Letters to the Editor
Publicly financed elections questionable
Your Dec. 9 editorial advocating publicly financed elections is based on some questionable premises. For example, you asserted that "raising and spending this much money does little good for anyone."
Actually, $5.4 million in voluntary contributions for a gubernatorial race seems like a bargain, compared to the $1.4 million or so of involuntary taxes squandered on the recent congressional special election. I doubt Gov. Lingle would have appropriated money for that fiasco. I suspect she'll find, and put an end to, far more than $5.4 million in questionable government spending in the next four years.
People gave so much money to Linda Lingle's campaign because they were fed up with corruption and business as usual. And yes, as frequent contributors to Lingle's campaign, our family expects something in return — better governance.
Jim Henshaw
Kailua
Support for Knights reflected in fans
Your article on the state high school football championship game quoted St. Louis coach Delbert Tengan as saying, "Through the credit of our coaching staff, our players and support staff, we hung in there."
In the state tournament, St. Louis did more than just "hang in there" — they dominated (earlier St. Louis victories: 41-23, 51-0). The Castle players were clearly physically overmatched at many of the positions, and this was reflected in the 34-15 loss.
St. Louis has some very gifted athletes from all over the state. As a private school, it has the privilege to reach out beyond its location in Kaimuki to fill the roster of a rather large team. As a public school, Castle draws its football players from students who live in the neighborhoods around the school.
The crowd reflected that: More than twice as many people on the Castle sideline, young and old; many sitting in the rain to support the boys from "down the street." On the other sideline, a sparser crowd with most people sitting in the blue seats out of the rain.
There was hope on the Castle side that the underdogs could pull out a win. There was a lot to cheer about when the courageous Black Knights scored, blocked a punt and stuffed a runner in the backfield. But there was not a whole lot of surprise that the Knights didn't come away with the victory.
Dennis Kawaharada
Castle, Class of 1969
Why must accidents close all traffic lanes?
I cannot believe this. Yet another traffic-stopping accident on the freeway just after the H-1/H-2 merge? This brings back the subject of my Nov. 6 letter, Panos Prevedouros' letter of Nov. 22 and Maurice Velez's letter of Dec. 2. Is anyone out there listening?
Employees were almost two hours late, meetings and appointments were missed, and I can only imagine what other disruptions there were. Reports indicate there were no serious injuries, so why were all lanes closed?
If there are no life-threatening situations that must be attended to, the vehicles involved need to be moved off the artery so that traffic can flow.
The irony of it all ... The Advertiser staff preparing the online article chose to end the piece with, "Police said the backup should be cleared by about 1:30 p.m. and should not disrupt traffic to the University of Hawai'i football game at the Aloha Stadium today."
Right ... as if that was the primary reason for getting the H-1 flowing again.
Gary K. Hashimoto
Waipahu
Respect other faiths during the 'holidays'
L.E. Harris' letter, "Let's Keep Christ in Christmas," contains a lot of inaccuracies and seems to miss the point of the holiday season.
Harris states that "most Christians agree that Jesus was born on December 25th." In fact, most Christian theologians believe that Jesus was born in the spring. When the early Christian church decided in the early 4th century to begin celebrating Jesus' birth, it picked Dec. 25 to overlay its new holiday on the pagan winter solstice celebration that begins on that date.
Harris then goes on to vent about no one being allowed to say "Merry Christmas." Anybody can see that Christmas greetings are everywhere today, so it seems that Harris' anger is due to there also being "Happy Holidays" greetings.
The fundamental reason for the increasing use of "Happy Holidays" is that a growing number of Americans are not Christians who celebrate Christmas.
Harris is so preoccupied with "not letting anybody steal Christmas from us" that Harris seems to have forgotten why we offer holiday greetings to others in the first place. To wish a Christian a "Merry Christmas" is appropriate, but in the same way that one would probably not intentionally wish a Christian a "Happy Hanukkah," knowing they do not celebrate it, what's the point of insisting on only saying "Merry Christmas" to those who do not celebrate Christmas?
Harris goes on to minimize the meaning of Hanukkah and Kwanza by suggesting that they are only meaningful because of their proximity to Christmas, which indicates a lack of historical understanding and a lack of goodwill to people of other faiths.
Harris further claims the exchange of gifts on Hanukkah is "due to the gift-giving that grew up around Christmas." While this may have some truth to it, the more accurate truth is that Hanukkah has been affected by the same commercialization and consumeristic pressures that have transformed Christmas in recent times.
Finally, Harris' exhortation to "refuse to say 'Happy Holidays' " is not only exclusionary but is really quite ironic since Christmas is still weeks away and yet we are right in the middle of Hanukkah.
Happy Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanza, Christmas, Diwali, New Year's and what are those other ones? Oh, the heck with it. Happy Holidays!
C. & N. Halevi
Man should have put dog's needs first
As a devoted dog lover, I was inclined at first to side with the poor man on a hunger strike because of his dog being held an extra 90 days at the state quarantine facility in Kea'au, on the Big Island. However, as his story unraveled, I realized that Mr. Schnurr could have avoided all the humbug had he remained on the Mainland until his sick dog died before moving to Kailua-Kona.
Instead, he put his needs before the needs of his dog and made the move anyway. Vaccinating Chocolate for rabies, then putting him through a long airline trip plus a stay of any length in quarantine is enough to kill any dog whose immune system is severely compromised.
Schnurr should quit the media hype, put himself up at one of the many B&Bs in Kea'au and stop pinning the blame for his irresponsible decision on Hawai'i's strict quarantine laws. We are an island home. Relaxing our quarantine laws would be a serious mistake. With West Nile Virus and other contagious diseases a potential threat to us, perhaps it is time to consider quarantine laws for human travelers, too.
Josephine L. Keliipio
Kailua, Kona, Big Island
Dedication to job can never be replaced
I am a striking nurse at Kuakini Medical Center. Many of our nurses have worked at Kuakini for more than 10 years. We enjoy our job and truly care for our patients. However, over the past several years, work conditions have dramatically changed. We are left shorthanded and mandated to work overtime.
Our cries for help fell on deaf ears. Nurses became ill, tired and frustrated. Nurses have tried over the years to improve conditions here but only heard excuses and received broken promises. It is sad that our only option is to strike. Nurses are professionals who will stand strong for what we believe is right. We want our work environment to improve for the safety of our patients and for our well-being.
Kuakini has brought in replacement nurses to do our job but they can never replace the dedication and true caring that our nurses have given every day for all these years.
Jill Carvalho
Mere Council vote can change ownership
No longer does it take a group of businessmen backed by the threat of armed violence by a squad of Marines from a foreign country to steal land that does not belong to them.
Now all it takes is someone who wants another person's land, and a vote of the City Council, backed by the threat of legalized armed intervention, fines and/or jail sentence to do the same trick.
A lot of progress has been made during the last hundred or so years.
Arnold Bitner
Careless action will hurt state in future
Two letters caught my eye. The first one was by Kyle Tanaka responding to another writer who wrote about "Slums in 'Ewa." The second letter, by Doug Swanek, was about the problem of littering.
Island life is much slower-paced than the Mainland, and families who live in homes that are piled with "things," where yards are buried under who knows what, and houses that are less than easy to look at just don't seem to bother longtime residents.
I would venture to say that it is very easy not to care about throwing things in the street when one doesn't care about the conditions where one lives. If your neighborhood is a dump, then it must be OK to dispose of trash from a moving vehicle, right?
This is the attitude I see almost daily and I have resolved myself to the fact that if you want to live like that, it's your island and it's your economy and when people stop coming here because it looks more like East Los Angeles than paradise, well, that's the price you pay for not caring.
Scott Glasgow
Kailua
State needs a Stanford-type university
The Advertiser runs columns on a regular basis on what the state must do to recharge its economy, but must implement something beyond tourism. Most of these columns are generalizations with few specifics, and offer little beyond improved tourism.
Occasionally there is a call for a university environment to enhance "technological growth." But few, if any, recommendations go beyond an Advertiser editorial for "improving the University of Hawai'i."
The Democrats missed an opportunity to establish a university environment similar to that in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and the Research Triangle area down south. Hopefully Linda Lingle will see she has unused assets to build a similar environment. How?
Jolt the Big Island and state economy by $1 billion, and provide for long-term economic diversity. Give away the current 400 state-owned acres in Kailua, Kona allocated for a "future" UH site to an entity or individual that will establish another Stanford or equivalent.
Consider the financial leverage of $27 million in annual payments for a state bond. That would provide $200 million up front for a basic infrastructure to the giveaway property. Make the deal ultra attractive to Mainlanders for their investment. Sweeten the pot further by assigning operation of the National Energy Lab to the new university. Let the private operators firm up the science behind generating power from the ocean and deal with the technology transfer of same.
Give Independent U some of the time UH has with the telescopes on Mauna Kea to ensure the private university also has a good physics and math department, necessary in modern cross training of other sciences as is taking place in biotechnology. With a promise of close access to ocean fisheries and agriculture on the Big Island, biotech is a science that should attract top researchers.
Short term, this proposal is a huge jolt for the state. University construction and supporting housing expenditures could amount to $1 billion to 2 billion.
The long-term effect is more important. Such a project is an incubator for new businesses and could end up driving the state economy into this century.
It is not privatization of the UH system. It is providing a competitive environment to drive both universities that is similar to Stanford driving UC Berkeley, or vice versa. State lawmakers have thus far failed to realize this competition, plus simultaneous cooperative synergy of groups or pairs of universities give an extra boost to new business development.
This land has been vacant for years. The state is so poor it can't even find money to repair existing UH structures. It's not going to build a UH campus in our lifetime, so let's employ unused assets and find a way to get the campus we need.
The proposed 30-acre community college isn't going to do more than provide some modern buildings for training hotel support staff currently done elsewhere. To incubate new businesses, true research universities are required.
Come on, Linda, you can find $27 million somewhere and a squad of leaders to hit the road selling this idea. Bill Gates should love it!
Dan Roudebush
Kailua, Kona
