Too many bags
Does it bother anyone else that Hawaiian Telcom is littering our streets with white plastic bags containing telephone directories? The public is banned from using plastic bags, but Hawaiian Telcom is distributing them all over town, even if you don’t have a land line.
How many trees were cut down? I wonder how many unsolicited directories will end up in our landfill.
Priscilla Hope
Hilo
Stolen land
James R. Cowles’ comment May 20 (Your Views, Tribune-Herald) doesn’t take into account how Hawaiians lost ownership of their land.
The Hawaiian monarchy held all lands collectively. The U.S. military grabbed the land from the monarchy. Thus, it stole the land.
Therefore, in my opinion, all those, including myself, who own a piece of property (land) in Hawaii have title to stolen property.
The same goes for American Indian land, as well as Palestinian land in Israel.
Because of the nature of the situation, I wrote a letter to the editor, which appeared May 15, titled “For the spirits.”
Jagy Pattur
Oahu
Playing with history
I love it when people use partial knowledge of history to justify their arguments.
Kamehameha II (Liholiho) did indeed nullify the old kapu system but only at the insistence of Ka‘ahumanu, Kamehameha’s favorite wife who outranked everyone, including the recently deceased Kamehameha.
She finally convinced Liholiho to sit down and eat with her and several others in public view, but only after he procrastinated for several weeks by staying on board his ship.
I doubt that she discarded the belief that some places were more sacred than others. That is a matter of conjecture.
As to aloha: Sitting in judgment about who has or doesn’t have it is certainly impossible to know, unless one knows the hearts of those involved.
Carole Masi
Keaau
