Letters to the Editor
Five reasons to avoid lotteries
Regarding Derek Stephen's Aug. 28 letter, "Lottery not gambling": Lotteries are the most popular forms of gambling. In the 1970s and 1980s, they offered a politically attractive means to raise state revenue as federal grant money lessened.
Lottery-generated dollars have funded some worthwhile state programs, but on the whole, lotteries are faulty public policy because:
• They are in effect a most regressive form of taxation. Twenty percent of the people buy 82 percent of the lottery tickets. Those 20 percent are disproportionally poor, elderly, immigrants and the least educated.
In Virginia, 61 percent of the lottery tickets were purchased by only 8 percent of all Virginia adults.
State lottery commissions tend to place more advertisements and sales outlets in lower-income areas of the cities in the 37 states that have legalized lotteries.
• Lotteries promote their games with aggressive and misleading advertising. There is much ballyhoo about winners but no mention of how much is lost.
Currently, many of Hawai'i's TV news people make enthusiastic comments about winners of jackpots but never about the losers nor are the odds of winning. The industry is able to spend an enormous amount of money on advertising and other forms of influence.
• The lottery industry also targets children and youth — for example, influencing the owners of grocery and convenience stores to place lottery ticket machines next to candy and cookies. Harvard Medical School found that juveniles as young as 9 were buying lottery tickets. Seventy-five percent of high school seniors said they had purchased lottery tickets — even in states claiming "tight" regulations.
• The lottery puts states into the gambling business. It increases promotion of gambling to keep revenues coming, tries to add new forms of gambling legislation.
Once a lottery or other form of gambling is legal, the state government itself becomes an addict. To combat flagging sales, virtually every state has reconfigured its lottery to increase the number of drawings or boost the size of the jackpot.
Unfortunately, a few of Hawai'i's politicians and lobbyists are likely to beat the drum for legalizing gambling, receiving bountiful campaign contributions and perks from gambling interests and avoiding difficult responsible fiscal policy, planning and governance.
• State-sponsored lotteries may not provide sustainable income for earmarked purposes. A year ago, a press piece reported that the Pennsylvania lottery was in "financial crisis" and that funds would be insufficient to fund a senior citizen program. A 1999 Educational Research Service report found that lotteries were contributing less than 4 percent of state and local education budgets in the 11 states targeting their lottery revenues to education.
In March 2000, the Palmetto Family Council, the South Carolina state branch of the Family Research Council, studied the effect of the lottery in its neighboring state of Georgia and concluded that the Georgia lottery's success relies on heavy play from poor people and minorities and that for the past two years, the Georgia lottery has failed to produce enough revenue to meet its required payments to state coffers.
Robert T. Bobilin
Research chairman, Hawai'i Coalition Against Legalized Gambling
Handcuffed patient calls for strong action
We must speak out on behalf of the "Man handcuffed to hospital gate" (Honolulu Advertiser, Aug. 30) and on behalf of anyone who has experienced the trauma and suffering caused by mental illness — very real and devastating disorder.
As advocates for mental health consumers and members of our community, we are outraged at the inappropriate treatment of a man who was in the care of the Department of Public Safety and was court-ordered to be transferred to the Hawai'i State Hospital on Aug. 29.
These officers have a duty to transport patients and assure their safe admittance to the Hawai'i State Hospital. Instead, the man was left handcuffed at the gate while hospital staff tried to make arrangements for admission. This is inexcusable, regardless of any "miscommunication."
In the larger view, we strongly object to the use of leg-irons, shackles and handcuffs used for an individual with mental illness when he or she is transported to and from court and having to appear bound before the judge requesting release into the community, even when the person is nonviolent and not a flight risk. Those present are given the impression that he or she is a criminal. The person appearing is further embarrassed and shamed.
We look forward to publicly hearing the results of Director Ted Sakai's investigation, affirmation that the officers involved are strongly reprimanded or dismissed, and that appropriate measures are taken to ensure that this will never happen again.
Benjamin L. Carroll III
President, Mental Health Association in Hawai'i
David Berggren
President, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill-Hawai'i
Bud Bowles
Executive director, United Self-Help
Helen Chapin
President, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill-O'ahu
Clinic closure counters mission statement
The mission statement of the Queen's Medical Center taken from the Web site is as follows: "The Queen's Medical Center is an ohana committed to leadership in preserving, protecting and perpetuating the health of all people of Hawai'i, recognizing the special health needs of native Hawaiians.
"We shall accomplish this mission through education, research and the provision of quality health care. Our service is extended in the spirit of aloha as guided by vision and ideals of our founders."
I would like to ask the administration at Queen's how eliminating a one-of-a-kind valuable service like the hospital dental program is consistent with this mission? At this time, this program is the only "safety net" citizens of Hawai'i have in case of serious dental problem or emergency. The dental residents are on call 24/7/365. How does eliminating this program help preserve, protect and perpetuate the health of all people of Hawai'i?
If money is the issue as the administration of Queen's declares, how is saving 2.5 percent ($200,000) of a roughly $8 million the hospital will lose this year going to help? I wonder if there isn't a better choice rather than a one-of-a-kind, truly valuable program? These are some of the questions I feel the administration at Queen's needs to answer not only to those involved intimately with the program but to the people of Hawai'i in general.
I doubt Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV, the founders of the hospital, would feel the hospital's present actions are being guided by their original vision and ideals.
John M. Kurahara, D.D.S.
Tourists, locals alike must protect Hawaii
Recently, while enjoying a morning on the North Shore, I observed: a dead eel, speared and left in the sand; a very large dead file fish, speared and left in the sand; and, from a vantage point on Kamehameha Highway above Waimea Bay, I clearly saw a small blue dive boat motor over a pod of dolphins, not once but twice.
It is incredibly frustrating and heartbreaking to see residents treat their Islands with such disrespect.
Hawai'i is a paradise, you know that, and the ocean surrounding it is wonderful and amazing. However, the environmental quality of both ocean and land is declining rapidly.
The reef I usually visit here has much fewer fish now than it did several years ago. The terrestrial situation is even worse, with introduced exotic weeds and animals out-competing the native and endemic plants and animals.
There is no good reason not to respect and enforce marine and environmental quality laws and take care of this place. Both visitors and residents need to be educated about not only what is here now, but also what was here, and most importantly, how to protect what is left.
Educate the children; educate the people who use the oceans. Educate the tourists, too, for it is this very resource they are coming to see that is quickly disappearing.
Tanya J. Meyer
Chico, Calif.
Where are advocates for regular education?
Anger, sadness — emotions running through my mind as I visited class after class during Moanalua High School's open house.
I can still see those antiquated books with copyrights dating 15 to 20 years ago. I can still hear "Sorry, books cannot go home. We do not have enough for every student." One college counselor for the whole school. One regular counselor for every 350 students.
What are our priorities. What are we doing for our future? Surely, our priorities are not in education. As the governor, the Department of Education, the Legislature and the judicial system battle over special education needs, the regular education students are left with almost nothing — no advocates, no funds, no books.
Thank goodness they still have caring teachers who work their best with next to nothing.
Jo Ann Sugiyama
'Greatest Generation' has great successors
Mahalo for your publication of John Balzar's Sept. 2 column, "Greatest Generation has its dark side." It needed to be said.
My generation did a pretty darn good job in meeting the challenges that confronted it, i.e., the depression, World War II, the Cold War, etc.; and I am proud of the role we played in the preservation of this country's quality of life. We were ordinary people who just happened to live during extraordinary times.
However, I believe the portrayal of my generation as having been the "greatest" is a frightfully wrong impression to convey to those generations that follow. I am an old guy with middle-aged kids and grown grandkids. I have seen the way they have turned out and rate them second to none. I have every confidence they will meet the challenges of their time equally well.
William F. Emerick
A 'Center for Korean Books' appropriate
Hurrah for Sook Ki Moon. She should be noted and revered in local library history the way we honor Ben Franklin and Andrew Carnegie nationally. All three saw a need and did something about it.
The sad side of her notable accomplishment was that this important service could only be accomplished with private money.
In Hawai'i, where funding for public libraries is $17.83 per capita compared with a national average of $29, taking an enlightened pluralistic approach to public library service is almost impossible. Immigrants who do not yet speak or read English often have to settle for a literal "drop in the bucket."
Moon is correct when she says, "People who read can improve themselves."
Would it not be admirable if the public library system would formally recognize the Korean collection by naming it "The Center for Korean Books" at McCully Library?
Other collections at other libraries might also be developed, depending on need and interest. "The Center for Chinese Books" at Liliha Library would be a possibility. A much more low-key, hard-struggle effort has been under way there, but the results are the same — high circulation of "foreign" materials.
Guidelines for these language centers could be simple:
• One staff member should be fluent in the specified language or a translator should be hired for set hours to provide assistance to the public and to librarians.
• Signs should be multilingual.
• Titles should be listed in the library database so they can be made available statewide upon request.
All that is needed is a mandate from the people and the money.
Sylvia C. Mitchell
Librarian
