Letters | 8-3-15

All life matters — including the fish

All life matters — including the fish

Two Kona fishermen are being celebrated for the termination of the life of an innocent and faultless “grander,” a magnificent 1,368-pound marlin (“Omori, Kitaoka land Kona’s third grander,” West Hawaii Today, July 30), while a dentist is being scorned for downing Cecil, the beloved lion in Zimbabwe.

Whether these creatures had gills or lungs, they both deserved to continue living and not be slaughtered to serve as someone’s trophies. Call it sportfishing or big-game hunting, they both result in the purposeless killing of God’s creatures.

All life matters.

Richard Dinges

Hilo

What will it take to save Pahoa from the state?

At the onset of the meeting in the Pahoa Community Center Wednesday evening, Sen. Loraine Inouye pretty much told us we are going to have the roundabout crammed down our throats even if we don’t want it.

Someone is set to make a lot of money off of this deal, but it’s a shame Pahoa may become a ghost town as a result of all of the safety the state Department of Transportation insists the roundabout will provide.

Construction is supposed to begin Aug. 10 and take nine months, but someone surmised it would take much longer. Even if Pahoa is closer, customers may elect to shop elsewhere, as people tend to prefer the path of least resistance, seldom the case in areas under construction. The smaller shops are still reeling from the lava, so the roundabout will either make or break Pahoa.

I’d rather be optimistic, but this is most likely our “Bridge to Nowhere” and the highest probability outcome is economic decline. Whether we can handle a roundabout is not the issue, the question is can Pahoa survive the construction phase? What will it take to save Pahoa from being saved by the state?

Dave Kisor

Pahoa