Publicity of theft helped nonprofit

Mahalo for featuring Hawaii’s Plantation Village in the newspaper ("Welcome the dragon," Star-Advertiser, Kalakoa!, Feb. 4).

We who volunteer were gratified by the public response to our Chinese New Year of the Dragon event. This year, we had a major break-in and thieves stole our expensive lawn and garden care tools. The Star-Advertiser helped us overcome that loss. Hawaii’s Plantation Village needs support and cooperation from the government, media and general public. The Village is a nonprofit, state-grant organization that will be undergoing a major roof repair this year. We will continue to provide tours and other event services during this transition.

Anyone who has children should come to the Village so Hawaii’s heritage and history can be passed to our new generation.

John and Rita Shockley
Kapolei

Science teachers must stick to facts

Monday’s Hawaii science standards article was right on target ("‘Errors’ mar school science criteria," Star-Advertiser, Feb. 6).

The discussion of ignorance in physics was striking since my daughter attends Kapolei High School. She recently claimed that "bugs explode before impacting car windshields" because her science teacher presented this as a factual example of Bernoulli’s Principle (fluid pressure will drop as its velocity increases).

She was excited to tell me because of my degree in aeronautical engineering.

I listened intently before breaking the news that this theory applies to moving cars, but it’s impossible for the teacher’s claim to be true due to minimal relative air velocity increases (pressure drops) over a car.

Science teachers must stick to the facts as presented in science textbooks. How can we expect our youth to be successful in science and technology if they present falsehoods as facts?

Drew Peters
Kapolei

Electorate needs to be sure to vote

Here we go again — it’s an election year!

With the Republican Party candidates for president stirring up the waters of international and national issues, this should be the year where the electorate gets interested enough to vote. Not as in previous election years, but go all out and get close to that 100 percent mark for participation.

Go to the polling stations or vote absentee, but vote!

Remember, our primary election has been changed, to Aug. 11. The general election will be on Nov. 6.

Vote!

Roy E. Shigemura
Honolulu

Don’t waste time on idiotic bills

Here we ago again, another useless bill our state legislators are trying to pass — allowing dogs into restaurants.

Don’t legislators have enough on their plates before wasting valuable time and money deciding on whether to allow such a ridiculous bill to pass?

I love dogs, but our leaders need to focus on solving our current problems. Please stop wasting valuable time introducing stupid bills and making our state the laughingstock of the nation.

Matt Hee
Kakaako

Rail is diversion from real needs

If rail is so good for jobs, what jobs will be there afterward? Another rail? And then … another rail?

This is a Band-Aid solution. Why not fix the roads, sewers, public housing, etc., needed now — and above all do the maintenance. That is plenty of jobs.

We are going into debt and our basic needs are not being taken care of. Can we afford the maintenance of rail as it is? Will we get a lot of jobseekers from elsewhere to compete with the locals, and thus increasing housing needs, traffic and all the other burdens we cannot fix even now?

Renee Coester
Pearl City