It’s time
Thank you Karrie Sebastion for your editorial regarding our continued mask mandate. I share your frustration.
I, like you and countless others, have followed and respected the directives from our elected leaders throughout the pandemic. We trust that our leaders have our best interests at heart. We acceded to their authority in keeping us safe in avoiding and spreading infection. It was a delicate balance affecting businesses, travelers, school kids and the general population, but we went along for the greater good.
But now we’re tired, fidgety and starting to question the rationale behind the continuance of restrictions that seemingly no longer make sense. Our national peers in similar circumstances are enjoying the relief from most if not all of the COVID related restrictions, sanctioned by our national health organizations.
You (our leaders) are losing credibility when continuing to mandate the wearing of masks and other restrictions. We (the people) are certainly capable of knowing our level of risk, tolerance and vulnerability. Allow us to act according without government dictates.
Our Hawaii culture is unique in that we are reticent to “make stink” about what we don’t agree with. But Governor Ige’s intransigence on the mask issue is really starting to smell. One man with uncommon emergency powers holds sway over our returning to the unfettered life of a few years ago.
It’s time David, it’s time.
John Bingham
Kailua-Kona
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False gods of metal
It is impossible to notice around Hilo recently, the increased military flights, including several F-22 Raptor jets. Each one of these “False gods of metal” F-22s costs $334 million and $70,000 per hour to fly.
This year’s U.S. military budget is $778 billion. That’s $24 billion more than Biden requested in the midst of growing human needs — responding to a global pandemic, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, averting climate disaster, etc.
Each time we hear the roar of these military jets, desecrating the heavens and the earth, remember the words of former President, and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower more than 60 years ago: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world of our is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children.”
It’s time we stop glorifying war and weapons of mass destruction, and get back to basics: honor the earth, and respect and love one another as a human family.
Jim Albertini
Kurtistown
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