Insatiable rail project heading for fiscal ruin

“Tax not expected to fill $3.5B gap” (Star-Advertiser, Oct. 15): Oh, really?

Nothing will ever fill the rail transit project’s insatiable appetite. Feeding the monster will not keep it from financial ruin.

The headline almost made me scream out loud. This is news? This disaster has been going on for too long and too many businesses and decision-makers are making dirty money off Hawaii’s taxpayers.

Enough. Stop.

We cannot take it anymore.

House the homeless, feed the hungry. Malama our island home and our people.

Mary J. Culvyhouse

Kaneohe

Small businesses are the great equalizer

Congress is having difficulty passing the Build Back Better plan. That is as it should be. Huge omnibus bills are problematic. They are difficult to read, comprehend, vet, troubleshoot and explain.

To do something about income inequality and employment discrimination, we should focus on giving small business a fighting chance against big business.

Entrepreneurship is the key to social mobility for women, minorities, LGBTQ and immigrants. It always has been, given the penchant for protectionism in human society.

Not handouts, not affirmative action, but a level playing field.

Lloyd Lim

Makiki

No comparison between pro-choice, vaccination

The suggestion from a reader that there is a comparison between reproductive rights and COVID-19 vaccinations is preposterous (“Shouldn’t pro-choice include vaccinations?,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 14).

The letter leaves me wondering whatever happened to common sense, too. A pregnant woman cannot spread her pregnancy to anyone and has the right to determine whether she is ready, willing and able to bring a child into the world. But an unvaccinated person can, indeed, infect many other people with a potentially deadly virus.

An unvaccinated employee can negatively affect other employees, clients and companies. A pregnant woman, probably not.

You have a choice when your decision only affects you and what you do with your body. You should not have a choice to endanger the health of everyone around you. No comparison!

Carol Kimball

Aiea

You don’t have right to put others at risk

A woman’s decision to terminate (or continue) a pregnancy is private and doesn’t affect the health and well-being of anyone else (“Shouldn’t pro-choice include vaccinations?,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 14). Deciding not to get vaccinated can affect not only an individual’s heath but, more importantly, the community’s health and the health care system’s ability to cope.

You have the right to not get the COVID-19 vaccine. But decisions have consequences, in life and in employment.

You have the right to get drunk. But you don’t have the right to then get in a car and potentially harm others. You have the right to be a nudist or not bathe. But either of those decisions could affect your ability to be employed.

If, against consensus scientific advice, you decide not to get vaccinated, please be careful and protect yourself and others. And if you do get sick with COVID-19, stay at home and take care of yourself. Don’t burden the medical system with your poor choices.

You talked the talk. It’s time you walked the walk.

Alan Tanaka

Aina Haina

Headline used to show fake anti-mask ‘proof’

I am deeply disappointed in your newspaper and the false headline you ran about the flu being more deadly than COVID-19 (“Flu proves deadlier than COVID,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 11).

I was visiting the North Shore with friends and a man there felt emboldened to give us a hard time because we were wearing masks. He even held up your headline to show us his “proof.”

Dore Jean Heverly

Nuuanu

Baby aspirin helps couple against cancer

Reading about reasons not to take baby aspirin to prevent heart disease and stroke leads me to share that my husband and I will continue taking baby aspirin every day because we are cancer survivors.

MD Anderson Cancer Center doctors have told us that their research shows cancer to be an inflammatory process and baby aspirin is an anti-inflammatory. My husband gets bruises from taking daily baby aspirin but the doctor’s response was: bruising or cancer?

Bambi D’Olier

Niu Valley

Government shouldn’t bail out homeowners

Most North Shore residents accepted the risk of losing a home because of large surf or a tidal wave. It was our choice; we loved to surf, and houses were a lot cheaper. Having the government bail us out wasn’t even a thought (“Expired ‘burrito’ sandbags litter beaches on Oahu’s North Shore,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 10).

Times have changed: We bailed out local families on the Big Island who gambled and built on an active volcano area, and gave developers linked to our former president, Barack Obama, a pass to fortify their seawall (“Oceanfront property tied to Obama granted exemption from Hawaii’s environmental laws,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 18, 2020).

Why is the current group of North Shore residents treated differently?

Our former president could have practiced what he preached by getting the seawall removed, thus setting an example of how we should deal with climate change and sea level rise.

Kevin Mulkern

Kuliouou

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