Letters to the Editor
Family caregivers can get community help
The April 3 letter from Cynthia Okazaki, who is caring for her 80-year-old father who has dementia, has prompted me to address what many family caregivers may not already know.
Caregiving can be a stressful situation, but you don't have to do it alone. There is help available in the community.
You can have a break from caregiving or arrange for services to support you or your family. Calling the Elderly Affairs Division with the city Department of Community Services at 523-4545 will get you in touch with staff who can give you advice and refer you to agencies that can provide assistance.
In addition, home visits to discuss your situation in private can be coordinated by sending Community Services aides anywhere on the island.
Karen K. Miyake
Department of Community Services, City and County of Honolulu
Let the healing begin on university campuses
Let us during the strike aftermath work together with aloha and compassion to welcome our students back to the University of Hawai'i.
This has been a difficult and trying experience for them, and the rush to complete the semester, during a limited period, poses further difficulties. We need our students' continued good offices to keep our university among the leading institutions of higher education.
Our kokua to everyone during the healing process.
Paul W. Dixon
Professor Psychology and Linguistics, UH-Hilo
UH strike brought campus together
During the strike I saw something that gives me hope for the future of the University of Hawai'i.
In the normal course of the semester, professors are usually running to keep up with their commitments of research, teaching and service. Social interactions common in other fields don't happen as regularly in academia, as professors search their calendars for precious hours to spend in the lab, the library or the studio. In addition, professors tend to be independent thinkers and passionate about their beliefs. Ideological differences can create divisions among colleagues.
Out on the picket lines, I saw colleagues from all fields come together for a common cause. I saw the passions that sometimes divide faculty united into a common passion and belief in the university. I heard stories of old feuds dissolving, as colleagues worked side by side for a common cause. I saw professors coming together with public-school teachers to strengthen their shared mission of public education.
The feeling of hopelessness and despair that has been hanging over UH faculty like a dark cloud since the budget cuts began in the mid-'90s lifted when faculty took action to create change. I would like to thank all the students who understood that this strike was not about the additional 1 percent raise we were awarded in the contract. It was the only option the faculty had to make a stand against the further decline of the university.
Debra Drexler
Associate Professor of Art, UH-Manoa
Hawai'i now is known for education ignorance
My first reaction when I found out we had orders to Hawai'i was excitement. Hawai'i is paradise, where you can golf, swim, surf and wear T-shirts and shorts year-round. But after talking with other military families, my excitement turned to anxiety for my two school-aged children.
People kept telling us how bad the schools were and that we had better put our kids in a private school. I refused to give up on public education. On our block, of the six houses that have school-aged children, only one family sends their kids to public schools — ours.
The teacher strike has brought education to the attention of the people of this state. There is nothing more important than education. When a community has a good education system, it has people graduating high school who will continue to college or go directly into the workforce and who will be valuable assets to that society. They will in turn make an income and pay taxes that will pay for better services and develop a strong economy.
You know the adage: "You get what you pay for." So far, we have paid for qualified teachers leaving Hawai'i for the Mainland because they can't afford to live here, well-meaning substitutes filling permanent teaching positions, teachers having to work two jobs to pay bills and the reputation of a state with poor education.
Hawai'i should be known for its gorgeous weather, scenic views and aloha spirit, not for its ignorance.
Kathy Schanze
Imagine if Waddle were driving a bus
Imagine this: A bus company has a fancy high-tech bus. To impress some visiting VIPs, it sends them off in the bus, driven by a top driver. The driver takes the bus through a series of exhilarating maneuvers and he tops off the show by going from zero to 90 on a busy street, running a red light and crashing into the side of a tourist van. Nine tourists in the van are killed.
Now, let's imagine two possible responses to this crash.
Option One: The bus driver is arrested, tried and convicted on nine counts of vehicular manslaughter, reckless endangerment, etc., and is sentenced to a lengthy jail term. The bus company is sued, and the top managers who okayed the bus trip for the VIPs are fired.
Option Two: The bus driver is asked to leave the company (but only after a few more months of paid employment so as not to jeopardize his pension) and is given a stern warning about driving recklessly, as well as a gold pocket watch attesting to his "honorable discharge" from the company.
Which scenario is more likely, more just?
We all know the hypothetical bus driver would be in jail for years. But we're not talking about a bus driver; we're talking about the highly trained commander of a nuclear submarine, a man apparently destined for flag rank in the U.S. Navy, "one of the very best" in the service.
Frankly, that makes Option Two even less acceptable. A man whose job placed his finger on the launch button of nuclear-tipped torpedoes must be held strictly accountable for what was apparently a systematic violation of rules and clearly reckless behavior resulting in the deaths of nine innocent people.
Peter Webb
Punishment didn't fit the boat tragedy
So, Navy Cmdr. Scott Waddle has been "punished."
Half of two months pay was forfeited — but then inexplicably reinstated. He is being retired at a young age and with full pay, a considerable amount, given his rank of commander. He was given a "letter of reprimand," a moot point to someone retired.
Further "punishment" will supposedly include "lucrative offers" from companies eager to hire him because of his dubious notoriety. Will he now be kept awake nights agonizing over the deaths of nine people, or will he be unable to sleep because of his elation over his "punishment"?
Donald D. Graber
Let Rene Mansho stay on City Council
I was boiling mad and disappointed to read in the April 18 Advertiser that a person in Mililani and another from the North Shore have started a petition drive for a recall movement to oust City Councilwoman Rene Mansho.
Bob Watada, the executive director of the state Campaign Spending Commission, stated in the April 17 Advertiser that Mansho has made appropriate restitution. There is no need to spend an exorbitant amount of money to initiate the recall process and subsequent special election to replace Mansho. Enough!
Mansho has stated she wants to complete her term and will still be effective in representing her district. Let's not forget all the good things she supported and accomplished for her district. Let her remain in office and complete her job with the grace and dignity she deserves.
Edwin S. Imamura
Wahiawa
What's all the fuss?
This campaign against City Councilwoman Rene Mansho is snowballing. Why are we being so vindictive? She didn't drive drunk or crash cars. Most all she did was give her staff things to do to keep them busy.
Ted Chernin
Pearl City
Undergrounding view omits key information
Ken Morikami's April 16 letter concerning undergrounding power lines contains two equivocations: 1) steel poles on Kaua'i designed for high winds survived 'Iniki, and 2) a report by the U.S. government did not recommend undergrounding the wires.
I flew over to investigate the damage after 'Iniki. One-third of all the wires were down, tangled with the debris. Generators reconnected to the fragmented grid made the wires dangerous. An equal amount of transmission and distribution lines was toppled. The wind guage on one Kaua'i ridge showed 231 miles per hour before it stopped. Emergency service providers bivouacked at Princeville because the wires in that district were already underground. For that reason, Princeville became a hub of the 'Iniki Express.
Morikami's argument depends on tricks of expression: The U.S. government didn't see the situation for what it was, i.e., at Princeville, because putting the wires underground at some future time would be expensive; and, surprisingly, the steel poles that were toppled just happened not to be the ones designed for such high winds.
The real proof is that Hawaiian Electric Co., Morikami's employer, invested millions in the Philippines but didn't bid on Kaua'i Electric.
Richard Thompson
State, federal bills would hurt Hawaiians
Regarding the April 11 editorial on the native Hawaiian bill: The amendments in Congress are part of a larger effort to disenfranchise 95 percent of those with Hawaiian blood.
In Hawai'i, a Senate bill is heading to conference committee that would recognize state-selected Hawaiian Home Lands community associations as self-governing native Hawaiian entities. SB 1102 intends to create a self-governing entity for purposes of federal recognition under the Akaka bill. SB 1102 proposes to limit federal recognition to the 7,000 or so lessees.
The amended Akaka bill and SB 1102 are the death knell for the Hawaiian people and culture. Both Ni'ihau and Makaweli, Kaua'i, probably the most native of Hawaiian communities in the world, would be barred from federal recognition. The 20,000 or so native Hawaiians on the DHHL wait list will only become recognized as DHHL grants them a lease. The native Hawaiians who don't want Home Land leases have no means to gain federal recognition, though they are entitled to it.
Hawaiians with less than 50 percent Hawaiian blood have no provision for self-governance if SB 1102 and the Akaka bill are enacted, although Public Law 106-569 already recognizes them as part of Hawai'i's indigenous people.
Harriet Ilima Morrison
Ka Lahui Hawai'i
Pidgin won't help in modern workplace
Regarding Kalani Mondoy's April 16 Island Voices commentary "Pidgin — it's still a language": I agree with many of his views, but pidgin English is not a language.
Like Kalani, I grew up on Moloka'i speaking Hawaiian Creole English. I look back at that time with great nostalgia, but see that circumstances have changed tremendously. The plantations have been replaced by a global economy.
I appreciate the advocates of pidgin English, but note they also speak and write standard English. They enjoy the spontaneity and cultural identity of pidgin.
This is a slippery slope. Hawaiian Creole is a kind of a shadow language, without a fully developed grammar and vocabulary that seductively undermines and corrupts the study of standard English.
This confusion is amplified by the community's ambivalent attitude toward pidgin, which sends an ambiguous message to our youth facing the usual uncertainties of growing up. The social pressure often put on our youth to speak Hawaiian Creole and not standard English can be stressful and may lead to real problems when they attempt to join the workforce.
Many of those who grew up speaking only Hawaiian Creole never learn to go both ways and ultimately find themselves handicapped.
Georgia M. Helm
With recession looming, let's legalize gambling
We're now being told World-Point Interactive Inc. is having financial difficulties, will lay off some 54 employees from its Honolulu office and owe the state $800,000 (presumably start-up seed money, including interest).
Coming on the heels of the "Baywatch Hawai'i" fiasco, is it any wonder these so-called alternative industry solutions to the state's economic woes are so suspect?
So much has been said about recent increases in visitor arrival numbers, but does anyone really believe this industry is the answer to Hawai'i's financial problems?
With the national and world economies on the brink of a major recession, that bit of exhilarating news will soon be nothing but a memory.
Hawai'i needs to legalize gambling now and realize a certain source of outside income before the state's economy goes into a free-fall.
How then will those well-deserved government worker and teacher pay raises be paid?
Any hope of restarting our stagnant construction industry and other depressed businesses will also be nothing more than fancy.
James Lam
