Trump candidacy
Trump candidacy
I’m 70 years old, but I can recall the thrill of my teenage summer romances — that rush of excitement whenever we were to meet, her pretty face, her smile, and her hair so dainty and chic.
But as the fall chill came, so did my affection. By Halloween, I had my eyes set on another pretty face — yes, I had lost that loving July 4th feeling.
So it is, I hope with the Republican choice of presidential candidates. Donald Trump needs to be but a summer fling. Sure, he can sweep folks off their feet with his bravado and bluster. But he needs to be compared to a thunderstorm that comes, does its damage, and then floats away, leaving the air calm and refreshed.
I hope that by Halloween, Trump and his thunderstorm of superficiality are blown away. I know that my summer loves were fleeting and trifling — just as the Trump candidacy should be.
Richard Dinges
Hilo
‘Outlaws’
I agree with the reader who called the Mauna Kea “protectors” outlaws. They should be put on the list with other infamous lawbreakers like Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and those guys who dumped perfectly good tea into Boston Harbor.
Alex Almeida
Kalapana
Protect what’s sacred
I was one of 31 people arrested on April 2, 2015, during holy week in the Christian calendar, protecting Hawaii’s most sacred temple — Mauna Kea.
I stood in prayer to affirm the sacred and to say NO to further domination and desecration of the sacred by an 18-story $1.4 billion dollar Thirty Meter Telescope, the 14th telescope on the mountain. It’s time to put the sacred before dollars and respect Native Hawaiians’ religious beliefs, traditions and practices.
Who would dare try to build the TMT on Mt. Sinai or Mt. Fuji? Enough is enough.
TMT is “Too Many Telescopes,” or has money become our god?
Jim Albertini
Kurtistown
Response to Ono
Thank you, T. Ono, for responding to my letter, “For Mauna Kea” (Tribune-Herald, July 23).
It seems we agree that colonization “decimates and plunders,” but then you use the go-to argument: that rejecting the Thirty Meter Telescope will set us back 200 years or give Hawaii a metaphorical black eye (which, yes, it already has).
Surely, we can choose the path technology is leading us down wisely. Will the TMT help us to see the homeless and hungry on Bayfront? Help us to use less fossil fuel or grow more food? Will it give more than a handful of people jobs?
Mauna Kea rises up from the ocean floor 37,000 feet, making it the third-highest mountain in our solar system. Sacred land. Don’t “degrade and defile it.” Protect it.
Jackie Prell
Hilo