Posted on: Friday, February 21, 2003
Letters to the Editor
Rusti the orangutan must not go to ranch
Regarding your Feb. 16 article on Rusti the orangutan: In our opinion, the Department of Agriculture should not approve the amendment to the permit that would allow Rusti to be moved to Kualoa Ranch.
Ranch staff may be experienced in the care of horses, goats and chickens, but certainly not orangutans. These animals are highly intelligent and oftentimes very manipulative. Orangutans have the ability to pick locks, are susceptible to human diseases and, when provoked or frightened, can cause serious and sometimes fatal injury. Overconfident or inexperienced caretakers will put themselves, the public and Rusti in great danger.
We urge the Department of Agriculture to not grant the permit amendment to move Rusti to Kualoa Ranch. Rusti has waited six years for a proper home in Hawai'i. We have failed him. It is time to send Rusti back to the Mainland. He deserves to live out the rest of his life safely, in a reputable sanctuary knowledgeable in the care of great apes.
Cindy Newburg
How to fix our schools
A suggestion for testing the public's willingness to fund public education: Specify an amount on the state tax refund to be added to the education budget. It could be handled with a line following the refund on the various Hawai'i income tax forms.
I would do it ... would you?
David M. Murray
Complexes should have commonality
Superintendent Pat Hamamoto's emphasis toward greater flexibility and autonomy for school complexes makes good sense in theory. But these school complex areas are in addition to the current seven sub-districts and sometimes include several high schools from noncontiguous neighborhoods.
It doesn't make sense to combine Nanakuli schools with Pearl City rather than Wai'anae, or Kaiser with Farrington rather than Kalani. School complexes should be based on the commonality of the community, and the complexes should link schools in a contiguous area wherever possible. This would promote greater community involvement at the complex level.
The DOE has established 15 school complex areas statewide. DOE complexes often include three or more high schools and up to 20 lower schools. Having both districts and complexes — each with its own bureaucracy — makes no sense.
We should eliminate the districts and determine whether district functions make more sense in the statewide system or at the complex level. Local school governance, if it ever comes, would be more effective at the school complex level than the current district level.
Roger Morton
Abuse of elderly must be given our attention
I had to watch my father die a slow, agonizing (for me) death, but I am still not sure whether physician-assisted suicide should be legal. If there were sufficient legal safeguards, as there seem to be in the Netherlands, there could be a strong case for physician-assisted suicide.
I was also very interested to read about the abuse of the elderly in the "hidden epidemic" (Advertiser, Feb. 16-18).
My father contracted a chest infection and a decubitus ulcer (pressure sore) while in the care of a so-called nursing home. We were not fully informed about my father's condition, which was why he went to a hospital too late.
We have to prevent abuse of the elderly because they are so vulnerable. If what happened to the elderly happened to children, we would all rightly be up in arms about it. Let's give the same concern to our parents.
Ralph Anwar
Care homes must have unannounced visits
What would you hope for if you were old and unable to care for yourself? And needed to be in a care home? You would hope that the state of Hawai'i, which uses state and federal money to pay for your care, would see that you were well cared for.
But you would be playing Russian roulette.
You might land in a care home that is properly maintained, as most are. Or you could land in a home such as the one where four unfortunate persons within the past couple of years died from neglect.
How can this happen? It can because the Department of Health, which is responsible for monitoring care homes, is unable to make unannounced visits to homes. Care-home operators say that this would be an invasion of their privacy. They insist that they have advance notice of all visits. Is that reasonable when public money is being expended for care? Care homes must be visited regularly by the Department of Health. Federal legislation indicates that these may be unannounced visits. Were they allowed here as in many other states, perhaps four residents who died in the past several years would still be alive.
Legislators have been reluctant to pass a law to mandate unannounced visits. Care home operators in their districts insist upon privacy — no unannounced visits. The Legislature again has a bill before it to mandate unannounced visits. It is hanging by a frail thread.
If you care about our people who cannot speak for themselves and if you believe that use of public funds requires careful monitoring of how they are spent, call members of the health committees of both the House and Senate and your own legislators and express your opinion.
Ruth Ellen Lindenberg
Homeland warnings misleading, dishonest
After reading just a few Web sites on the topic of VX nerve gas and biological agents, I find it rather hypocritical, misleading and dishonest that the various homeland security agencies now alert the American public to the dangers of possible impending attacks on the U.S., and that there are ways that the general public can protect itself while living "a normal life."
How can a few rolls of masking or duct tape and a few sheets of plastic drop cloths insulate an apartment building or a wooden house to be absolutely airtight? How can the Honolulu Fire Department and numerous civil defense agencies respond to a determined, well-planned attack by religious or political fanatics who would gladly sacrifice their own lives?
The same can be said for biological agents that all the major Western and several Asian countries, led by the former Soviet Union, plentifully developed and stockpiled for decades. Now these weapons, too horrible in their consequences to contemplate, might have filtered into the hands of people who are perhaps not afraid to die in the process of delivering them to their perceived enemies. Any reader interested in pursuing some of these thoughts could start with this Web site: http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/mom/vx/VX.htm.
Willi F. Moelzer
Bookmobiles could be put to good use
Since the new Kapolei Library does not have any books to put on its shelves, wouldn't it make sense to use the books from the bookmobiles (due to be put out of service) as soon as possible? This would be a win-win situation for all involved, including the employees who maintain the bookmobiles, who would be transferred to maintain the library (no job loss).
And foremost, the winners would be the children and elders who would be able to use this brand-new facility immediately.
Adriano Lorenzo Jr.
Key points omitted in Mauna Kea editorial
While your Feb. 12 editorial "Mauna Kea should hold space for all" makes some interesting suggestions, it leaves out some key points and unintentionally promotes some erroneous information.
First, the application by the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawai'i covers the addition of six 6-foot-diameter telescopes that are to be tied in with the Keck I and II telescopes to increase the total system's resolution. These are really scopes and not antennae.
An important item to note is that the land on which the telescopes are built is land stolen (ceded) from the illegally overthrown Kingdom of Hawai'i.
The editorial fails to mention that the new construction will disturb or destroy the wekiu bug (a species that is eligible for listing on the endangered list) habitat.
It fails to mention that the number of telescopes that have been built has consistently been, at times, in excess of that allowed by then-current master plans, and that the method of "fixing" this problem is to continue to adopt successive master plans that legalize the excess.
Failure to mention the state auditor's report on operations on the mountain, along with its recommendations (that haven't been totally implemented yet), provides another important issue to address.
Additionally, the university has not provided a necessary cultural plan, a state burial plan or an approved (by the Department of Land and Natural Resources) master plan. A legal challenge based on the lack of any one of these plans, it is believed, can terminate the entire process.
Clarence Ching
Trash receptacle should be removed
I, as well as other family members and friends who drive past Kam Shopping Center, find it hard to comprehend the replacement of the trash receptacle fronting Kapalama Elementary School that was previously torched, melted to the ground next to the phone booth and replaced without being removed.
The non-removal of the burnt receptacle only encourages the same behavior and makes the state look ignorant. Do I have to remove it myself?
K. Vierra
Backward thinking
It seems to me that, had the state approached Hansen's disease the same way it is approaching rabies, Kalaupapa would still be a functioning institution.
Louis H. Trigg
Here's how to ease gridlock
Gridlock on the H-1 Freeway is all too common. Here are two ideas to reduce these daily traffic jams. One is complex and would take time to install, but the other is simple and could be done overnight.
A way to keep traffic moving and avoid gridlock is to limit the rate of cars entering the highway. The freeway system in Los Angeles solved this problem years ago with the introduction of metered on-ramps. Metered on-ramps have a red/green traffic light at the head of the ramp. When there is little traffic, the light remains green and cars may freely enter the highway. When traffic gets heavy, the light alternates between red and green.
Only one car enters the freeway for each green light (there's a stiff fine for violating this rule). For moderate congestion, the light blinks green every two seconds or so. For heavy congestion, the interval between green lights stretches to five or six seconds or more, as needed.
The whole idea is that although drivers have to wait a bit at the on-ramp, when they enter the highway, the traffic is flowing smoothly, and the total time for the trip is less than it would have been without the lights.
Meters are badly needed at many of the H-1 on-ramps. The line of cars waiting at an on-ramp is likely to be shorter with the meters because when the freeway is gridlocked, it can easily take a car many seconds to edge its way onto the highway.
The other idea for easing the gridlock problem is to eliminate on-ramps that have more than one lane. Two examples on H-1 going east near downtown are the double-wide on-ramp where H-1 rejoins the Moanalua Freeway near the airport, and the double-wide on-ramp at Vineyard Boulevard. Both of these should be reduced to a single lane so that cars are forced to merge to a single file before entering the highway.
When traffic is light, a single lane is all that is needed anyway, and when traffic is heavy, the last thing you want are two streams of cars side-by-side trying to join the congestion. It's a perfect recipe for gridlock, and it happens all too often right near these on-ramps.
It would be easy to test this idea by using traffic cones to block off one lane at these points. Vineyard Boulevard would be particularly simple, as there is no off-ramp anywhere close by. If the traffic flow is smoother, as I think it would be, then permanent barriers could be installed.
Incidentally, another possibility for the H-1/Moanalua merge would be to have the Moanalua traffic merge left down to two lanes, and keep the two lanes of H-1 traffic. But, in any case, I think there should be only four lanes of traffic here, not five.
Edward K. Conklin
Citizens for Humane Animal Policies
Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom
Kane'ohe
Kamuela, Hawai'i
