West Maui needs a better road system

I visited your beautiful island last week for ten days and loved it. Had a great time. While reading the Lahaina News, I noticed a letter published with the title “What is the DOT doing in West Maui?” The letter was right on the issues.

Every time I traveled out of the area, it was bumper-to-bumper traffic and took one to one-and-a-half hours to get out, and then one to one-and-a-half to get back. If you had a decent highway system, you could save one to two hours per trip. The amount of pollution and wasted gas must be incredible.

I, as a tourist, would have liked to shop, eat out and visit more areas, but I found myself limiting where I went and how often I went due to the traffic. When you are on vacation, the last thing you want to do is waste two hours in a car each day. I feel very sorry for the people that have to commute to work each day. What a waste of their life. It would seem like there would be an emphasis on improving the roads so that tourists could spend more quality time on their vacations. The lost of business revenue must be very high due to the poor road system.

I hope you are successful in getting the DOT’s attention. West Maui definitely needs a better road system.

I enjoyed your paper, as it gave a flavor of the people living on Maui and also listed many fun events.

FRED TRYAN

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Earth Day cleanup set

Many thanks to Dooma and the boys; BC Tree Care, who brought a huge truck; and in particular Down The Hatch Restaurant for funding the tire disposal in this month’s Third Saturday Recycle Day sponsored by Malama Maui Nui and the Rotary Club at Lahaina Cannery Mall.

Next month, we will be having our annual Earth Day cleanup a little early, on April 15, to coordinate with the Third Saturday Recycle Day event.

If you want to help, please meet at Honolua Stream Bridge about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, April 15. Hope to see you there. This event is sponsored by the Save Honolua Coalition.

LES POTTS, Napili

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Meat-eaters are fools year-round

April Fools’ Day can remind us that the meat, egg and dairy industries have been playing us for fools year-round. Their more remarkable hoaxes include “California’s happy cows,” “free-range chickens,” and “humane slaughter.” All cruel lies.

Less amusing is the stuff they never talk about. Like the millions of male baby chicks ground up alive or suffocated slowly in plastic garbage bags because they don’t lay eggs. Or the millions of hens crammed seven to a small wire-mesh cage, unable to move or spread their wings. Or breeding sows locked in metal crates, as their babies are castrated without anesthesia.

In the spirit of year-round April Fools’ Day, the meat industry has developed a whole dictionary designed to fool unwary consumers. Those filthy cesspools of animal waste that overflow into our drinking water supplies and poison downwind neighbors with putrid odors? They call them “lagoons.” And to make sure that kids don’t confuse pig flesh on their plate with “Babe” or “Wilbur, ” they call it “pork.”

But, their fooling days are about done. Many of us are replacing animal meat, as well as dairy milk, cheese and ice cream, with healthier nut and grain-based products available in every grocery store.

LEX NAKAHARA, Lahaina

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The rabid elephant in the room

Nov. 9, last year, our nation and the world awoke to a reality that most reasonably intelligent and fair-minded folks could not have imagined. That new reality shocked and angered people around the globe and cast a devastatingly dark shadow on us all.

Sixty-two million Americans voted for The Donald, close to 65 million voted for Hillary, seven million voted for others, while 132 million of our country’s eligible voters stayed home! I will never understand why folks do not care enough about their grand fortune – being an American in still the greatest country in the world. It would be easy to speculate that all of Jerry Springer’s guests voted for our first mentally ill and “fake” President, but almost 50 percent of the people that voted for Dictator Dufus were college graduates. I suppose that means something; it certainly is no consolation. The fact that no one in Trump’s administration has ever been in political office or governed is egregiously dangerous.

Now that a monster is in the White House, American citizens and the free world will continue to lose ground as we struggle to eliminate racism, poverty and homelessness, and increase wages and access to health care – all compassionate and kind goals. Unless we act immediately to remove the beast from government, we will lose ground and very likely will have to spend a generation to make up for the damage done.

Just halfway through the first 100 days, most of his cabinet appointments have been approved by congressional Republicans. Five-hundred or so supportive positions have not been filled.

Our new secretary of state is hell-bent on ignoring the press and allowing America’s State Department to evolve into a ghost town. Trump’s secretary of education will privatize our schools while giving the taxpayers’ money to Christian academic institutions. It definitely takes less effort to force one’s beliefs on innocents when you have thousands of millions of dollars.

Then we have the new HUD secretary, Ben Carson, who freely admits he is unqualified. And we have a cabinet appointee who believes robots should replace people in fast food joints and minimum wages should not exist, an attorney general who has been a rabid racist his entire life, and a female advisor that temporarily saved poor Ivanka’s clothing line.

This cartoon caricature Trump is a habitual liar, an extreme narcissist and a sociopath. We cannot allow him another few months, let alone four years. This person is incapable of telling the truth. His profound lack of memory and almost obscene desire for adulation prevents him from fully comprehending his new station in life.

Americans, we are now on our own in terms of representative government. If we want to reclaim what is ours – our right to self-determination along with our freedoms as written in the Constitution and our Bill of Rights – we have to not only resist; we must prevail. Our struggle must include Republicans and Democrats and Independents (imagine if Uncle Bernie had won), Christians and Atheists, Trump voters and nonvoters, and we must organize as never before.

Those who occupy the White House now are charlatans and scammers. They are liars and thieves and mercenary miscreants who want all of the wealth and comfort this country and the world provides to be solely possessed by them and their ilk.

Trump is not a passing fancy, and we cannot afford to ride it out until the next election. I am asking all of you to think seriously about the health and security of your families and friends, and of the extraordinary efforts put forth by those before us – granting us participation and fellowship in this grand experiment we call home!

Today it is the Muslims and The Wall and the looting of the essential budgets in order to fund defense. Tomorrow it could be anyone of any religious persuasion (particularly if Trump senses opposition), it could be martial law in response to inevitable protest to his policies, and it could be bullets aimed at all of us who may disagree on some things but would never imagine militarizing social issues. All of us need to consider at what point or time we will become involved. I hope that we don’t wait too long!

DAVID HAYDEN, Lahaina