Education on cesspools will decrease need to spend
We are planning to spend huge money on fixing the cesspool problem here on the Big Island in the near future.
I propose we fix it now by simply educating the public on how cesspools work and how soap/detergent and grease prevent them from doing their work.
Sarah Kay
Kailua-Kona
The sham behind the shutdown
Well, fellow taxpayers, we’ve been hit with the old ‘government shutdown” scam again.
A portion of our federal employees have figured out how to take paid vacations knowing full well they will be paid in full retroactively when our representatives in Congress finish blaming each other and decide to fund the government for another month. Do our military, air traffic controllers and VA hospital workers take those days off? Not on your life!
So why do national park employees find it necessary to take those days off, ruining the long-awaited vacations of many people who come to the Big Island just to see the volcano? Let’s be realistic and understand that the government will always continue no matter what and quit playing this “shutdown” game.
Jan Messersmith
Kailua-Kona
Brah, can I get my clothes back?
Would the person or people who, hopefully inadvertently, took my load of laundry from the dryer at J &K Laundry Thursday morning between 10-10:30 a.m. please return them to the laundromat?
No questions asked.
There were some shirts our daughter received for her birthday, several women’s shorts, my RAAM (Race Across America) 2009, and other articles.
Mahalo nui loa.
Roy Crytser
Holualoa
Mahalo, KCH
I just spent five days at the Kona Community Hospital and I would like to say that the facility may be old, but there was not one minute that I felt like I was just another bed-filler.
There was a level of constant care which I felt was outstanding. The number of folks who contributed to my care is too long to mention here, but you know who you are, and I will be forever grateful for all that you did to get me back on my feet again.
Mahalo nui loa.
Tom Walton
Kona
Getting fed up with employee’s antics
Our governor has decreed to identify and prosecute citizens who issued death threats to the state employee who issued a death threat to 1.4 million Hawaii citizens and visitors. OK, fair enough; who is the first person to get prosecuted?
The state employee who issued the death threat received a free pass. The governor took responsibility, the boss took responsibility, and images of the computer selection screen clearly show that dangerous sophomoric software was a factor in the mistaken death threat.
The employee refuses to cooperate in the federal investigation, or any other investigation. The free pass should be rescinded. Was this employee given a blood alcohol or drug screen after (or any time before) the incident? The employee has been on sick leave since he issued the death threat. Has anyone in the chain of command seen a doctor’s certificate of illness? Is “feeling terrible” a viral or bacterial malady?
Someone needs to be held responsible, not just someone to stand in front of a camera and say “I take responsibility.” Otherwise, it’s just business as usual in Hawaii state government.
Michael Doggett
Kona
A poem on scare offers reflection
This is not a drill
I woke up this morning
with 12 minutes to live.
Cellphone bleating, “extreme alert.”
“Ballistic missile threat
incoming to Hawaii.
Seek immediate shelter.
This is not a drill.”
Stunned like a butterfly just pinned–
by disbelief
the unreality of the unfathomable
I text a few friends and family,
tell them I love them and wait.
Blank except for, “This is not a drill.”
“Everything is impermanent.”
Unmoving, waiting. Nowhere to go
in this paradise of palms and plumeria.
Apprehension, a slow burning,
not cold. Still as winter leafing.
Thirty eight minutes to the official
“false alarm.” I decide I must get
to the ocean, soak in the sky,
wear velvet.
Carol Alena Aronoff
Captain Cook