Sweet move, Starbucks
We noticed a CNN report that states “Starbucks will eliminate plastic straws from all stores.” This is a start that will help reduce more than 1 billion straws per year. A new lid shaped like a sip cup for adults will be introduced, or if a straw is required they will be made of paper, not plastic. Mahalo to Starbucks!
Here in Hawaii, surrounded by the sea, we have seen more and more plastic straws (and lids, etc.) washing up on our pristine beaches coming from who knows where?
My suggestion is that local politicians band together to pass legislation very soon, that will ban the use of such plastic items in our state, much like the city of Seattle is doing.
With over 8 million metric tonnes of plastic entering the ocean every year, we should start to take a stand to make a difference. I for one would vote for those candidates who care enough to include this issue in their platform. Wouldn’t you?
Norman Moe
Kailua-Kona
Time for GOP to breakaway from extremism
Tea party and Trump conservatives make a big deal of hating government, especially interference in their private lives. And they cheer corporate deregulation (Why? So they can get burnt up working in locked chicken processing plants or work 60 hours a week without overtime pay like they did before there were government-enforced workers’ rights?). Yet all but one of five of the conservative Supreme Court justices recently voted to deny protection of cellphone users from being tracked by the government, corporations, Russians, or whoever else might like to know where and how Americans spend their time.
Contradictory (like their supreme leader), conservatives don’t seem to mind corporations stealing their freedom to access the internet or having their health and medicare decimated for corporate profit. But they won’t stand for a person choosing a partner of the same sex or a woman’s right to decide her reproductive future. And illegal gerrymandering? As long as it brings more Republicans to power, the immoral means justify the ends.
To keep this lopsided ball rolling, conservative pundits twist Christianity into a mean-spirited, Crusades-brand club, using lies and tortured explanations to justify demeaning and incarcerating seriously stressed children and their parents who seek asylum in this country. They applaud and apologize for the deeply hurtful words and actions of a cheating, bigoted president who claims to be a “true” Christian, while hoping they can close the door to America behind them and other Caucasians who imagine themselves to be America’s First People.
The PR creation of a “Religious Right” has gone from a Republican hypocrisy to a horror. The pious fakery and delusions believed and defended by too many Americans under Trump’s reign seems to be increasing as is the pain of those who dare cross his ever-changing, angry boundaries.
One hopes that moderate Republicans don’t wait until there’s no republic to create a breakout party that stands up for democratic values — one that saves our nation’s dignity and leaves Trump and right-wing extremism in the dust.
Janice Glennie
Kailua-Kona