Time for ‘reasonable and sane’ approach
Thank you, Jim Albertini, for your informative letter to the editor (West Hawaii Today, Oct. 17) about Pohakuloa Training Area’s uranium contamination.
What most Big Island residents don’t know is that much of this depleted uranium comes from the training of soldiers during the 1960s to use the U.S. Army’s Davy Crockett recoilless rifle.
This weapon had a range of one to two miles and a nuclear warhead equivalent to 10 to 20 tons of TNT. Of course, a training dummy was used, in which depleted uranium was used to mimic the warhead’s weight.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the framers of the 1791 Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) were thinking in terms of muskets, flintlocks and similar weapons, not the type of massive killers we have today and will have in the future.
It is high time for Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court to see that the Second Amendment is enforced in a reasonable and sane manner. I have yet to hear an assault gun owner make a sensible argument as to why they need a weapon designed only to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
Burt Masters
Kailua-Kona
Thoughts on the meaning of aloha
In a globe partly ravaged by greed and destruction, there does flourish an oasis that champions harmony and peace. Welcome to Hawaii!
I attended a recent Hawaiian Paradise Park Owners Association meeting, and an agenda addressed a policy of “The Code of Conduct.”
A board member representing a rich island heritage quickly concretized the policy in the single word “aloha.” The word itself represents the themes of love, peace, compassion and mutual respect. This all translates into “living in harmony” in a context of “grace and kindness.”
The standby retailer’s motto, introduced in the USA — “the customer is always right” — has a natural fit in the islands, in spite of occasional cases where the customers’ perception of an issue skies over a rainbow!
The true depth of “aloha” is that it illustrates a way of life.
Mahalo, Hawaii, for promoting a constitution of idealism.
Jim Barker
Keaau