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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Letters to the Editor

Don't erect a grate over the Blowhole

Why should one of our most beautiful coastlines and natural attractions be altered with a bunch of ugly steel bars over the Halona Blowhole?

Not to be insensitive to the loss of a life, but let's be honest with ourselves here. When a local resident dies while fishing or picking 'opihi, there are no outcries from the family to post signs or place gates to deny access, let alone lawsuits.

Stop wasting Hawai'i taxpayer money and keep our coastline as beautiful as God created it.

Wade Yoshiyama


Ala Moana trees still being charcoal-burned

The trees — old banyans and others — are still being charcoal-burned at Ala Moana Beach Park.

Years ago, a man carrying his burning coals to the base of a now-burned and buried tree said to me, "Fire good for tree." I suppose he was thinking of the forests that burn, then sprout anew.

In our parks, they don't sprout anew. The taxpayer pays for replacements. No thought is given to the tree, a living entity that surely doesn't enjoy this kind of treatment any more than a man would like his feet burned.

Nearly 10 years ago, I took my granddaughter to Magic Island. We took pictures of a dozen trees that had been burned so badly that she could wiggle through the base. Now they are gone, chopped down for "safety reasons."

Old ladies are hauled into court for feeding a bird, but no one is fined or jailed for burning trees.

Rosemarie Tucker


Sen. Menor put family before his ambitions

As a long-time resident of Mililani and Sen. Ron Menor's district, I was enthusiastically supporting him as a candidate for lieutenant governor. He has done a great job representing the people of Mililani, and I am confident he would have provided positive leadership in one of our state's higher offices. I am disappointed about his decision not to run.

However, when I learned that he was not running because his wife needed help with their three children and his disabled mother, I was reminded of why we need more elected officials like him. Too often we read about politicians who worry more about their personal ambitions than the job they were elected to perform.

The fact that Sen. Menor has insisted on putting his family first instead of letting ambition skew his priorities reinforces my confidence in his character.

Yes, I'm sorry he won't be on the ballot, but I'm glad he is running for re-election to the Senate. I feel better knowing that consumers, working people and Hawai'i families will continue to have a strong voice in the Legislature.

Tom Oshiro
Mililani


Repay your country by voting this time

In January 1961, I was an 11-year-old Boy Scout usher for President Kennedy's inaugural address. That was the day JFK called all Americans to civic duty: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Bam! It hit me. That's true. One cannot just take what America gives without giving something back. What a revelation for a youth who had only known the comfortable '50s.

Kennedy's call for civic action was restated later in the 1960s with another truth: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." In other words, civic indifference is harmful.

As Sept. 11 reminded us, freedom is not free. Each of us owes a debt to repay America. What smaller price could we pay for our incomparable blessings than voting? Come on, you non-voters, it's part of one day every couple of years. On the scale of inconvenient things, isn't it less than one accident-caused snarl on the freeway?

Oh, I know. You excuse yourself from voting because you rationalize that you don't know the candidates' positions or you don't understand the issues. But that's just a cop-out, isn't it? Couldn't you take an hour — one-third of an NFL game — to find out? Is that too high a price to pay for your great good fortune?

And don't stay home on Election Day because you're not sure which candidate is right or which solutions will work. An election is not a test with correct answers. And who says the candidates have sure-fire answers? Just use your common sense.

But choose. Stand up. Speak out by quietly voting. Repay your country for what it has given you. Otherwise don't complain and at least be honest enough to admit that you are part of the problem.

Lunsford Dole Phillips


Federal government rife with dishonesty

We have been overwhelmed in recent weeks with news about the steps being taken by Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission to assure investors that corporate financial reports are true and complete. Now perhaps Congress can focus its attention on eliminating the dishonesty in its own accounts and that of the federal government generally.

Remember last year when Congress classified over $4 billion to pay for the 2000 Census as "emergency spending" to get around its own budget caps and avoid having to treat it as an ordinary operating expense? Does this sound at all similar to WorldCom's fraudulent classification of $4 billion of operating expenses as capital investment?

Or Congress' shifting of over $2 billion of 2001 military spending into the prior fiscal year by pushing the first payday of the new year back a few days, in order to make the 2001 budget balance?

Or shifting over $20 billion of 2000 revenue into 2001 by giving corporations an extra two weeks to make estimated tax payments at yearend 2000, also to make the 2001 budget balance.

Or perhaps the biggest federal accounting fraud of all: failure to show the trillions of dollars the federal government owes to the Social Security and Medicare "trust funds" as liabilities.

The federal accounting irregularities are so bad that its own General Accounting Office has refused to certify for the last five years that federal departments follow generally accepted accounting prin-ciples.

As David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director, once said, "If the SEC had jurisdiction over the executive and legislative branches, many of us would be in jail."

Thomas J. Macdonald


Greek Festival offers wonderful delicacies

I want to thank the women of the Philoptochos Society of Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Pacific.

I moved to O'ahu recently and learned that the women of the parish gather weekly to bake in preparation for the Greek Festival. I offered to help and was welcomed with warmth and fellowship into a group that gives its all to create hand-made delicacies for our community to savor each year. I enjoyed being part of this worthwhile fund-raising activity and appreciated the efforts of this enthusiastic group to make the work fun. It was delightful to see the care and pride that go into all the preparations.

I hope there will be a large turnout to attend the festival on Saturday, Aug. 24, and Sunday, Aug. 25, at Ala Moana Park.

These people sincerely wish to share the best of their ethnic flavor and care deeply about the good works to which the proceeds are applied. I feel fortunate to count them among my first friends and wish them great success in this wonderful event.

Sherre Ftaclas


Build new lives, not new for-profit prison

Your Aug. 14 editorial "Whoa! Not so fast on building new jail" makes a very solid argument for the governor, the Legislature and the people of Hawai'i to re-examine the idea of contracting with a private, for-profit business to build a new prison for the state of Hawai'i.

You are exactly right when you suggest that the current state prison population could be reduced by appropriately placing many prisoners, parolees and probationers in licensed (credible and effective) substance abuse/drug treatment programs. In progressive states that are sincerely interested in helping persons reform their lives, in protecting the public and in conserving limited state tax dollars, your suggestions have proven effective.

In these states, getting prisoners into effective substance abuse/drug treatment programs has proven effective in reducing recidivism, reducing prison populations, stopping the prison revolving door, protecting the poor and saving taxpayers the enormous cost of building more prisons.

Well in excess of $20,000 each, the annual cost of warehousing prisoners (without treatment programs in many private, for-profit operations) could better be spent in changing prisoners' lives through drug treatment, mental health services and completion of high school education.

The rush of some states to seek contracts for private business interests to build and operate state prisons (and local jails) should be more closely examined. Solid, objective research on the effectiveness of these for-profit businesses is still needed to determine if in fact they can protect the public, reduce crime, reform people's lives and save taxpayer dollars.

Jeff Dongvillo
Former chairman, Michigan Prison Overcrowding Project


School vouchers getting little support

Your survey of the gubernatorial candidates on the issue of allowing parents to spend their tax money on the school of their choice through the use of vouchers revealed that the candidates do indeed have various takes on the issue.

However, given that Superintendent Pat Hamamoto has commented that the DOE employs "20,000 to 40,000" people, as well as thousands of related union workers in the public school system, no candidate would risk jeopardizing that vote by fully endorsing vouchers.

Andy Anderson is happy with the No Child Left Behind Law because he does not have to take a stand on choice for poor children, because the federal government requires states to develop a system providing an "out" from failing schools. This addresses the needs of the child first over the needs of the bureaucracy. Anderson then promotes moving special-needs children into segregated public schools, which could violate federal law.

Linda Lingle wants to look at the idea of choice for special-education students who are not being served even after eight years of the Felix Consent Decree. Every day of services missed for these children increases the chance that they will never be able to achieve lifetime independence. She is a voice of compassion for these children.

If the money "followed the child," parents would be able to choose private, special, charter, magnet or home schooling. Schools that matched the needs of the child would flourish, replacing the one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter educational system that exists now in public school. Teachers would no longer be burdened with overcrowded classrooms and would be able to teach more along the lines of their training and expertise.

It seems that the Advertiser itself has a bias against public choice when it uses catch phrases such as "take money that would have gone to public schools." The money belongs to the taxpayers, not the public schools. Why not let the parents decide?

Laura Brown
Mililani


Melting pot unity makes America strong

Isn't America's strength its unity, not its diversity? For only America defines its nationality in terms of common principles instead of a common bloodline.

That allowed immigrants, like all my grandparents, to leave the "old country" behind and become one with other Americans as they could never become, say, Mexican, German, African or Irish. They didn't come and doggedly cling to the differences that caused them to flee the home of their birth.

America is truly a melting pot used to forge new alloys. Alloys merge dissimilar metals, shed their weaknesses, multiply their strengths, and create a new metal that is different from any of its parts and better. The parts may still be recognizable in the alloy, but the alloy is unified and can never be fractured into its original parts.

Isn't the term "local" just another example of the American melting pot? It belongs to no bloodline, so anyone willing to embrace its tenets can become one. Even people whose ancestors hated one another joined to create this unified new "nationality." I am sure it is "local" that is the true source of Hawai'i's aloha, by the way.

Or, would you rather have a mosaic with each new-born infant assigned to a little colored box separated by clear borders from other little boxes?

George L. Berish


Sunset on the Beach brought us together

It is really good that they had Sunset on the Beach in Wai'anae. It brought the community together and welcomed people who don't even live in the area of Wai'anae to visit and enjoy.

Over 20,000 people went to the Sunset on the Beach. Billy V. and FM 100.3 helped bring more people, which helped bring our entire community closer.

With all the conflicts going on today, it's good to have something to make people happy.

Robin K. Roberts
Waipahu Intermediate School, Grade 8