Letters to the Editor
Whitney Anderson blew chance with GOP
In the early 1990s, the Hawai'i GOP reached out and solicited involvement and leadership from the Hawaiian community, particularly as daily news stories about the Hawaiian Homelands programs and the leases to political machine cronies were in our papers here and on the Mainland.
I personally approached Whitney Anderson and asked him to help frame a Republican Party approach to Hawaiian issues that would be positive, inclusive and progressive.
Anderson's response, in words less temperate than these, was to tell me to mind my own business and let him solve the Hawaiian issues.
Along with others active in the party at that time, we organized a forum on Hawaiian issues, which was held at the Airport Plaza Hotel. While many Republican officeholders, including Barbara Marumoto, Mary George and Jane Tatibouet, attended to listen and learn, Whitney was a no-show.
I went to Washington, D.C., to meet with White House and Interior Department officials and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp on Hawaiian concerns. Secretary Kemp came to Hawai'i and proposed setting up enterprise zones for Hawaiians in Hawaiian Homelands and economically disadvantaged areas. Since then, I have heard many highly respected Hawaiian leaders speak at Republican meetings in which they shared influence and shaped policy.
Without question, both major political parties have failed to provide solutions to important Hawaiian issues. But the Republican Party has had its doors open, for many years, and I cannot abide Whitney Anderson's political shot (Letters, March 20). He had his chance to help, big time, and he blew it.
Jared H. Jossem
Fresh Start helps break prison cycle
I am writing this letter in support of Fresh Start Inc., where I am currently a resident of the program.
Fresh Start has helped me out a lot, and I would like to see other people who are incarcerated given the same opportunity the program has given me.
I am an ex-offender who has gone through the revolving doors of prison most of my adult life, approximately 20 years. I am finally breaking that cycle through Fresh Start and learning the living skills in this structured, supportive program. I never had structure or support in my life, and now I have gained some insight and have the support.
I have more self-confidence and self-esteem than I have ever had in my life. I am currently learning job skills I never thought I could learn, and I am angered to hear false allegations in The Honolulu Advertiser. These allegations are not helping ex-offenders (like myself) to finally get a chance to turn our lives around. People like me need programs and people with the dedication like the staff and program of Fresh Start.
Ronald Burgo
Aloha Airlines slighted in articles, letters
The letters and articles appearing in your paper are always negative toward Aloha Airlines. Why is that? Does this paper favor Hawaiian Airlines? If so, why?
Aloha employees have never favored a merger. Facts about Hawaiian's profits are misleading. Does anyone know how much debt Hawaiian is in? Does anyone take into consideration the amount of money Hawaiian Air owes for its new aircraft?
The state bailed out Hawaiian Air 10 or so years ago. The investment group that was to take controlling share of the merged airline helped to bail out Hawaiian, also. It is looking for its payback now.
Why do think Hawaiian would try to grab all of the power? Maybe because it needs the money to pay back the people who bailed it out.
Jeff Butterfield
Curbside recycling is the only way to go
Regarding the March 14 "Why not recycle?" article: I lived in Canada and Oregon for a total of 37 years and participated in both of their curbside recycling programs since they were offered.
When I moved to Hawai'i, I was confused to find that here on an island, of all places, we had no curbside recycling services, much less any type of convenient recycling programs available to the public.
About a year ago, a friend let me know about a curbside recycling program called O'ahu Community Recycling, which she had been enjoying for the past year. I signed up, received my curbside containers and have been a loyal supporter ever since.
It's great to know that somebody cares to do something about recycling in the Islands. Thanks, OCR, for your invaluable services.
Jane Cursey
Arafat's terrorism shouldn't be rewarded
I applaud your March 19 editorial criticizing U.S. pressure on Israel to withdraw from the PLO terror centers.
A recent USA Today article quotes the leader of a major Palestinian terrorist organization who makes it crystal clear that he takes orders from Yasser Arafat. Israel has claimed this for months. Even after this admission, the U.S. gutlessly rewards Arafat by pressuring Israel to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank.
Arafat's failure to abide by the Oslo Accords, which among other things require him to renounce terrorism, prevent it and prohibit those living in the PLO areas from possessing arms (other than the security force), underlines his untrustworthiness.
Recently, Arafat called upon his people to be millions of martyrs marching upon Jerusalem. That speaks for itself.
If toppling Saddam Hussein is our goal, we should do it. The millions of Arabs who hate the U.S. will not change their minds based on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. They hate us for our religious freedom, open society, etc.
Did we pressure Great Britain to negotiate with the IRA before the IRA agreed to lay down its arms and abide by the agreements? No. Israel should not be treated differently.
Nate Salant
Palestinian cause born of injustices
I have read your March 19 editorial, "U.S. demands on Israel can't stand scrutiny," and see it from a different view.
First, Israeli forces generally never comply with any demand to pull back from the Palestinian zones. They are actually occupying new pieces of territories every day, and they are destroying homes, cars, airports, roads and even streetlights that have nothing to do with terrorism but with making normal people's lives harder.
This is what leads young men, who have been in these territories for generation after generation, to defend their country of "Palestine" from people they consider outsiders. They are willing to give their lives for that cause.
Second, the majority of the 1,400 Palestinians who where killed were civilians, and over 300 of those were under the age of 15.
Third, it is not terrorism, "plain and simple," as the author of your editorial has put it, that led Israel to its extreme course, but the Israeli government's decision to force a solution on the Palestinians: to accept what they offer them (small pieces of territory here and there with no border) and to forget the rest of the territories demanded by the Palestinians, including part of Jerusalem.
Fourth, you cannot send Palestinians away from their home towns they were in for thousands of years because, historically, Israel was in that part of the region 2,000 years ago.
In the end, I agree with Yitzhak Rabin, "Better the pains of peace than the agonies of war." The whole world has demanded the establishment of two states side by side and the return of occupied territories by Israel to Syria and Lebanon for peace to be effective and lasting.
Mohamed Ayech
Damascus, Syria
Aloha spirit goes only so far for homeless
Honolulu was recently ranked among the dozen "meanest" cities in the nation, based on our so-called "treatment" of the homeless population. So?
I didn't realize it was wrong for legitimate local businesses to not want homeless drug addicts urinating on doorsteps, sleeping in doorways, "dirtying" the atmosphere and scaring away local families.
I also failed to realize that somehow, these non-taxpaying individuals are legally entitled to command a certain amount of our tax dollars for benches on which to sleep and use drugs. By removing benches from Fort Street Mall to combat a growing number of homeless (many from the Mainland), we somehow violate their rights?
If Jeremy Harris "desperately wants to move homeless people out of the city," then he's got my vote during the next election. I'm sorry, but my aloha spirit only goes so far.
John Kunimura
Today's plaintiffs forget their history
I find it hard to believe that Hawaiians haven't written in to comment on your brief coverage on March 13 of the complaint in federal court seeking the end of programs benefiting Native Hawaiians.
It's ironic that one of the plaintiffs in this case is Thurston Twigg-Smith, former publisher and owner of your newspaper and the grandson of Lorrin Thurston, who, in 1887, drafted the first race-based constitution in the kingdom's history, which immediately deprived hundreds of Chinese citizens of the right to vote and created special voting privileges for the wealthy.
The plaintiffs want fairness right this moment and care nothing of the mockery made of democracy and fairness by the ancestors of Twigg-Smith and Freddy Rice, who led the illegal takeover of the kingdom. How odd that these two should now lead the fight to end Hawaiian "entitlements."
Jonathan K. Osorio
Center for Hawaiian Studies
University of Hawai'i-Manoa
Sending Sia to prison is best for students
Was that a paid endorsement by June Jones for his friend, Sukamto Sia? His friend is charged with stealing, cheating and plundering the assets of a bank that he used for his mad money.
Jones' suggestion that Sia give instructional lectures is without merit. Sending a white-collar criminal to prison is the best example for teaching students business and personal ethics.
June Jones should take a coaching position with one of those big-time Mainland universities that will pay him more money.
Bernard Keane
IHS must make difficult choices
I would like to clarify and expand on Mike Coleman's March 3 commentary. Mike met with me to talk about the family camped out near the IHS Women & Families Shelter on Christmas.
I think we would all agree that children are indeed our future and should not be living on the streets on Christmas or any other day. Mike reported that "before you get angry at IHS for not helping this family, he talked to me and he came away with a different perspective: The agency didn't have the money it needed."
Money and lack of shelter space in these instances are not the issues. Families and individuals sometimes return to the street by choice and priorities.
Sometimes they are not ready or willing to accept the help available during the average one-to-three-month stay at the Institute for Human Services and would rather live on the streets than abide by our recommendations and accept our assistance to make the difficult changes. These changes can include acknowledging a mental health problem or acknowledging and seeking treatment for a chemical dependency, a more common problem faced by the families.
Because we care, we frequently extend services beyond three months, often because children are involved. It is especially difficult to turn the children away, as I'm sure you can imagine.
However, after a period of time and chances, it becomes clear that we are not succeeding, but rather we are enabling the destructive lifestyle to continue. Our policy is to then discontinue service. It is awkward and very inconvenient to our neighbors when a family "settles" in our neighborhood. The police become very aware of these situations, as does Child Protective Services.
Success is not guaranteed or automatic, nor does it occur when we think it should. But we see lives change all the time, which means that IHS does not give up on a family or an individual. At the moment they are ready, they are welcomed back pending space availability.
Although we do not do a formal outreach, we occasionally "check in" with these families and individuals, because we care, so that they know the IHS door is open to them.
Mike was confident that this family would respond to him, and we assured him of our availability to help. Yet families with their precious children do continue to exist on the streets — not just on Christmas and not because of insufficient funds at IHS.
Lynn Maunakea
Executive director
Institute for Human Services
