Letters to the Editor
'We want your money' message won't work
Every time someone comes up with a new plan to revitalize the visitor industry, the focus in the "advertising" seems to be on taking, and not giving. "Come to Hawai'i, we want to drain your savings account."
We should be saying, "Come to Hawai'i, you'll enjoy the experience. Hawai'i will rejuvenate your spirits."
I feel as if we're putting Hawai'i in the "bargain basement" of a department store, where all the products have been passed over so many times, no one wants to touch them anymore.
The "We want your money" message seems remarkably visitor-unfriendly. The message needs to be "You'll be happy in the Land of Aloha!"
Danielle Tucker
There's no mystery why LeMahieu left
Your Oct. 20 editorial describes Paul LeMahieu's resignation as somewhat mysterious.
There is no mystery: The superintendent's use of "superpowers" granted to him by Judge David Ezra opened the door to questionable use of federal impact aid and at least one other $100 million nonbid contract.
Hawai'i will never be legitimately in compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Act federal law until our leaders sort through the mismanagement that redirects funding away from services for children.
In a time of financial crisis in our state, our leaders must question why the federal court steps beyond the boundary of federal law, allowing individuals to circumvent state laws with immunity, while criticizing our elected officials for acting on behalf of the people of Hawai'i.
Laura Brown
Mililani
Do something about education problems
I am a public high school student and am in a number of the advanced placement classes and the gifted and talented program.
My teachers have to use old books that are falling apart; many are outdated. We have to share books on occasion, and it really makes me mad.
I have repeatedly heard politicians say in their campaigns that they want to better education and help the children of Hawai'i. That hasn't happened yet, and I fail to see when it will ever happen.
I know I will never see those empty promises become fulfilled, but I want it to happen for the rest of the students in every public school.
Even though I am not old enough to vote, I urge the people of Hawai'i to look at how the children of Hawai'i are being treated and to do something about it. Everyone needs to come together. When those children grow up, everyone will have to live in the state that is run by these children who aren't getting a sufficient education.
Briana L. Tagupa
Kailua
'Standards' have indeed improved teaching
I am still trying to figure out the purpose of Thomas Stuart's Oct. 23 letter ("Cry Baby Boom: LeMahieu's demise was predictable"). Is he targeting Paul LeMahieu or the entire system, including teachers? Does he want to wield a chainsaw or a scalpel?
No one can endorse LeMahieu's affair. Don't count me as a die-hard supporter. However, with the Felix consent problem, budget restrictions, infrastructure inadequacies, the strike and old-time Hawai'i politics, calling LeMahieu's tenure as "virtual free reign" seems a teeny bit exaggerated.
Contrary to what Stuart would have readers believe, changes are occurring in the classroom. I resisted "standards," I didn't understand 'em, didn't want 'em, didn't need 'em. I'd been teaching a long time and had helped students become better readers and writers without 'em. Standards were another program to justify the existence of yet another superintendent. But, having taken classes taught by master teachers and professors from across the nation, I came to realize that "standards" is not another catch phrase but a powerful system to improve student learning.
Every teacher I know does his or her share of complaining about the system. Nonetheless, rather than writing letters stuffed with emotional triteness, name-calling and cute coined phrases, teachers I know as friends and colleagues try to be part of an ongoing process of improving schools and bettering student learning. They do their jobs, with great aloha for their students, knowing there are too many Thomas Stuarts waiting.
Les Inouye
Please pressure state to bring back LeMahieu
Paul LeMahieu, Hawai'i's former school superintendent, awarded a contract to one person with no special education training and he was questioned by legislators. For decades, the DOE has hired hundreds of people with no special education training to teach students with special needs. DOE personnel directors have not been questioned. Why was LeMahieu singled out?
Dr. LeMahieu has resigned. The BOE gave him a job rating of "more than satisfactory" and said his work at the Legislature has been commendable. Paul Brown, Maui's former school superintendent, said he was "a breath of fresh air into the state system." Gov. Cayetano said he supported LeMahieu's reform efforts 100 percent and described him as the first school superintendent "who understood the need for a strong accountability system in Hawai'i's public schools." The governor also said "it's kind of unfortunate that he's going to be leaving before that system is in place. He is pretty much an expert in these areas."
LeMahieu is the best superintendent I've worked for in my 20 years of teaching. He has a vision worth pursuing. He is smart, knowledgeable and is respectful of everyone he works and talks with.
His first priority is to serve students, parents, teachers and principals.
Please contact the governor, BOE and legislators and tell them to ask LeMahieu to withdraw his resignation.
By the way, did that contract under investigation serve the state and the students well?
Coleen Ashworth
Pukalani
Handwriting reveals suicidal tendencies
As a retired master grapho analyst (handwriting), it is frustrating to watch two so-called handwriting experts comment lately on national TV, especially one of the two envelope samples of handwriting to Tom Brokaw and Sen. Tom Daschle.
She doesn't believe the writer is necessarily suicidal and she talks a little nonsense about the small letter "o" as if trying to make something of it. How wrong can these people be?
Here's what the envelope writings reveal:
At first glance, the writing begins to drop in a depressive mood, then continues rapidly in its down-trend, signifying positive pessimism until it spirals to the bottom of the envelope with hopeless finality. Also of importance, the irregularity of the writing and lines indicates undependable emotions. All of these signs equal a personality of finality. Fatalistic. Suicidal. He expects to be finished. He is not worried about being caught. He could not care less.
George S. Ching
Walt Whitman caught the meaning of a hero
Sept. 11: visions of fire, pain, devastation and destruction. People traumatized and shocked. What happened that Black Tuesday has truly changed America and the world.
My heart is burdened with incredible pain and sorrow for the victims, the families and the survivors. My favorite quote from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" reflects my feelings:
I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
It reminds me of my father, Charles Perry, a retired Honolulu firefighter. Firefighters dedicate themselves to the community to save lives. They are a brotherhood; when one is hurt, all hurt. So many lives lost, so many brothers missing — the search will continue. The fight will go on to honor our heroic firefighters who died fighting a new kind of war — terrorism.
I am so proud of my father and his fellow brothers of the NYFD. We need them, their skills and talents.
Ian Perry
Junior, Punahou School
Abortionists are the real terrorists
In Ellen Goodman's Oct. 23 commentary "Terrorism was here all along," she said, "Over the years, 150 (abortion) clinics have been bombed or torched. A hundred clinics have been attacked with butyric acid. Seven people have been killed."
Goodman, and the rest of her kind, just don't get it, do they? Seven of their like-minded people are killed and it's an act of terrorism?
Then I shall judge as they judge. Who are the real terrorists in this picture?
Millions of babies were ripped out of their alleged mothers' wombs by butcher-doctors, and they don't see that as terrorism? We're talking a one-digit figure compared to a seven-digit figure here, folks. Do the math.
I call it murder of a living human being. The baby feels the pain and is the real victim of terror.
Valerie Kajiwara
Wai'anae
Irmgard was a giver of kindness and love
This state is not quite as noble as it was. We have lost a living national treasure. Irmgard Farden Aluli joined those other noble spirits in the slender ranks of those who were givers. Talent she had, but she never sought the limelight because she was the limelight. She was greatness by its own definition.
She did not want for riches and wealth; she possessed them in soul and spirit. She was the personification of every definition of goodness, kindness and love.
There are others who will rise to her standards, but none who will surpass them. She dwells somewhere in a place reserved for those people who helped and loved everyone without any obvious touch of zealousness. She was all good.
Harry K. Meyer
Brother-in-law
Don't raid Tobacco Trust Fund
This emergency session of the state Legislature was called to address Hawai'i's sagging economy, adversely affected by the tragedy of Sept. 11. Four bills have been introduced to partly remedy the situation by taking away monies that came from the national tobacco settlement of 1998.
Current national evidence indicates that 1,100 American people die every day of tobacco-related illnesses. To put this in perspective, 5,000-plus Americans lost their lives in the Sept. 11 tragedy. Nearly seven weeks have passed since the tragedy. Without attention, without notice, more than 50,000 people have fallen victim to tobacco in that time.
According to the Department of Health, in 1997 the State of Hawai'i spent $328 million on healthcare costs, direct and indirect, related to tobacco. That works out to almost $1 million per day over the course of one year. Nationally, 3,000 people begin smoking tobacco each day.
These tobacco settlement funds have been slow to arrive in Hawai'i and have awaited legislative action in order to allocate them into the categories in which they are now arranged:
• 40 percent, or approximately $16 million, toward the governor's "rainy-day fund" (expected to rise to $48 million in April 2002).
• 35 percent to the Department of Health for the "Healthy Hawai'i Initiative," which promotes tobacco prevention, appropriate diet and increased activity for a healthy lifestyle, and for the Children's Health Insurance Program to provide healthcare to uninsured children.
• 25 percent has gone to the Tobacco Trust Fund, established to help people stop smoking and stop nonsmokers from starting. The approximately $20 million in this fund has been earmarked to implement activities now that groundwork has been carefully laid to achieve these goals.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the tobacco industry spends $22 million in Hawai'i each year trying to encourage use of its killer product. Tobacco is the only product made in America that, when used as directed, kills the user. Nicotine addicts you, then kills you.
Taking away a few million dollars from the Tobacco Trust Fund is not responsible. We need to stop teenagers from starting smoking. Our failure will be the tobacco industry's victory.
John T. McDonnell, M.D.
Chair, Hawai'i Tobacco Task Force
Gerald J. McKenna, M.D.
President, Hawai'i Medical Association
