Letters To The Editor
October 17, 2007 - MidWeek
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Del.icio.usA place for hookers
In a letter about Chinatown prostitution, Loy Kuo notes that illicit activities have been driven from downtown areas where they cause little trouble for residents to areas where they cause much more, such as Kukui Street. But his later defense of police undercover activities doesn’t follow logically from his initial point.
It is the actions of law enforcement that created the problematic situations on Kukui Street. Making this criticism is not a slap at police officers, but at the law itself and its poorly considered application.
Downtown areas preferred by streetwalkers such as Hotel Street, River Street and Merchant Street have been havens for decades, without noticeable harmful effects to the general resident population. Prostitutes there shouldn’t be attacked simply because a handful of fat cats want to make piles of money from the “gentrification” of Chinatown.
There were bills introduced in the last legislative session that would address these problems directly by providing streetwalkers with legal zones away from residential areas.
If downtowners want prostitutes off Kukui Street, they should work with those who would allow them to work legally elsewhere instead of applauding the police for diverting resources away from fighting more serious crimes.
Tracy Ryan
Honolulu
Alphabet soup
As a practicing osteopathic physician (D.O. not O.D. as Bob Jones erroneously wrote) in the state of Hawaii for more than 22 years, and a member of the Medical Advisory Committee of the State Regulated Industries Complaints Office (RICO) for the Dept. of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA), I find Mr. Jones’ commentary professionally offensive, misleading to the general public and reprehensible.
Gary L. Greenly, D. O.
Honolulu
Editor’s note: Bob Jones says he made a mistake in a recent column by using O.D. as the designator for a Doctor of Osteopathy. It should have been D.O. An O.D. is an optometrist. Jones adds that he did not imply that osteopaths are any less trained or competent than M.D.s - as some e-mailers have claimed. Just that hospital patients should be offered the choice if both are available. “I’m sure there are fabulous D.O.s and some lesser-light M.D.s,” Jones says. “Some patients might prefer homeopathic doctors or chiropractic doctors. They just need to know what they want and what they’re getting.”
Al Qaeda is OK
Apparently Jerry Coffee fails to grasp the reality of our war with terrorists. According to Michael Scheuer, a retired CIA expert on al Qaeda, the group is merely defending Muslim lands from more than 50 years of U. S. invasion of the Middle East. For more than half a century, the U.S. actively assisted Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other oppressive regimes in screwing over Muslims. And now with Bush’s stupid illegal war in Iraq, a country that was not a threat to the U. S. and had nothing to do with 9/11, al Qaeda has a greater reason for a defensive jihad and to fight back.
Thus it is that the U. S. is the aggressor, and we’re to blame for fueling the defensive jihadists. If we want to stop their jihad, we should remove their fury by leaving Iraq and the Middle East altogether.
Adam Lee
Honolulu
Poppy’s power
Dan Boylan’s latest Bush diatribe attributes all of the president’s successes in politics and business to “Poppy,” his dismissive reference to the elder Bush. According to Boylan, “Poppy” got his “frat boy” son elected governor of Texas and president of the U.S. “Poppy” managed these feats, not once but twice for both offices, and got the Supreme Court to do his bidding in the Gore-Bush election. Boylan should explain how “Poppy” managed all this, including getting upward of 50 million voters to vote for Bush in both presidential elections. Given such powers, perhaps “Poppy” should be put to work finding the cure for cancer or, while we engage in fantasy, determining now many angels would fit on the head of a pin.
Thomas Freitas
Hawaii Kai
Leftover anger
I enjoyed DL Stewart’s column “Willing To Kill Over Leftovers.”
Many years ago after a steak party, I gathered all of the scraps and bones for my dog and put the bowl in the refrigerator. The next morning I walked into the kitchen and my husband was sitting at the counter with the bowl in front of him, gnawing on the leftover bones.
I should not have told him, but I did and needless to say, he nearly divorced me right there.
Margaret Giles
Honolulu
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