Posted on: Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Letters to the Editor

Solution is available to preserve ag lands

To preserve the current bounty of highly productive agricultural land, there is really only one solution. The state of Hawai'i must allow for the development rights of these areas to be sold to the state with tax incentives for current land owners in ag-zoned areas to sell these rights. When these lands are sold, they can only be used for agricultural purposes. When landowners want to develop these sites, they must purchase development rights from the state.

An easy way to encourage more farmers to pursue agricultural production in Hawai'i is to exempt all farm income from state and, if possible, federal income tax. To qualify for this tax status, farmers must be certified, hold a minimum of a BS degree from an accredited college offering degrees in approved disciplines and maintain a minimum level of farm-based income.

Combining the concepts of separation of development rights from fee-simple land ownership with certified farming requirements might be a way to preserve our most valuable ag lands and ensure a sustainable and motivated pool of qualified land stewards.

Affordable housing should be a priority

We are a group of freshmen at Punahou, but even at this young and naive age, we are concerned about the ever-growing number of homeless people.

After doing group research for an economics project covering the topic of homelessness, we have come to believe we are having these problems of homelessness and poverty because of a lack of affordable housing.

Since you are all educated people, we are sure you are aware that the cost of living in Honolulu is 54.4 percent higher than the national average, making us the fourth most expensive city in the United States to live in (taking groceries, gas, housing and other necessities into account). Because of these outrageous prices, the number of homeless in Honolulu alone was up 83 percent from 1999.

We know you cannot change the natural demand and prices for scarce waterfront housing, but you can use the newspaper to prompt less-desirable housing to be constructed to get the homeless off the beaches.

In town, we saw an example of this, and it brought a smile to our faces that changes were taking place. There was a group of one- to two-bedroom units for sale only to people under a certain income bracket. We saw a woman outside hanging her laundry and children playing on a lanai.

In the future, we would like to see more of this kind of housing. We think it is wise to only allow people with low incomes to live there so that people who can afford better do not take advantage of the less-expensive homes.

Local boy honored overseas, but not here

It is sad indeed that Wai'anae does not have a memorial, a park or a plaque to remember our Korean War hero, Pvt. Herbert K. Pililaau.

In 1960, I was stationed in South Korea at Camp Casey a few miles south of the 38th Parallel in a small town called Tongduchon. On weekends, I would visit a U.S. Army camp in another small town called Uijonbu about 10 miles south of Camp Casey.

There at Uijonbu, everyone remembers Pvt. Herbert K. Pililaau because that U.S. Army camp is named "Camp Pililaau." I was 18 years old at that time, and when I saw that name for the first time at the entry to that Army post, I had goosebumps of pride and honor. Who would think traveling halfway around the world from a small town of Kula, Maui, that I would come across a military compound named after a local boy?

Pvt. Herbert K. Pililaau made me feel proud to be Hawaiian.

Early rising DIYers grating on the nerves

Do-it-yourself construction on homes is becoming more and more the norm, due to the high costs of using a licensed contractor and construction company as well as supplies becoming easier to acquire. I have a question: Are there rules limiting the hours of construction and the use of power tools?

Neighbors have been up before 7 a.m. on weekdays pounding away and sawing and using other various power tools, and on the weekends sometimes prior to 8 a.m. we hear them going at it. With three houses in the area being worked on, it can become quite noisy.

I've tried contacting the city to see if there are any guidelines but normally get stuck on hold. So I thought I'd give the paper a try; if we're lucky, maybe a few of those currently working on their homes may read this and realize what it is they are doing.

Every year on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I marvel at the fact that one of the few groups of municipal workers who do not get the day off is the city's refuse workers. The reason this is ironic is that when Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, he was specifically fighting for the rights of sanitation workers. Surely we could endure one day without rubbish pickup in appreciation of the man who thought everyone — including garbagemen — should be treated equally, and with dignity, under the law.

Blame representative for vacant House seat

Rep. Marcus Oshiro's argument that Linda Lingle's appointment process is shibai (Letters, Jan. 14) fails miserably once he points out that the governor is leaving District 13 unrepresented until Feb. 7. It is not her fault the district has no representative. It is the man who ran for the office and spent $17,000 to win the seat and then quit.

Rep. Sol Kaho'ohalahala essentially applied for two jobs, got one and then jumped ship when he got a better offer.

With attacks like Oshiro's ready to launch on a whim, I can't fault the governor for wanting a process to appoint the replacement. There is more important work to be done than waiting to jump at a chance to send finger-pointing missives to the press.

Wie made the right call

I agree with Ferd Lewis on the contents of his column on Michelle Wie (Jan. 15). No one is telling John Lynch (last place) not to play anymore. I think it is much better to play with the big girls and boys when you can than to beat up on the little keiki. Plus, she has already won all that stuff; why repeat? If I were not going to get paid, I would rather learn as much as possible. I wish her a great season.

Wie was wonderful

Many sighed when Michelle Wie didn't make her cut, but her behavior, appearance, dignity and adult reaction to her own disappointment were not missed by any who were watching. She was spectacular. Her parents must be very proud of their daughter. What a great job they have done in raising this young girl. Keep up the fine work! And Michelle, try again. You'll get there.

Government shouldn't OK physician-assisted suicide

I'm writing in response to my friend Bob Rees' Jan. 16 Island Voices column advocating for physician-assisted suicide. Please allow me to convey my sincere sympathy for the melanoma he is struggling with; he is in my prayers. I certainly do not wish that he should suffer unnecessarily. But, his article incorrectly implies that such suffering will be the likely outcome if Hawai'i's Legislature does not pass the legislation he wants.

In fact, anyone can take their life at any time without this legislation. For example, during the lobbying for physician-assisted suicide in 2002, I observed people berating legislators for denying them the right to die — while leaning precariously over the railing that was the sole thing standing between them and a fatal four-story fall. And even if someone is so physically incapacitated that he is incapable of using the various legally obtainable means of causing his death, he still has the absolute right in every state in the union to commit suicide by refusing food or water.

So, Bob Rees is incorrect when he asserts that we do not have the right to "end one's own life at the time and place of one's choosing." In essence, physician-assisted suicide is not really about giving out pills; anyone can visit their pharmacy and, without a prescription, obtain a lethal dose of medicine. There's a reason why medicine bottles have warnings about dosages; even seemingly innocuous medicines like aspirin generally have a lethal dose.

Rather, physician-assisted suicide legislation is really about allowing doctors to violate their Hippocratic Oath — to ignore the injunction to "first do no harm" — to use their considerable moral authority to give their blessing to an irrevocable act about which the patient has serious qualms.

And that is a line government should not cross.

Hawaiian claims don't hold up

This is in response to commentaries by attorneys William Meheula and Beadie K. Dawson in Sunday's Focus section.

• The Apology Resolution does not "admit that the Hawaiians have a claim to the 1.8 million acres of ceded lands"! No one in the U.S. government can "admit" that.

The above statement is a thinly veiled attempt to persuade the Hawaiians to support the Akaka bill.

The reason the 1.8 million acres of ceded lands cannot be given to the Hawaiians is that those lands were paid for up to twice their value when the U.S. government assumed the payment of the $3.8 million public debt of the Hawaiian government, and the ceded lands "belong to the people of Hawai'i" (Admission Act). Today, those lands are valued at $50 billion to $60 billion.

• In 1921, the federal government gave to Hawaiians of at least 50 percent blood quantum 205,000 acres of land or 42 times more land each than the king ever did. A "Hawaiian nation within a nation" was not needed then and is not needed now in order to make an unsubstantiated claim.

• There is a good reason why, "over the past 30 years, many groups tried unsuccessfully to establish a Hawaiian government for the majority (emphasis added) of the Hawaiians."

For 1,500 years, the Hawaiians suffered under the chiefs' injustice, oppression and slavery. There were no laws. Law was the word of the king and chief.

Life was taken at the whim of the king or chief. Any product created by the people, beyond the daily food, belonged to the king and chief. (That's the slavery part.)

David Malo, a Hawaiian who grew up at the court of Kamehameha I and was the celebrated Hawaiian intellectual of the mid-19th century (no friend of the white man), wrote: " ... abject poverty, oppression, subjection, even death at the hands of the chiefs." And, "When cutting an 'ohi'a tree for an idol, a man was beheaded as sacrifice to the tree that was supposed to be the embodiment of the God Ku!" The gods required human sacrifices for a great number of reasons.

Then, there were the kauwa — the "untouchables." Their purpose of living was to be used as human sacrifice.

That's why, after accepting Christianity — God is love, he does not require human sacrifice — the country was ruled by just laws, not by the will of the chiefs.

After Kamehameha II and the high priest Hewahewa abolished the Hawaiian religion and burned the temples, they adopted the Western culture.

By 1893, 97 percent of the public schools used the English language (constitutions of 1840 and 1852). They just wanted to be like the Americans — and that's what they want now.

Kamehameha III's legacy is based in the 1840 adoption of the first constitution ever in Hawai'i: civil rights, trial by jury and an independent judicial system. Yet, even that did not improve the condition of the commoners. The king and chiefs had far too much power: In 1850, the king gave to the commoners one-third of an acre of land each, while he kept 1 million acres for himself, 1.5 million acres for the government and 1.5 million acres for 250 chiefs.

Then the king and chiefs sold half the land of Hawai'i, "to raise capital," which they squandered, and within 30 years they were impoverished (see Lili'uokalani's book), while the country produced one-half billion pounds of sugar per year, supplying 10 percent of the American market.

Today, the Hawaiians do not want to be ruled by the "new chiefs" and separate laws of a "Hawaiian entity." Just ask them.