Letters to the Editor

Thank you all for help in searching for hiker

The family of Daniel C. Levey, the deceased hiker found in Nu'uanu, wishes to publicly thank the Hono-

lulu Police Department, including missing persons team Phil Camero and Mary Aragones; the Honolulu Fire Department, including Fire Capt.-PIO Kenison Tejada, Capt. Komine, Capt. Carvalho and search-and-rescue personnel; Department of Land and Natural Resources personnel, including canines; Hawaii Trail and Mountain Club, including Mabel Kekina and experienced hikers; and all the friends who aided in the search for our son and brother.

Your support has helped us and continues to help us in this grieving time.

We encourage the community to enjoy Daniel's vast photo collection at his Web site: http://geocities.com/ hawaii0533/summer/hikes/.

Court interpreter fee defense was misstated

Marsha Kitagawa of the judiciary's Public Affairs Office has misstated her case in her July 28 letter to the editor. The July 21 article "Courts deal with interpreter woes" accurately stated "most state court interpreters earn only $40 per half-day." The judiciary's "raise" goes into effect in January 2004. It is based on $50 for the first two hours. Most court sessions last two hours or less.

For sessions of two hours or less, federal court pays $86 for noncertified interpreters, and $178 for certified. The judiciary's "raise" would pay only $50 for noncertified interpreters for the same time period, and $75 for certified. That is not competitive.

Hawai'i Family Court sessions sometimes last longer. Trials and long hearings are a rare occurrence in either system.

Certified interpreters are rare, too. The judiciary has no certification program. There are no Hawai'i certified interpreters.

For the vast majority of court sessions and interpreters, the judiciary is proposing a pay increase of only 25 percent, after 21 long years of a pay freeze. Why is Kitagawa, who works at taxpayer expense, deliberately misleading the public?

There is no benefit to non-Hawaiians

The debate over a Hawaiian nation continues to divide the many ethnic groups that call Hawai'i home.

There is no benefit to non-Hawaiians. The limited land and financial resources need to be spent for the betterment of all Hawai'i's people. The public schools, the elderly, abused women and children, the mentally ill, etc., are all underfinanced while OHA and lobbying for the Akaka bill increases via the governor and our congressional delegation.

I am half white and half Native American. I live like an Indian every day in my heart. I do not need a nation to remind me of who I am and what I believe. I am proud to be an American whose ancestors are of Indian/Caucasian descent.

Many of us hope the courts will rule quickly and decisively. The meter is running.

You can't compare marijuana with ice

Lee Cataluna equates cannabis with methamphetamine ("loaded is loaded"). This is a dangerous simplification. Speed produces paranoia, impulsive violence, suicidality, profound addiction and rapid physical deterioration. Cannabis does none of these.

Further, Cataluna seems to think that medical cannabis is only for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea. That's nonsense. The largest group of cannabis patients are those suffering from chronic conditions, particularly those in chronic pain.

A significant group of patients are those who are successfully treating their addiction to alcohol, sedatives, narcotics, cocaine or amphetamines by engaging in what is termed "harm reduction."

The use of cannabis to treat addictive disorders is not simply substituting one drug for another but is using an effective medicine to reduce self-destructive behavior. With abstinence programs having a success rate of less than 20 percent, we'd all be better served to consider harm reduction in an objective manner.

Finally, Cataluna stereotypes users of cannabis in ways that no responsible person would ever refer to any other group of individuals.

Kuhio Beach chairs removal was a bad move

Why is the city removing the chairs on Kuhio Beach? The city tells us that Kuhio Beach is a "public area, not a storage area." But the chairs are occupied most of the day, and who sees the chairs at night?

When the city tries to remove the chairs and people of Kuhio, it is not only displacing citizens but destroying much of the local flavor that makes Hawai'i so great. Would a tourist rather go to a beach with or without soft Hawaiian music playing and the local people to talk story with?

So if the city wants to make the area of Kuhio Beach more open to the public, it is not doing a very good job.

There are many different ways for the city to make the beach free of chairs and locals. It could open the lockers in the bathrooms earlier, or put in more benches, but sadly the city does not consider any of these options and decides to plow ahead without thinking first.

Photographs of dead shouldn't be public

Honolulu may see more images of aborted fetuses if the so-called Center for Bio-Ethical Reform has its way. Its airborne ads may soon perk up the afternoons of Waikiki sunbathers.

As a professional bio-ethicist, I am puzzled by their use of the term. Though there have been some ill-informed public attacks on bio-ethicists, I am not aware of their effort to "reform" our field.

But I am more troubled by a persistent memory of ghastly black-and-white police photographs in an old criminology textbook. Naked women lay dead on bloody beds and in bathrooms after botched abortions. Thankfully those scenes are, for now, behind us. But, in fairness, any decision to permit the public exhibition of dead fetuses must also allow the display of counterbalancing images.

The recent controversy about American and Iraqi bodies is curiously applicable. Perhaps, as a rule, photographs of the dead should not be thrust upon the attentions of the public.

Abercrombie's anti-Bush stance is hypocritical

So finally, Congressman Neil Abercrombie speaks out against the Bush administration's incredible and dangerous bungling of the Iraqi occupation. But wasn't it Abercrombie who recently voted for a fantastically inflated $400 billion military appropriation bill containing enough money for not only the present Bush military adventure, but others in the future?

If Abercrombie is really sincere about challenging the Bush agenda of making the United States the policeman of the world, it is high time for him to back his rhetoric with real deeds.

NRA-bashing again

Regarding your July 26 op-ed cartoon: I see your editor is NRA-bashing again. Allow me to paraphrase Frank Lloyd Wright: We believe that dangerous implements should be kept out of the hands of felons, unsupervised children and the mentally incapacitated. Let's start with editorial ink and paper.