Letters to the Editor

Lingle has tarnished her New Beginning

As a retired DOE school principal, I looked forward with great anticipation to Gov. Lingle's New Beginning because of her desire to make education a priority. I was equally impressed with the state Legislature's approval of an innovative program, the Reinventing Education bill.

As a former teacher and principal, I can truthfully say that this legislation was an educator's delight. Just what we needed: funding for more textbooks, reduction in class size, principal training, teacher certification and, most importantly, facilitating accountability by increasing parental and student participation. However, I was disappointed when Lingle vetoed the bill. Thankfully, the Legislature chose to override the veto.

The events over the past month of the governor not releasing full funding for the education bill and also culture and arts kind of soured my view of her New Beginning. I am hopeful that she is not using her office to politicize sincere and conscientious efforts by the Legislature to improve the quality of life in Hawai'i for our keiki.

Imua — no more politics.

Harris administration is leaving us a mess

I have never seen a city administration so unconcerned about, even hostile to, the community it supposedly serves as the current one.

From the infamous traffic-calming measures and unwanted landscaped median strips on Hunakai Street, Lunalilo Home Road, Kuhio Avenue and elsewhere, and now on to more congestion and less parking on Ala Wai Boulevard — these are a few examples of many projects forced through despite fierce community objection.

Why bother to call the mayor's complaint office since no one responds? Why attend neighborhood board meetings when it's a foregone conclusion any city project presented for community input will proceed no matter what? Even the state Office of Environmental Quality Control's request to stop work on the Ala Wai project for a few days was ignored.

I'm sorry we won't have the satisfaction of voting this mayor and his administration out of office. Whether Duke or Mufi wins, even though the streets will be landscaped, the new mayor will face a huge budget deficit and crumbling sewer systems and other essential infrastructure.

Emulate HPD? Nope

Much has been contributed recently about driving etiquette here in Hawai'i. Whether in the form of tips, gripes, observations or the dreaded comparison with "driving on the Mainland," it is fairly obvious that the opinions run as diverse as the actual driving practices.

Perhaps we can look to Honolulu's finest, the HPD, as a sterling example of how to conduct ourselves behind the wheel.

Oh ... never mind.

UH should focus on its infrastructure

Lee Cataluna said it so simply and eloquently: "Leave it (the UH logo) alone and fix the institution."

Forty years ago, I moved from the Mainland to attend the University of Hawai'i. I did not know what the logo was, nor did I care. I chose the University of Hawai'i because it offered a program I wanted.

The seal is beautiful; the decision to keep it as the unifying symbol for all colleges and programs, including athletics, makes sense. If a college or athletic program wants a definitive logo, that is fine. However, I see no logical reason that the schools of business, agriculture, medicine, law and athletics, etc., should be forced into using one logo.

To say that a logo will be used as a marketing tool is ridiculous. People don't choose an institution of higher learning based on a logo. Improve the programs and infrastructure; market substance and excellence, not fluff.

Kaka'ako waterfront should honor surfing

May I suggest a Hawaiian surfing museum as part of the Kaka'ako waterfront development? I can't think of a more appropriate location, and talk about being long overdue. Hawai'i should be ashamed that there's no aquatic hall of fame celebrating surfing, swimming and canoeing.

California, Florida and Australia all have multiple venues honoring our sport of kings. Seems the old proverb "The cobbler's children have no shoes" is sadly true in regard to the birthplace of surfing.

Driving scofflaws are hurting society

The letter about speeding by Greg Talboys should make one laugh for his hilarious claim to have a right to drive as fast as he wants to in the left lane, no matter what the speed limit says. But it is too sad to laugh at because it is just an example how laws and rules in Hawai'i are a laughingstock to too many inhabitants.

We need to be able to convict people of any violation when so observed by plain citizens with the testimony of those plain citizens. Why? Because police (and prosecutors) are totally overburdened with lawless unruliness, which has surpassed the critical point of no return, encouraging lawbreakers, because laws cannot be properly enforced anymore. The 10 percent clearing rate even for regular crimes proves this.

If something drastic does not happen, Hawai'i is doomed to a long downward spiral and will soon resemble a Third World country.

'Groupthink' could explain Dobelle's firing, Iraq war

Have any of your readers besides me noticed the similarity between the UH Board of Regents' decision to fire President Dobelle and the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq?

In both cases, intelligent individuals in a rush to judgment made a rash decision without considering the long-term consequences of their action. In both cases the decision backfired, causing great financial loss, loss of prestige, much criticism, divisiveness and recrimination, and in the invasion of Iraq, tragic loss of life for both soldiers and civilians.

Could all this be the result of that old bugaboo, Groupthink? The CIA's faulty intelligence leading up to the decision to invade Iraq has recently been attributed by the Senate Intelligence Committee to Groupthink. A July 15 column in The New York Times by Nancy Ehrenreich titled "All Together Now" discusses the problem at length.

What is Groupthink, anyway? What are some of its characteristics?

Groupthink is a concept researched by psychologist Irving Janis. Janis asks the questions: What happens when powerful decision-makers get together to decide important courses of action potentially leading to historic events? What are the possibilities of error? How is it that brilliant people may make stupid decisions? After analyzing a number of historic decisions (including the Bay of Pigs invasion), he formulated the concept of Groupthink to describe what happens in such situations.

Groupthink occurs in highly cohesive groups where the members are strongly oriented toward maintaining group unanimity, with the result that critical responses are reduced and rendered ineffective. Janis identifies the characteristics of Groupthink as:

• A sense of invulnerability.

• Extensive rationalization.

• Moral self-righteousness.

• Simplistic stereotypic description of the opposition.

• Strong conformity pressures.

• Self-censorship of divergent views.

• Suppression of divergent information from others.

• An illusion of unanimity.

One could almost believe that Janis was predicting the Bush administration's decision to wage war on Iraq and/or the Board of Regents' firing of President Dobelle.