Letters to the Editor

Social Security number is sometimes granted

I was pleased to see the July 18 article regarding the change in state law requiring all driver's license applicants to have a Social Security number. The Social Security Administration relies on and appreciates assistance from media organizations to ensure word of changes to current procedures are disseminated correctly and properly.

I do feel the need, though, to correct a statement made in the article. The last sentence in the article stated that "Foreign nationals who are here on student or tourist visas are not eligible for a Social Security number ..." It is correct to say that individuals with tourist visas are not eligible for Social Security numbers. However, foreign national students are in a different category. Some students are eligible to receive Social Security numbers. Students who are permitted to work within the United States may be eligible to receive a Social Security number. Each case needs to be reviewed independently.

DOE giving prospective teachers the runaround

I am a recent graduate of the University of Hawai'i, and my peers and I have a problem: Some schools are starting the 2003-04 school year, but we are getting the runaround by the Department of Education.

According to the DOE, there is a freeze on hiring of new teachers. Why is it that the freeze only applies to new teachers from Hawai'i? There are teachers from the Mainland who have been given contracts to teach in Hawai'i, but to this date, we are not being placed.

Call it what it really is

It seems to me that in her July 18 letter ("Would ACLU file suit over 'Gay Pride Day'?"), Sarah Kawanishi is missing the point. If the Christian Coalition wants to have a "Christian Pride Parade," please do so. Just call it that. If you are using city facilities and calling it "Family Day," then all families must feel welcome.

Bush's trip to Africa was just a PR ploy

The recent Africa trip by President Bush appears to have been designed in part as a public relations effort to boost his poor image among African Americans with an eye to the 2004 elections. However, the administration's overall policies toward Africa are neither benign nor altruistic, as he would have us believe. They include increased placement of U.S. military forces in locations specifically related to American geopolitical domination as well as oil interests.

In May, the so-called U.S. counterterrorism task force was moved from a ship in the Arabian Sea to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa across the Red Sea from Yemen. Djibouti's shores are at a strategic chokepoint linking the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. The passage is heavily traveled by oil tankers and warships on their way to and from the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

Other U.S. military plans for Africa announced in the Wall Street Journal on June 10 include setting up "forward bases" in Algeria, Morocco and possibly Tunisia as well as smaller military facilities in Senegal, Ghana and Mali in Western Africa. Such units would be strategically located should it be necessary to intervene in Nigeria, which is the fifth largest exporter of crude oil to the United States.

Of the "fair trade" practice by U.S. companies of dumping such commodities as cotton at below-market prices, one group of NGO leaders wrote to Mr. Bush: "Africa's poverty is the direct consequence of the inability to export agricultural commodities at fair prices and to access U.S. technologies." Huge U.S. subsidies to agricultural producers make trade with Africa anything but fair.

Meaning was lost in abbreviated phrase

I disagree vehemently with Mr. Emmett Cahill in his assessment that nothing was lost in The Advertiser's statement "across the YMCA"; the meaning was absolutely lost. "Across the YMCA" means it was emblazoned on the building; "across from the YMCA" means simply that it was not happening on the building but across from it.

The trouble with abandoning correct grammatical usage in favor of English shorthand, as suggested by Mr. Cahill, is that precise meaning is often obscured. By letting down the bars, we could be reduced to an abbreviated style reminiscent of pidgin English.

I find it interesting that there is so much emphasis on proper Hawaiian spellings: Diacritical marks correct singular and plural usage, but little attention is given to English singulars and plurals or the distinction between adjectives and adverbs.

Hawai'i the loser for not hearing Justice Thomas

The conditions under which Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas declined to participate in the Davis-Levin First Amendment Conference continues to embarrass the Hawai'i ACLU and supporters of free speech.

Some who opposed his visit went so far as to call Justice Thomas an "Uncle Tom" and disparaged the debate as a junket. Perhaps they missed the point of the debates entirely. Debates are not about ad hominem attacks, but about understanding and disproving your opponent's ideas.

The previous Davis-Levin discussions between ACLU President Nadine Strossen and conservatives such as Justice Antonin Scalia and the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed were not junkets, but lively and high-powered intellectual exchanges of ideas. We would be well-advised to promote and attend such events because like the Lincoln-Douglas debates of more than 140 years ago, we have a chance to see how ideas and history continually modify our nation within the context of our living Constitution.

It is, after all, through the battle of ideas that we drive our nation forward — or in reverse. Therefore, the citizenry must be engaged in and test critically the ideas put before them in the political arena.

Hawai'i lost a priceless chance to examine both Professor Strossen's and Justice Thomas' ideas. Instead, you fell victim to the odious acts of character assassins and closed-minded ideologues.

$800,000 to plant 52 trees a waste

Mayor Harris is planning to green-up Hawai'i Kai: $800,000 to plant 52 trees on Lunalilo Home Road. That's $15,385 per tree. At that amount, he had better be planting money trees.

There are three public schools just off Lunalilo Home Road: Kamilo Iki Elementary, Koko Head Elementary and Kaiser High. Let's get these schools together, create a volunteer group of parents and high school students, give them a million-dollar budget and see what kind of community green-up improvement they can come up with. I'm confident that it will be a heck of a lot better than 52 trees.

Was this million-dollar contract ever put up for bid? Things that make you go hmmm ...

Sen. Mercado Kim is also a prominent Korean

I recently saw a television promotion for the Korean centennial. The June 4 Advertiser featured "Images, anecdotes tell Korean story."

Since the pronouncement of the centennial, many Koreans have been named as being very productive for the state of Hawai'i and its people over the last 100 years, including Chief Justice Ronald Moon.

What has been very sadly missing is recognition of a dynamite person of Korean ancestry who has served Hawai'i's people with distinction: state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim.

Sen. Kim served in the House, then 14 years on the City Council and now she has returned to serve us in the state Legislature.

Sen. Kim is very astute and very intelligent and fights for her beliefs.

Erosion problems stem from seawall agreement

Having spent many years in the Waikiki Beach area, I remember how it has changed. These changes are also verified through photographs and testimony by people, like myself, who have worked on the beach for many years.

The original damage was done in 1928, through an agreement between property owners and the Territory of Hawai'i. This agreement allowed seawalls to be built to protect property from erosion. Many erosion problems were caused by people building their homes too close to the vegetation line at the uppermost reach of the wave action. Yes, a deal was made to protect assets, which increased the value of the property as corporations sought locations on which to build their hotels.

It is a known fact that seawalls force wave action back into the sea. It is this action that allows very little sand to create a beach.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to have a few hotels torn down in order to expose the sand that they were built on. Instead, what may be more favorable is that traffic could be rerouted away from a portion of Kalakaua:

From Kalakaua, turn left onto Ka'iulani and right on Kuhio. Stay on Kuhio all the way to Kapahulu. A right turn on Kapahulu allows you to turn left on Kalakaua and go all the way to Diamond Head. It frees a section of Kalakaua for other activities.

This route would allow a "boardwalk" pathway to be built from Ka'iulani Avenue to Kapahulu Avenue, allowing for emergency vehicles and some hotel service. This plan would open the rest of the land for sand beach and grass park use.

In the meantime, we need to replenish the lost sand on the beach through the use of "sand pumping" direct from the ocean to the beach. This process has been recently tested and confirmed feasible in a report to the state of Hawai'i by Noda and Associates. It is also less costly and less disturbing to shoreline users.

Don't link the Jones Act with 'Price of Paradise'

Cliff Slater's July 14 column "Give workers a virtual raise" cannot pass as fact without comment. Mr. Slater truly misses the boat when it comes to America's cabotage laws, including the Jones Act.

No one denies that working families, in Hawai'i and elsewhere, can benefit from a "virtual raise." But Mr. Slater sails far off course by assailing the Jones Act as a major contributor to Hawai'i's "Price of Paradise."

There will always be a cost of transporting goods to Hawai'i, regardless of which ships carry freight to Hawai'i. The cost differential of carrying freight to Hawai'i's market on a foreign ship compared with an American ship is marginal. And if the Mainland experience is any indication, consumers will not benefit from that marginal difference.

Mr. Slater's assertion that freight costs would be lowered by half if we dump the Jones Act is not supported by research or experience, and simply stating it as fact doesn't make it a reality.

The Jones Act provides jobs for Hawai'i's maritime workers and others. I see most of the job orders for openings on American merchant ships coming to Hawai'i, and rarely does a day (or ship) go by without crew members from Hawai'i joining a vessel in transit. Those are real jobs that pay family wages and fringe benefits to Hawai'i workers.

Thousands of new employment opportunities are being created for Hawai'i workers as three new maritime companies invest in U.S. flag ships with American crews to sail Hawai'i's waters.

America's cabotage laws remain a national issue. Dumping these laws, including the Jones Act, would cause a great deal of harm to the U.S. transportation system and to our national security. Seventy percent of the oceangoing self-propelled vessels in the Jones Act fleet are militarily useful and are called upon to support our defense capabilities.

As public attention focuses on the threat to U.S. ports posed by foreign merchant ships, the more than 37,000 vessels in the Jones Act fleet daily provide safe and secure transportation of goods and passengers on U.S. waters, including Hawai'i's home waters. Decisions governing operation and security on those vessels are made in America, by Americans.