Attacks on Horner were mean-spirited

Congratulations to the Senate Education Committee for seeing through the skewed agendas of witnesses and accepting the well-deserved re-nomination of Don Horner as chairman of the state Board of Education.

While it is certainly acceptable for witnesses to provide relevant testimony for or against a nominee, it is absolutely wrong, and in my opinion criminal, to cast false aspersions upon a nominee with no substantiated evidence.Mere speculation of a person’s character or actions based on their faith is intolerant, mean-spirited and bigoted.

Horner has done nothing to indicate he would do anything but treat all children equally, and, as a candidate for national office, Kathryn Xian’s suggestion to the contrary without justification speaks of her unsuitability to represent the state of Hawaii in Congress.

Tolerance should be extended and protected in all circumstances and to all individuals, not just when it meets a specific agenda.

James Roller
Mililani

Governor not one to talk about age

A recent Los Angeles Times interview states: "Abercrombie chose Schatz in part, he said, because of his youth. He is 41 and Hanabusa is 62, and that gives him the potential to serve longer in the Senate and accrue more power" ("Abercrombie casts doubt on Inouye’s ‘dying wish,’" Star-Advertiser, April 14).

Does Gov. Neil Abercrombie apply this to himself? The average age of Hawaii’s elected governors when sworn in is 46. If re-elected, Abercrombie will be 80 when he completes his second term. Previously the oldest, John Burns, left office at 65.

I’ve interviewed every elected governor, including Abercrombie. In August 2008 he told me that he would finish his term in the U.S. House. One year later he announced his candidacy for governor.

My first broadcast with Abercrombie was in 1976. His flamboyant gimmick was a yellow Checker Taxi with his name and face painted on it.

Abercrombie moves around like his cab. Conflicting positions on political maturity reflect an inconsistent patternunacceptable at any age.

Ron Jacobs
Pearl City

Isle GOP platform driving folks away

The Hawaii Republican Party should abolish its platform committee.

The platform is something that people fight over. It causes anger and bad feelings. And several days after adoption, few know what is in it. The platform causes harm and does little good. Not many people are running to join the Republican Party because of the party platform.

Without a platform, people would still know the basics of Republican thinking: more freedom, lower taxes, less regulation, and more transparency in government. The people should control the government, not vice versa. Democrats, not so much.

Platforms of candidates for office are more important and valuable. Candidates may do their own thinking and respond to constituents.

We should watch closely the platforms of candidates.

Mark Terry
Wahiawa

Classification of pot doesn’t make sense

A sane or moral argument to continue cannabis prohibition doesn’t exist.

Another important reason to end cannabis prohibition that doesn’t get mentioned is because prohibition increases hard drug addiction rates. It puts citizens who choose to use the relatively safe plant into contact with people who often also sell hard drugs.

Further, the government claims that heroin is no worse than cannabis, and methamphetamine and cocaine are less harmful, by insisting that cannabis is a Schedule I substance along with heroin, while methamphetamine and cocaine are only Schedule II substances.

How many citizens have tried cannabis and realized it is not nearly as dangerous as claimed and believed other substances must not be either, only to find themselves addicted to hard drugs? Can the message from cannabis prohibitionists be any worse for vulnerable citizens?

Stan White
Dillon, Colo.

Many bear role in child’s death

Regarding the heinous torture and murder of 5-year-old Talia Williams in 2005 by her father and stepmother:

Where were those who should have suspected abuse and alerted the authorities? What about friends and co-workers? How could a neighbor who heard this child’s screams choose to leave her own home with her children, to escape the sounds of a child being beaten?

As a mother and grandmother and registered nurse for 35 years, I cannot comprehend that a physician who treated Talia did not suspect abuse. Five-year-olds can talk!

These two evil individuals need to spend the rest of their lives locked away. And to those individuals who chose to ignore the screams and did nothing, you not only failed to protect an innocent child, you have failed as members of the human race.

Sheila Kini
Kaneohe

Waikiki steadily being degraded

My wife and I spend winters in Waikiki, witnessing the area’s steady degradation.

The homeless situation must be viewed from the federal perspective: How can Hawaii taxpayers be expected to house the homeless coming in from offshore? They’ll just keep coming. Why build expensive housing in Chicago or Duluth when a one-way airplane ticket to Honolulu solves the problem?

Speaking of degradation, but on a different note, perhaps we’re old-fashioned, and we agree tastes vary significantly, but we constantly cringe at shirtless men in elevators, hotel lobbies and in the streets. Plus, doesn’t the human body have a "best-before date" regarding bikinis and Speedos?

Murray Leslie
Vancouver, Canada