I am an O-positive blood donor who was sequestered per the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000 because of my service in Germany in 1986 and mad cow disease in the United Kingdom.

The FDA lifted the sequester in 2020, yet the Blood Bank of Hawaii has refused to revalidate hundreds of military and retired military donors in the midst of a blood shortage, in spite of the Legislature’s proclamation urging it to do so.

I think it is time to get rid of the the Blood Bank’s monopoly and let the Red Cross manage our blood supply. BBH is doing no one who needs blood in Hawaii any favors.

James Amos

Mililani

We can work together for a nonviolent society

America has been a gun-killing society from the beginning of colonization with the so-called American Indian wars. But it can change for the better. Slavery was abolished. Human rights advanced.

Australia significantly reduced mass shootings. Canada is implementing policies to reduce gun violence.

Nonkilling societies exist and prosper, like contemporary Japan for the most part.

It takes reason, common sense, morality, political will, resolve and resources to reduce shootings. Congressional Republicans could collaborate, instead of obstructing and thereby facilitating killing.

Religious and civic leaders, gun owners and even the National Rifle Association could lead.

Nonviolent conflict resolution can be learned.

Public spaces like schools, churches and hospitals could be safe again, as they generally are in most countries.

The No. 1 cause of childhood deaths in the U.S. does not have to be gun violence. Children’s lives matter, too.

Leslie E. Sponsel

Hawaii Kai

Democrats not to blame for inflation, gas prices

Republicans blame Democrats for inflation and crime (“Democrats in charge, to blame for troubles,” Star- Advertiser, Letters, June 20). But inflation is the result of pandemic supply- chain issues and reduced gas supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And much of the crime in America is the result of Republican policies guaranteeing easy access to guns.

None of this can justly be blamed on Democrats. Moreover, states dominated by Republicans have passed laws allowing state officials to overturn election results and name candidates they prefer as “winners.” A Republican sweep in Hawaii could pose the same danger. After all, there is no bigger crime than the concerted attack on American democracy now underway by the Republican Party.

Wray Jose

Manoa

Bureaucrats ignore public on Haiku Stairs

Once again we have the downtown Honolulu bureaucracy overriding the desires of a local community, despite two unanimous neighborhood board resolutions, overwhelming testimony at both the Board of Water Supply and City Council, and an independent survey finding significant support in saving and managing access to Haiku Stairs.

It’s this same bureaucratic quagmire that created the trespassing nightmare to the Haiku residents in the first place. Unwilling to allow any local or innovative solutions to manage access to the stairs, officials simply shut down the normal access road and trail to the stairs that was functional for more than 60 years, and created the spillover effect of trespassers into the neighborhood.

Open up the stairs. Let local, private and community stakeholders manage the stairs. They’ll have a more vested interest in its success and benefit to the community than the downtown bureaucrats could ever imagine.

Adriel Lam

Kaneohe

Columnist ignored years of anti-abortion violence

Kathleen Parker cleverly told less than half the story of violence surrounding the abortion debates (“A wave of pro-choice violence as the court prepares to rule,” Star-Advertiser, June 19).

She omitted the 50 years of extremist violence that murdered clinic workers and doctors, and powered Eric Rudolph’s bombings. The anti-abortion movement torched countless clinics, which also provided counseling and comprehensive treatment for pregnant women.

The issue is not whether the fetus is a person: It has never been considered a person in Anglo-American law. The issue is who should control the bodies of women and whether or not total pregnancy care should be decided by doctors or lawyers. If women cannot be the sole deciders about their pregnancies and reproductive treatment, they will never be free and equal human beings.

If and when six Catholic justices decide against a woman’s right to choose, we will all be ruled by the Catholic church hierarchy of celibate, male, absolutist priests. The separation of church and state will be a dead letter.

Jean E. Rosenfeld

Downtown Honolulu

Inclusive, inviting true meaning of ‘catholic’

Sunday’s paper showed Catholics protesting at (what looked like fun) a drag queen telling stories to children (“Drag queens weather attacks to read to kids,” Star-Advertiser, June 19).

In my early years as a Roman Catholic in the 1960s and 1970s, I protested wars and racism. Many years later, I wonder if these Roman “Catholics” understand the meaning of the word “catholic.”

According to the dictionary, it means “including a wide variety of things, or all-embracing; universal or of general interest; having broad interests or wide sympathies; inclusive, inviting.”

This “rosary protest” appeared to be anything but catholic. I am ashamed of what is happening in the name of my childhood religion.

Barbara Mullen

Waimanalo

Better ways to celebrate demise of Black slavery

Just a question from an old haole man: Why not celebrate the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation or the passage of the Civil Rights Act instead of a day that celebrates the so-called freedom of slaves in Texas who weren’t told of their freedom for two years?

I say so-called freedom because a new servitude was imposed on Black people in the form of Jim Crow and the Reconstruction period. Slavery just took on a new form. And just why don’t we have a national holiday that celebrates in a big way our Native American heritage?

OK, this old haole man had two questions.

Roman Leverenz

Aliamanu

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