Letters to the Editor
Children should be taught proper drinking
As a British citizen who has spent most of the last four years living on Moloka'i, I find the American, and particularly the Hawai'i, obsession with teenage drinking most bizarre ("Adults who let teens drink would be liable under bill," April 18).
Why not legislate to make adults liable for allowing children as young as 16 to be let loose in automobiles, which kill far more people than alcohol? What about making adults liable for allowing children in their teens to enlist in the military, which recent events have shown to be potentially fatal?
A young person can marry at 16, vote at 18, die for his or her country at 18, but not have a glass of wine with a meal until 21 — surely a classical example of the United States' inability to consider the wider aspects of any particular issue.
My wife and I allowed our 36-year-old son to sip a small amount of wine, usually watered down, with meals from an early age, with the effect that in adulthood he drinks with extreme moderation, a method generally accepted by most European parents.
John Parsons
Maunaloa, Moloka'i
Condemn parking lots to provide restrooms
I see published complaints about the lack of restrooms in Chinatown. A long, long time ago, there was a lane next to the Hawaii Theatre that went in from Bethel Street and turned sharply to connect with Hotel Street, and among the establishments there was a very large men's restroom. All that's been replaced by a green space (but it cannot be used as a restroom).
Also, many more years ago, there were pay toilets, especially around railroad depots, that charged 25 cents to open the locks to the stalls. This was at a time when a loaf of bread was 5 cents, illustrating the importance of being able to go when needed.
There are some empty lots in Chinatown run by APCOA to collect parking fees for the owners. The city can condemn those lots for the public good, build restrooms, run pay toilets but still charge 25 cents, and collect the proceeds for itself instead of APCOA. And on upper levels, there can be legalized entertainment of various kinds requiring payment, filling the city's coffers to overflowing.
Ted Chernin
Looting in Iraq normal following upheaval
As all who have watched historical movies know, plunder and rape are the spoils of war. Past armies were raised on the promise of personal enrichment. Some of us have personal or family remembrances of wartime outrages.
Most "civilized" countries display spoils of war in public squares or in museums for all to see on their cultural visits. (In the not-so-distant past, trainloads of valuables found their way to victorious Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or numbered accounts in Switzerland.) All upheavals and revolutions are accompanied by rapine directed against fellow nationals, as many survivors can tell.
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his regime has been advocated by an overwhelming majority of nations — even those who opposed our war in Iraq and chose to remain neutral. That the disappearance of that regime and its authority should result in revolutionary chaos, including looting, was inevitable. To manifest surprise as professed by our critics abroad is sheer hypocrisy.
It has only been days since the sudden fall of the regime; the looting by the populace started as our military was still fighting; the chorus of indignation from the neutrals started within hours.
Whether you agree or disagree with our war in Iraq, it is a fact that our troops are not plundering nor raping. There are no boatloads of loot on the way to America. As our military forces clear the way, they are followed closely by boatloads of humanitarian aid coming from the United States. American police are on the way to restore law and order.
All you can remember from our critical neutrals is the distant sound of yapping.
George Cassarno
Council must keep cap on gifts to officials
Here we go again. When it is uncomfortable or inconvenient, get rid of it. The City Council wants to lift the $200 cap on gifts to city officials.
The reasons cited are problems created by their being invited to fund-raisers costing more than $200, and when visitors from Asia bring gifts, it's too embarrassing to ask for the gift's price.
My advice is, keep the $200 cap and maintain your credibility. If the fund-raising ticket is over the cap, pay the difference. Or like many of us, if you can't afford it, don't go.
As for the Asian gifts, you are eloquent enough to ask "how much" — or just say no.
Ignacio A. Torres
Substitute teacher bill should be signed
Dear Gov. Lingle,
Just as you eloquently stated in your State of the State address the need for education reform, so many substitute teachers like myself have felt the need for it.
I write as a substitute teacher on O'ahu who has served in four other states, "living on call," a once traveling teacher.
I know of many fellow substitutes who have already delineated the issues through reports, letters, editorials and long-standing lawsuits waged at DOE's ill treatment of substitute teachers.
Many of us are working on a grass-roots level with LIUNA, Local 368, which has taken the lead as our prospective collective bargaining agent to ensure "No sub is left behind!" I am confident it knows and has the expertise to resolve these issues that have plagued us for too many years.
As you know, before you is a monumental opportunity, a decision to set a historical precedent in our education system for our vital 5,200 substitute teachers. Simply, we are asking to fulfill your promise by moving us to the front of the class in educational reform. Please sign SB 1426 into law.
John-Robert Coleman
Teacher duties aren't 'Above and Beyond'
As a lifelong teacher (27 years), I take great offense to the latest HSTA union ad, "Above and Beyond." Is the management of HSTA so removed from the life of a classroom teacher that it thinks making a child feel like a "special person" is not the basic reason we became teachers?
Good teachers — and there are many in our DOE — want to make a difference. We didn't choose this profession to punch a timecard any more than we would expect that our positive effects on a child's life would turn off when he or she slips from our view.
Over half of the listed items are not "Above and Beyond" at all. They are the things that caring teachers expect and anticipate when they enter the proud profession of teaching.
Sally Harper
Denied entry for Wie in open is disgusting
I was disturbed after reading the April 17 article about Michelle Wie being denied play in the Mid-Pac golf tournament ("Mid-Pac Open's denial of Wie brings out debate").
Are we not living in the 21st century, where men and women are supposedly equal, where men and women are supposed to be entitled to the same access to whatever they choose? The fact that Michelle Wie was denied entry in this tournament because she is female disgusts me.
Furthermore, the nonchalant attitude of those interviewed in the article about this issue is even more troubling.
If the Mid-Pac was a white-male-only tournament (which, for decades, golf tournaments were exclusively) or an Asian-only tournament or an African American-only tournament, I highly doubt it would be acceptable. It is no longer acceptable to exclude based on race in this day and age. Why is exclusion based on sex taken so lightly?
Natalie Lukashevsky
Having government expand is insane
Your April 13 Advertiser contains two articles that together make a powerful argument why sensible taxpayers oppose our Legislature's pending CarePlus program for elderly care.
Your front-page article "Delays plague preschool program" reports that 10 of 13 Pre-Plus preschools that were expected to be operational last fall have yet to open due to typical, seemingly perpetual government inefficiency. Many government programs have worthy goals, but government's dismal record of inefficiency argues strongly that taxpayer dollars should be spent more efficiently, bypassing the entrenched low productivity of governmental efforts. Government workers, because of their excessively large number of holidays, vacation and sick days and their very costly retirement benefits, are less efficient than private-sector workers.
Pre-Plus recognizes this by having hired private-sector childcare providers, all of whom are ready and eager to start operations.
Your editorial "Hawai'i long-term care must start somewhere" contains the very reason why CarePlus is strongly opposed: "... the CarePlus plan is just a first step. Perhaps later, the law could be amended to offer a broader range of benefits." What frightening words!
This is so very typical of government programs — they grow like a cancer, soaking up society's resources, spending money very inefficiently. The size of an administrative staff needed to operate CarePlus is a nightmare.
Nearly all of us would agree with the goals of many government programs. It's just that government's record at execution is too awful, and starting another government program borders on insanity.
Alan T. Matsuda
Governor has broken her promises of reform
Republican Rep. Galen Fox just doesn't get it. He says Gov. Lingle has brought a new, nonconfrontational style and new ideas of reform (Letters, April 10). Yet, it is she who calls the state librarian and the UH president "unprofessional" and the Legislature "childish."
Fox says Republicans want real reform and not "shibai." It is their governor who has broken her promises of reform. Let's look at the facts:
- She dropped her idea of cutting the excise tax on food at the first chance.
- She abandoned her idea of strengthening high tech through tax credits (Act 221).
- She will cut the UH budget by $21 million, education by $25 million, and shut down adult education and libraries.
- "Rewarding your friends is out the window." Just take one look at her UH Board of Regents appointments as well as other boards and commissions (let's hope all these busy people are not TOO busy to form a quorum at important meetings — let's keep an eye on them, shall we?)
Based on these facts, is Fox now willing to admit that Lingle's "A New Beginning" was complete shibai?
Norma J. Nicholl
State public schools can compete under No Child
Our legislative leaders are saying that we should opt out of No Child Left Behind because it is "impossible" for our students to master basic reading and math skills and reduce the drop-out rate by the year 2014. This is the attitude that put Hawai'i in the bottom quarter of the 50 states in most measures of public-school achievement.
Other schools and districts on the Mainland facing issues of poverty, special education and English as a second language have done wonders in response to No Child Left Behind. For example: Students at Whitney Young Middle School, 80 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced lunch, have improved their reading, math and science test scores to outperform more affluent neighboring schools; Del Valle High School reduced a drop-out rate from more than twice the state average to just 1 percent in the past two years; and 34 percent of students are learning English as a second language at Bennett-Key Elementary, and in the past two years it increased the number of students who score above the national average in both reading and math by six and 12 percentage points, respectively.
These are just a few of the many schools across our nation that are rising to the challenge of No Child Left Behind. And their children are no smarter than ours.
Some of Hawai'i's educators believe our kids can learn, and they have raised the performance of these "impossible" kids. The JROTC teacher at Nanakuli High School prepared his students for a rigorous federal test. Eighty-three percent of them passed the exam compared to only 57 percent of their classmates who did not have this teacher.
It is distressing enough to have people in the DOE repeatedly state that our public schools can't compete because of socio-economic factors. To have our state lawmakers join this chorus will crush our teachers' and principals' initiative and condemn our students to a continued substandard education system.
Laura H. Thielen
Member, Hawai'i State Board of Education
Correction: APCOA operates parking lots in the downtown area. An incorrect name was given in a previous version of these letters.
