Ag lands threatened by anti-GMO laws

The neighbor island county councils are busy passing laws restricting the use of pesticides and development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

What about Hawaii’s long-cherished principle of preservation of agricultural lands?

It doesn’t seem to have dawned on supporters of these new restrictions that they will make it more difficult to preserve these lands for agriculture. For if they are not being farmed, it will beharder to resist pressures to use the lands for residential and commercial development.

The true goal of these anti-GMO advocates was stated candidly by Hawaii Mayor Billy Kenoi. He said in signing a bill restricting planting of genetically modified crops that he wanted to keep "global agribusiness corporations" out of the Big Island and encourage "community-based" farming and ranching.

How will that further the goal of preserving agricultural land? It won’t.

Carl H. Zimmerman
Salt Lake

Pesticides rules aim to protect health

In the article "Maui bill targets pesticides" (Star-Advertiser, Dec. 9), Maui County Farm Bureau Executive Director Warren Watanabe said the bill would put "an additional burden on agriculture by adding more regulations," and "could threaten the viability of farming at a time when the population is growing and more improvements are needed to grow more food."

Unfortunately, Mr. Watanabe missed the point. The bill is designed to keep people healthy by not subjecting them to enormous quantities of health destroying deadly chemicals.

The politicians of Maui, Kauai and Hawaii deserve thanks for caring about the people and not the corporations, like the Oahu politicians do.

Hesh Goldstein
Hawaii Kai

Each person’s ‘light’ persists after death

When beloved individuals die, people often say "a light has gone out."

How sad, adding such finality upon heartbreaking loss.

Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Kamehameha the Great, Queen Emma, Mother Marianne, Father Damien and many others who enhance our life journey: Their legacies continue after any final "living" breath is documented. We’re treated to photos of our beautiful planet from space and we’ll see the many lights of a celebratory New Year’s city, for instance.

Last week, we were shown South Africa. Let’s think of Nelson Mandela as a beautiful light source, from which mini-sparklers have burst forth. Empowered with these Mandela-atoms — or Queen Emma-atoms, etc. — our loved ones’ lives never stop and always have meaning.

Merrie Carol Grain
Lower Manoa

Race-based policy seems anachronistic

It is ironic that while we celebrate Nelson Mandela’s South African legacy of racial comity and the ending of a legal division based on race, wein Hawaii entertain a sovereignty movement that will result in a legal construct that is similarly divisive.

To what end?

Tom Freitas
Hawaii Kai

Sovereignty articles were constructive

The recent op-ed pieces on the quest for Hawaiian sovereignty represented a step forward in a discussion that has lacked substance for decades ("Quest for sovereignty … or not," Star-Advertiser, Insight, Dec. 11).

For the first time, an article in the newspaper addressed questions about what our society would be like with a sovereign Hawaiian entity:What is the impact on state and municipal revenues? Our taxes?How do laws apply differently between Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian citizens of our state? Will gambling be permitted? Do federal tribal laws supersede Hawaii laws?

It is easy to be emotionally pulled by phrases like"fairness to Hawaiians" and "illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy," but what are the consequences of enthroning a sovereign Hawaiian government?

Hawaii citizens have a reasonable expectation to understand how life might be affected with a new government on the scene.

Bob Maynard
Kailua

Nuclear-armed U.S. being hypocritical

What gives the U.S. and other countries that have nuclear weapons the right to say that Iran or any other country can’t have them?

Pakistan, India and Israel, which are all near Iran, have them.

If all countries that possessnuclear weapons dispose of them, then and only then can all the countries of the world demand that no one can have nuclear weapons.

Carl Bergantz
Kaneohe

Shark culling better than doing nothing

A recent "Big Q" question noted that scientists say "shark culling is ineffective."

There is another quaint saying that "punishment is not effective against criminals."

Say what? Any high school graduate knows if you eliminate one, that’s one less.

We need to stop appeasing minority native groups for fear of backlash, or blindly accepting scientific rationale, if we want to preserve tourism.

Lawrence Makishima
Pearl City