Texting law not being enforced

Will the Honolulu Police Department’s four-year, 16.8 percent pay raise include the actual enforcement of the ban on cell- phone use while driving?

It can’t be that hard. Everywhere you look, folks are texting/talking while driving their cars.

HPD needs to step it up. It can be tough, dangerous work and the police warrant a raise, but the citizens they serve deserve to have the laws enforced.

Pat Kelly
Kaimuki

Look beyond party labels

Someone needs to speak on behalf of theIndependents and those who don’t identify primarily with eitherpolitical party ("Party positions lost in nonpartisan vote," Star-Advertiser, Letters, July 9).

While party affiliation might provide some indication of the candidates’ position on some issues, I always look a lot deeper. It’s important toresearch their stances on the particular community and nationalconcerns that I personally care about.

Discussions with familymembers, friends and others in the community help clarify whichcandidate I’ll support.

In other words, I always vote for the person; their philosophy aboutgovernment, their position on social justice issues and what I candiscern about their personal character and values. I never vote basedon their party membership.

John Heidel
Kailua

Wind turbines can be beautiful

The wind turbines marching along a Maui ridge make a lovely photo.

As art, it recalls artist Christo’s wonderful "Running Fence" installation near San Francisco, gulp, 40 years ago. Many people didn’t like it, said it looked like miles and miles of sheets hung out to dry.

Maui’s turbines look like giant otherworldly wings, beating in the imminent future.

Beverly Kai
Kakaako

GMO labeling slowly coming

Hector Valenzuela’s commentary mentions the "silver lining" in the fight to get corporate genetically modified crops labeled — more people know about the risks of GMO crops ("Controversy about GM crops has silver lining," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, July 3).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has responded to the public’s increasing concern by allowing the labeling of meat from animals fed a diet free of gene-modified products.

The reported that the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service allows companies to demonstrate on their labels that they meet third-party certifying organiza- tion’s standards.It is a small but significant step on the road to labeling.

As people gain awareness of their own risky direct ingestion of GMO products they have to also be aware, if they eat meat, that animals are fed GMOs.

Support of this new labeling can broaden support for further disclosure of GMO ingredients.

Judith Pettibone
Makiki

Kakaako plan needs revising

It seems that our Hawaii Community Development Authority prefers a concrete jungle for Kakaako, and now for the Neil Blaisdell Center.

I think it is time for a new HCDA panel, made up of building and landscape architects with city-planning knowledge. This entire "plan" is a joke. Why remove wonderful buildings, filled with restaurants and shops, just to build condos in those locations? Build them in limited numbers, in areas that actually need development, but keep business owners and existing residents in mind.

Keep our tree-lined streets. We enjoy walking to restaurants, shops nd the movies. This location has proved to be perfect, both for those living in Kakaako and for tourists.

Judy Rasmussen
Kakaako

Interceptor plan is big black hole

Bruce MacDonald, former assistant director for national security at the White House, said that the United States can’t count on its defensive systems working even reasonably well ("Interceptor fails to hit target in missile defense system test," Star-Advertiser, July 6).

I am very familiar with the computational aspects of the current kinetic-kill-vehicle concept, which is tantamount to targeting and colliding with an incoming threat vehicle — very much like a head-on car collision.

The military and defense contractors have spent billions of dollars on this brain-dead concept. This project should be terminated. People need to aware that this is a multibillion-dollar, never-ending project that is nothing more than a bad joke.

Milton Allione
Kailua