Letters to the Editor
Weeds are denying aid to needy children
Once, a man woke up and found he had become a cockroach while he slept. Now, as we sleep in Hawai'i, the Sierra Club, Earthjustice and their far-left allies have turned some worthless weeds into weapons of mass destruction.
Their latest target? The Queen Lili'uokalani Trust, which benefits Native Hawaiian orphans and destitute children. Because a couple of native weed plants maybe once grew where the trust wants to build a shopping center on the Kona side of the Big Island, that land is in the process of being federally designated as "critical habitat," which means that the trust may be prohibited from using the land to earn money to help Hawaiian kids at a time when the trust is on the ropes financially.
And the truly surreal thing is that the weeds don't even grow there anymore and maybe never did.
Do we now live in an insane, Kafka-esque world where native weeds (which don't exist) are deemed more valuable than needy native children who are very real?
I fear we will soon wake up and discover, too late, that we've all been turned into cockroach-like dupes by fanatical nature worshipers who duplicitously refer to themselves as environmentalists.
Evelyn Cook
Kapa'a, Kaua'i
Tax cuts for rich? Not from my view
Regarding your recent editorial on tax cuts for the rich: What is the minimum income level?
I own a business that I have worked at for 18 years to build into a prospering concern. But if I pass away, my family would have to sell it to pay the estate tax. Is that fair? I'm already taxed "eight ways to Sunday," but you want my family taxed again just because I died.
Why doesn't the government cut spending? Why do us so-called rich have to bear the brunt? Did you know the group of taxpayers making over $26,000 per year pay 95 percent of the income tax? Are families making over $50,000 a year the rich? The reduction in income tax percentage was largest among the lowest-paid workers. The 3 percent reduction for the highest paid has not even started yet, so don't blame the deficit on them.
Congress needs to cut wasteful programs and those that do not work. Tort reform is needed and civil service overhauled.
David Henry
Roseville, Calif.
X-ray procedures are marvelous tools
Thank you for the article in your Dec. 31 edition on whether the use of low-level medical X-rays causes cancer. Where some organizations claim that "no amount of radiation is absolutely safe," there are many scientists who disagree with that statement.
There is good scientific information at the high-dose end of the radiation spectrum; however, there is very little valid data that relates cancer incidence to low radiation doses.
The low level of the natural background radiation in Hawai'i is very safe (about 100 millerem per year), as is the background radiation in Denver, which, because of its high altitude, is double that found here at sea level.
The very healthy airline pilots as a group average five or 10 times as much radiation exposure as Hawai'i residents.
A recent study by R.E.J. Mitchel (Radwaste Solutions, March/April 2002) involving individual living cells exposed to radiation has shown that a low dose of radiation can stimulate the body's natural defense mechanisms and thereby reduce cell damage from higher doses given five hours later by about 60 percent.
Modern diagnostic X-ray procedures are marvelous medical tools that have saved millions of lives. Nothing should be done to discourage their continued beneficial use.
Alan S. Lloyd
Kailua
Thank you, Hawai'i, for great performance
After reading the Jan. 2 article about Hawai'i's participation in this year's Tournament of Roses Parade, I wanted to add my thanks and congratulations to all who were involved in this monumental task.
I especially wanted to say mahalo to all members of the Hawai'i All State Na Koa Ali'i Band. You looked and sounded spectacular. From my viewing point near the end of the route, this former resident was proud to see that you all were still going strong and truly displaying the aloha spirit.
Thank you for representing Hawai'i so well — you made us proud.
Greg Char
Pasadena
It's political ill will
I have just two words for Richard Port, former Democrat Party chairman, in response to his Dec. 29 letter criticizing Gov. Lingle's record after one month in office: sour grapes.
Hank Zerbe
Mililani
It's not a question of 'Gimme!' but of truth
Kenneth Conklin writes an article headlined "Our Islands shouldn't be Balkanized" (Focus, Dec. 22). Nothing new is said — except his pleading to have our new governor break her campaign promises.
Hawaiians so desperately want to see their people rise up from poverty, neglect, homelessness and lack of education — which unfortunately are backed up by statistics gathered by qualified agencies. His argument that placing monies in the hands of OHA is like throwing it in a bottomless toilet is a shame. The euphemisms throughout his article are used in bad taste and are untrue.
Where he sees powerful vested-interest groups banging drums and chanting "Gimme! Gimme!," I see struggling, poverty-stricken Hawaiians saying "Help me! Help me, please!"
Where he sees Kamehameha Schools as part of the "Akaka-kanaka" tribe, I see an institution doing more for education in the state of Hawai'i than any single institution has ever done for Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike in the history of education in this state.
Where he sees crown lands as everyone's lands when he says, "No land was stolen," I see an attempt to assimilate homeless Hawaiians back onto a land that they once enjoyed. A motherland: like China is to the Chinese and Japan is to the Japanese and France is to the French. The love of our motherland, our 'aina, runs deep in the veins of Hawaiians. Perhaps our connection to the land is too deep a concept for Conklin to ever understand.
Where he sees a "Hawaiian grievance industry," I see a people still struggling financially, economically, socially and politically.
Does having "undesirable personal characteristics" mean unbathed, uneducated, homeless, poverty-stricken, on drugs, in jail? Then in this case, he racially profiled many Hawaiians correctly.
It's all in perspective. Truth or twisted history. Fact or denial. Do you see what you really see ... or do you see what you want to see? Only those with a conscience can answer truthfully.
Pamela Kehaulani Nakagawa
