Letters to the Editor

Penalize the families with more than one car

I am tired of reading letters suggesting penalties for only one person in a vehicle.

I don't have a family to drive all over town. I don't have to take the children to Grandma's or 10 different appointments. When I get an appointment at Tripler, I go to that appointment. Maybe that's when your other writers see me.

I have a logical suggestion: Put up the toll booths, and issue one pass to each household; make these families with two or three cars pay the toll. Maybe then these families will consolidate trips and make it easier on the other drivers.

Mandates, laws are the plague on education

Our school system's problems do not lie with teachers or school administrators. Our public-school system is badly poisoned by a history of ill-conceived federal mandates and state laws, which in turn wrongly skew public opinion.

Educators are strapped with many government mandates and services that drain away millions of tax dollars, human resources and classroom teaching time. Political meddling has turned our school system into a mindless circus.

I do not think any legislator could last a month planning and implementing students' home-to-school-to-home transportation services, daily classroom lessons, breakfast and lunch services, costly special education and 504 accommodations, holding parent-teacher conferences, mental health and drug intervention services, and chasing growing numbers of truant and absent students.

School Superintendent Pat Hamamoto is correct. We do not need more micromanaging school boards and legislators. The best grass-roots school boards already exist. They are the teachers and administrators in each public school.

It is time to liberate our schools from political over-engineering and to give our public-school educators the same respect and freedom to teach as our local private-schools educators.

BOE, superintendent bills must not pass

Gov. Lingle has submitted education governance bills — HB 2331/SB 2806 and HB 2332/SB 2807 — that would eliminate the elected statewide Board of Education and replace it with an appointed commission. One bill would give the governor the final say on the membership of this commission.

The other bill would eliminate the position of state superintendent of education, presently filled by Patricia Hamamoto. Is this what the people want? I don't think so.

HB 2331/SB 2806 and HB 2332/SB 2807 must not pass.

Independence dream is just a pipe dream

Regarding J.K. Kauanui's comments about OHA (Island Voices, Feb. 3): It offends me that someone who lives 5,000 miles away from Hawai'i and draws a professor's salary should defame OHA.

Her too-easy disregard of the estimated $70 million in annual federal assistance that desperately sick and poor kanaka maoli need causes me to wonder. In fact, the rabid opponents of the Akaka bill and the federal recognition process cause me to wonder where reality ends and fantasies begin for them. Hallucinogenic pipe dreams about international aid bringing back independence for Hawaiians are so absurd and unreal that I want to laugh out loud, but am too saddened by the delusionary world that some kanakas are living in.

Yes, the federal recognition process is not all that we want it to be. It does not get us all that we are entitled to. It does not return to us all that was stolen from us, namely, our native liberty and independence.

But it is, my dear and loving kanaka people, the only viable and real option open to us.

Let us laulima, huki like, and act together to reach goals that are real and achievable.

Editorial criticizing Lingle dumbfounding

Your Feb. 12 editorial concerning the criticism of Gov. Lingle's trip to Iraq dumbfounds me. The editorial states (in deliberately misleading the public) that "Lingle's office turned a benign, if perhaps unnecessary, trip into a controversy over the candor of her office."

I consider the trip to show her support for our troops, who are risking their lives, far from being "benign" or "unnecessary." Also, to imply that the trip may have been "an elaborate photo op or PR stunt" is really politicizing the event. I wonder: If Gov. Lingle declined the invitation, your editors would have criticized her for not supporting the troops? Politicizing can make the spin work both ways.

Governors' Iraq trip was a political ploy

I fail to see how a so-called political "mission" by five American governors who support Bush's war in Iraq proves anything at all.

Donald Rumsfeld is losing it. He is reaching, grasping at straws. He must realize that the American public has caught on to the many Bush administration lies, and now that the daily spin is no longer working, he used our governor and others to help the Bush campaign. He must see the shift in the polls and, knowing that President Bush is trailing any Democrat who emerges as the standard-bearer, is desperate to help his boss and to keep his job.

I'm surprised that Linda Lingle, our governor, didn't see it for what it was and decline the offer. Maybe she did recognize that it was a political ploy, and still went along with it?

Guard recruit story was irresponsible

I believe your Feb. 9 front-page article "Guard recruits decrease 30%" was irresponsible and sensationalist and needs to be put into proper context because it left the wrong impression with many of your readers.

There was a three-month period in which the number of recruits dropped to 71 from 100 in the same period of the previous year. Yes, technically, our recruiting was down nearly 30 percent for that short period, but I respectfully ask, does anyone seriously believe that one shred of data is worthy of a front-page headline?

If we went back one more year, the number of soldiers recruited was 75 for that quarter. When we recruited 100 the next year, I didn't see any headlines blaring that Guard recruiting was up 33 percent.

Just for the record, Hawai'i Army National Guard numbers will fluctuate up and down, week to week and month to month, depending on the season and several other factors. However, the number of soldiers in the Hawai'i Army National Guard has remained steady at or nearly 3,000 for the past several years; but, I suppose "Guard numbers hold steady" would not make a headline that sells newspapers.