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Letters
This Weeks Letters
REALLY LIKES ELLIPSES

June 01, 2006

I used to think Maui Time was about “being fair,” open, honest... showing ALL sides of a story, even when it was naked and covered with slime... I thought one of your main goals was to be unbiased and not just “reporting as you like” as the other major papers, TV stations and news media do, all to gain points for their side of an issue... Yet I am seeing more and more of your papers becoming one-sided, almost vindictive...



You write about a “new” candidate in the May 18, 2006 Coconut Wireless as if she is the only one running, yet Nikhilananda has been in the running for months already, more active and more qualified than “your” choice... (in my opinion) but you write as if he doesn’t even exist! Perhaps you missed the ad he’s been running in your paper for weeks...



You also talked about Pacific Biodiesel before as if everyone using biodiesel was having problems (“So Frustrating,” May 4, 2006)... In further reading though, it turns out it was only a couple people... Was there something “more personal” in here we missed? Need I go on?



Is someone getting off the track at your paper and pushing for their personal gains instead of unbiased reporting, as you say you do?



-Ben Williams, Kihei







Anthony Pignataro responds: You say I’m not being fair, open or honest, yet you seem to be asking me to give favorable treatment to a candidate simply because he’s an advertiser. I can’t do that, but I can report on Lucienne de Naie’s candidacy because it’s “news”—she’s a longtime activist who just announced her first campaign for County Council. Nikhilananda is someone who’s run—and lost—at least six previous political campaigns. As far as my biodiesel story is concerned, my point was never to rant that “everyone” using the fuel was experiencing problems, but to report that certain customers—including the County of Maui—seemed to be having trouble with it. And it was a difficult story to write, in part because I personally feel that alternative fuels like biodiesel are better than petroleum.







RIPS HOMELESSAGAIN



First I want to say I love Maui Time, always right on and very informative. However, I was very disappointed to see that Carrie Courtney was given a full two pages to whine and throw a personal pity party (“Couch Surfing Flat Waves,” May 11, 2006)... Get a degree, stop bumming money off mom and dad, make your boyfriend and yourself be responsible for the choices you, not they, made and well, be an adult. You certainly appear old enough to know better.



-Melissa Nelson, via email







CORRECTIONS



In the May 25, 2006 story “Condoversy,” we got Prandini’s age wong. She’s 78. And in that same issue, we got the name of the chick in the photo for the food story “Hawaiian Moons” wrong. She’s Amber Watson.