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LETTERS for July 7 issue

By Staff | Jul 7, 2016

Increase food production for Maui

Today, Maui is talking about what to do with the land. Agriculture, housing… a lot is on the drawing boards.

I feel the way nations, including the United States, are grabbing seaways and exchanging exports, it’s a red flag for all of us to start producing our own food on our own land. Be self-sufficient, and if push comes to shove, we will be able to feed the people in Hawaii. Why can’t our leaders see this?

Nations are gathering together to try to devalue our dollar and cut our power lines. The pride of our power has already diminished. If Europe and other nations start using another monetary system, we will have to start from square one.

Hawaii depends too much on exports. We can do without “the stuff,” but not the food and water we consume to exist. Logical, isn’t it?

We should put pressure on those in power, or else they will do what lines their pockets. Taxes we pay equal our money, and we support our leaders’ salaries.

We need to protect our families here in the islands. We have the land and the weather to produce a lot of food. Rain conservation is needed for food production, drinking water and irrigation.

Recycling has already started and needs to continue, including more preservation of the materials we have. Instead of replacing the products we buy, can’t we find people who can repair them and use the savings to educate our children? Fix-it shops were popular in the past; bring them back. It will employ those who have the talent.

Being forewarned is being fore-armed. We are not the Mainland; let’s enjoy our islands with food and water instead of houses for Mainlanders and more junk we don’t need. Is anybody out there listening?

Hawaii needs tourism, not residents. Employ our people; keep our youth working in food production.

These ideas mentioned will not happen unless you voice your concerns to our leaders. No response will let them do whatever they see fit for Hawaii. You can see where that has landed us.

They are trying to convince us that more housing is important, and it’s not “affordable” either. Stand up and speak your mind. What happens now will last a long time.

ENRIQUE GUZMAN, Lahaina

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Beware of barbecued bugs

Whatever happened to the good old days, when our worst worries on the Fourth of July were traffic jams and wayward fireworks?

A well-warranted worry, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Meat & Poultry Hotline, is food poisoning by nasty E. coli and Salmonella bugs hiding in hot dogs and hamburgers at millions of backyard barbecues.

The hotline’s advice is to grill them longer and hotter. Of course, they avoid mentioning that the high-temperature grilling that kills the bugs also happens to form cancer-causing compounds.

Fortunately, some forward-thinking U.S. food manufacturers have solved these issues by creating an amazing assortment of healthy and delicious veggie burgers and soy dogs. No nasty pathogens or cancer-causing compounds in these tasty plant-based foods. They don’t even carry cholesterol, saturated fats, antibiotics or pesticides. And, they are conveniently waiting for us at almost every supermarket.

This Fourth of July offered a great opportunity to declare our independence from the meat industry, and to share wholesome veggie burgers and soy dogs with our family and friends.

LESTER NAITO, Lahaina

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Improve service at the Thrift Store

By now, most of West Maui is aware of the “new management” at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. What happened? In with a new price structure and out with the basic good old customer service.

As a resident and regular of the store for many years, it is sad to say that it seems as if the longtime employees are resigned, rather than uplifted, to the changes. Where did the “aloha” go?

The reason most people shop at the Salvation Army store is for the good deals, of course; with the hardships economically, it is a blessing to be able to purchase affordable items.

Additionally, shoppers know that their purchases support the programs of Salvation Army’s church ministry for the community.

It’s a necessary partnership. There is always hope and room to turn this around. I’ll be praying on that for you.

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST

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Jubilee a solution to Hawaii’s land issues

Biblical Jubilee guidelines help restore the Hawaiian Nation, returning ancestors to land possessed by their forefathers: allodial, lineal descendants.

Property rights principles of Jubilee are a viable resolution for Hawaii’s land issues and logical solution for development related to geographical limitations.

Compatible with land trust concepts, it establishes leasehold rather than fee simple land ownership. “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine (Jehovah’s).”

Urban-designated residential and commercial property would not change. “If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right of redemption a full year after the sale. If it is not redeemed before the full year has passed, the house shall belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in Jubilee.”

“Houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in Jubilee.” Equitable resolutions would be implemented for existing residential and commercial operations on agriculture- and rural-designated land.

Schools, hospitals, parks and all public property would remain in their current status. “The field of the common-land of their cities may not be sold, for it is their perpetual possession.”

“In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession. And if you sell… or buy… you shall not oppress one another… Do not take advantage of each other, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 25)

MICHELE LINCOLN, Lahaina

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Get to work or wait for the voters’ verdict

Judge Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is President Obama’s nominee, as we all know, for the vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The deadbeat Republicans in the U.S. Senate, using their usual underhanded tricks, have refused to even consider this nominee or any other put forth by the president. How many things are wrong with this stonewalling posture?

We see the results – all truly controversial issues of great import go undecided by the Supremes now because they are at a 4-4 tie.

Republican leadership is virtually unanimous in being factually woefully in error that there is a rule or a custom not to make such nominations in the final year of a presidency. This is something that might be unusual but hardly rare, and presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Herbert Hoover to Woodrow Wilson to Dwight Eisenhower and more have all done so – some successfully, some not, but all at least were afforded a normal process.

Republicans need to stop calling President Obama a “lame duck.” He is not. After the election and before inauguration is the lame duck period. He is just a sitting president currently, and he did his job finding a nominee.

By saying that a president cannot do his job – that we elected him to do twice – that logic should ridiculously extend to all elected officials, because they might not get re-elected, so they presumably can’t make any decisions until we “let the American people decide the direction of the court.”

Instead of an early July 4 recess to avoid thinking about banning assault weapons, just recess until next January without your obstructionist pay.

I personally wish President Obama would have nominated someone with a stronger human rights, civil rights, and environmental protection track record. But at the very least, the Senate should do its job, hold the hearings and confirm or reject the Garland nomination. The American Bar Association gave the judge its highest rating, and he was confirmed easily by a bipartisan vote to the Circuit Court.

President Obama was just handed a defeat on shielding the parents of Dreamers from deportation – a 4-4 tie by the stymied Supremes that let stand the ruling of a lower court, because that’s what a tie vote does.

This question – and all others that are close and controversial – cannot be dispositively decided until sometime in the distant future, after the election, after inauguration, after nomination, after hearings, after possible confirmation.

Nice job, Republicans – you scofflaw dirty tricksters. I hope the American people do indeed decide the direction of the court by voting you out.

TOM H. HASTINGS, PeaceVoice