Before 2018 ends, help save local homeless animals

Please make a final tax-deductible gift to support Maui Humane Society’s 2018 Holiday Drive to Save Lives.

With your help, our goal is to raise $10,000 – funding that will help save more cats, dogs and critters.

Since the beginning of 2018, we’ve provided food, shelter, medical care and lots of love for thousands of cats and dogs. Our resources have been stretched – new animals arrive every day, and their numbers are likely to increase in 2019.

That’s why we’re depending on you.

Please make your generous donation now. Your support will make a lifesaving difference – ensuring many more animals are rescued and adopted into loving homes in 2019.

MAUI HUMANE SOCIETY, Puunene

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Santa is big business

Before the 1840s, Christmas was about the birth of Jesus, get-togethers with family and friends and celebrating the holiday with favorite foods.

According to the Pew Research Center, 33 percent of those who were surveyed dread the commercialism/materialism of the holiday, and 73 percent of people agree that the true meaning of Christmas is being phased out in favor of new gadgets, new clothes and new stuff.

What happened? Do we blame commercialized Christmas on the “Coca-Cola” Santa Claus that styled and profiled in the Saturday Evening Post in 1920?

Dangling the carrot of instant gratification on television commercials, our children beg and plead for the latest, shiniest and most expensive toys. Many adults teach small children that a magical being in a red suit that lives at the North Pole brings presents on Christmas Eve – lots of presents… too many presents. Fostering greed and materialism in our youngest to our oldest citizens, the holiday is more about receiving than giving. Does happiness equal gifts? Ask an American teenager. Is Santa teaching our children to define contentment as possessions?

Do we blame major retailers for product propaganda? Purchase our merchandise. Put money in our pockets! Make our holiday merrier than yours. Christmas mania madness is about money – more money for retailers and manufacturers. Spend. Spend. Spend.

Buy more lights, tinsel and wrapping paper. Acquire more decorations. Add to your collection of Santa figurines. More. More. More.

Profit is not a dirty word, but hoodwinking the public is dirty. And using Santa Claus as bait to catch more profit is dirty. What about the American economy? Doesn’t consumerism feed the need? Yes, but follow the money trail. Who gains and gets the most? When did “budget” become a dirty word? Consumers, hop away from the holiday hype.

What about buying American-made, instead of items from communist countries that violate human rights? Watch out for counterfeit and knockoff products. And step away from cheap plastic crap that litters our landfills. Buyers beware of totalitarian countries that poison products for profit.

This is my Conspiracy Theory of the secret society of Santa retailers, merchants, and manufacturers.

Have you noticed how much earlier malls and stores decorate and promote sales? Play Christmas music? Bombard you with bargains?

Are you feeling green over spending too much green? Then halt impulse-buying. And cease rushing madly to the malls on Christmas Eve. Stop the reckless spending – lock up your wallet. Make moderation your mantra.

Put the Santa Claus spending craze back into the box. Close the lid. Step away.

DR. MELISSA MARTIN

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Keep employees off Front Street sidewalks

The individuals that work at the cosmetic stores on Front Street in Lahaina routinely stand in the middle of the sidewalk attempting to get individuals into their stores to sell their products. They are very aggressive and at times are rude to individuals refusing to do so. While standing there trying to get people into their store, the sidewalk gets blocked, requiring individuals to move into the street and causing a hazard. They engage in this activity all day. Many times you can see their samples thrown on the sidewalk. No other retail stores on Front Street engage in this practice; just think if they did.

Many of the local residents agree that this practice needs to stop. It portrays Lahaina Town in a negative fashion.

If you are one of them, I’d like to suggest that you send an e-mail to State Rep. Angus McKelvey at repmckelvey@Capital.hawaii.gov, Mayor Alan M. Arakawa at mayors.office@mauicounty.gov and County Councilwoman Elle Cochran at elle.cochran@mauicounty.gov to ask them to have this practice discontinued immediately.

I believe there are laws related to this, such as Impeding the Public Right and Unlawful Solicitation.

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST

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Immigration reform needed

The picture of thousands of invaders trying to forcefully get into America is frightful – especially to those living along the border with Mexico. For years, many have had their homes invaded by much smaller groups than the present-day caravans.

Caravans of immigrants invading America is a new type of threat to this country. The Liberals’ idea of an open-border policy is a sign of insanity, especially now that Mexico has a new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He was quoted as saying, during his campaign, “that immigrants must leave their towns and find a life in the United States.” Now some in the neighboring countries may be taking his advice. Hopefully, that was just campaign bravado… we will soon find out!

Too bad our gutless Republican legislators, and their fellow Democrat legislators, didn’t give the president enough money to build the wall. A broke America cannot take in the rest of the world.

MANUEL YBARRA JR., Coalgate, OK