaa

Seniors should work longer

Previously, Social Security was pegged to age 65 because many people were dead by then. Today, 100 seems to be the new 65.

So, sitting around for 35 years is awfully long. We need to hire our senior citizens and/or keep them on their jobs longer as long as they can function.

Milton Tashima

Chinatown