Letter to the Editor – 9/18/13

Prison problems

It is apparent from reading his Aug. 28 column that Bob Jones knows little or nothing about the Department of Public Safety and the problems facing the director. Ted Sakai is a brilliant administrator and his association goes back to the years when Corrections came under the DHS.

One of the difficulties the director has to deal with is that adult correction officers (ACOs) are represented by a very aggressive and powerful labor union. It is almost impossible to fire an ACO and make it stick. So Mr. Jones’ suggestion that Mr. Sakai “should be getting rid of them” is much easier said than done.

Mr. Jones, gentleman that he is, should feel it incumbent upon him to apologize to Director Sakai for his outrageous statement that the director has “gone too soft” to continue holding his position.

Jane M. Donahoe
Downtown

Population myths

Dan Boylan is way off mark in his column “There Are Just Too Many Of Us.” He claims that overpopulation is the cause for many societal woes. He also apparently feels that 50 million abortions are not enough. He feels inconvenienced by traffic jams. Poor deluded Mr. Boylan.

Many countries are dying because they are not having babies – Japan, Spain, Italy, Canada, Singapore, Germany, France, and the list goes on and on. The book The Death of the West tells about the myth of over-population. The problem, Mr. Boylan, is not over-population. The problem is selfishness and greed.

Teresa Fredericks
Kapolei

GMO politics

I cannot let yet another seemingly biased article by Bob Jones on GMOs go by without comment.

I believe I am in the mainstream of people who are concerned with the safety of GMO products. That being said, I would prefer to err on the side of caution and have chosen to eliminate them from my family’s diet. That’s a challenge, since Monsanto fights any attempt nationwide to label GMO altered products. In 2011, Monsanto spent $36 million to defeat California Prop 37, which would compel it to label its products. Why this expenditure, especially if GMO products are as safe as Monsanto claims?

My response to Mr. Jones’ question on why the Food and Drug Administration would ever be in cahoots with the industry is easily answerable with this easy-to-understand fact:

The deputy director of the FDA, which oversees GMOs, is Michael Taylor. He has been in that position since 2009. Prior to that, he was a vice president of Monsanto and also its chief lobbyist in Washington.

Kenneth J. Valentine
Kaneohe

Send your letters to dchapman@midweek.com.