PSYCHOLOGISTS

BILL WOULDN'T CREATE 2ND-TIER HEALTH SERVICE

Recently you lambasted appropriately trained psychologists from prescribing medications ("Psychiatric treatment needs doctor's care," Jan. 31) although clearly acknowledging the current crisis in rural mental healthcare in Hawai'i.

Your rationale faithfully follows the rhetoric of psychiatry for the past 20 years that with more time and money, they will get the job done.

Yet, two decades later patients continue to suffer from poor access to appropriate care.

This is not a "quick fix." Nor is allowing psychologists to prescribe a limited formulary create "a second tier" of services as you suggest.

Rather, abundant evidence is available from nurse practitioners, dentists, optometrists and physician assistants, as well as appropriately trained psychologists within the Department of Defense and in the states of New Mexico and Louisiana, that these professions are just as safe and effective in prescribing as M.D.s.

It is time to pass SB 1004 and HB 1456 and allow appropriately trained psychologists in Hawai'i to prescribe medications in these underserved rural areas.

IRAQ

NO JUSTIFICATION FOR SENDING OUR SOLDIERS

We have to constantly question our politicians and their foreign policy decisions that put our soldiers in harm's way.

There has to be a good reason to send the soldiers in.

In the case of Iraq, there is no way we should have sent our soldiers in.

We invaded a sovereign nation with no adequate justification. Now look at the civil war and sectarian violence growing there between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

Inevitably, we are blaming Iran for our inability to fix the situation in Iraq.

Soon Israel, the U.S., or both, will initiate a pre-emptive strike against Iran to cripple their nuclear program. This is why there are now two carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf.

FRONT PAGE

COPPER, PEDESTRIANS NO LONGER REAL NEWS

There are a couple of "news" stories that are no longer news, namely, copper thefts and pedestrians being hit by cars.

Rather than take up "news" space, put these pieces of information next to the weather. For copper thefts, list location, length and value of the copper taken.

In the "Pedestrians Hit" section, list the age and sex of the pedestrian, location, if they were in a crosswalk, vehicle type and if it was a hit-and-run. At the top, keep a year-to-date tally of pedestrians hit and number of fatalities.

You could have maps pinpointing the location of each event.

Save the front page for real news stories.

IRAN

LET US ALL UNDERSTAND OUR OWN HISTORY FIRST

Those Republicans (James Baker) and Democrats (Hillary Clinton) who propose talks with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons are being smeared as naive weaklings. It would serve us well to look at history for some perspective in helping achieve our goal of nuclear nonproliferation.

We are told the Iranian government has been a supporter of Palestinian groups and Hezbollah in Lebanon. They took 66 American hostages in their 1979 revolution who were all returned after more than a year. Also, they have a Holocaust denier as their current leader.

On the other hand, how many of us know about our transgressions against Iran?

On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, firing from inside Iranian territorial waters (unlawfully), mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger airplane killing all 266 passengers, including 66 children.

In the Iran-Iraq war, we supplied chemicals to Saddam Hussein, who used them against Iran in 1982-1984.

In 1953, our CIA helped orchestrate the overthrow of Iran's government, installing the Shah, who ruled with an iron fist until the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The war on terror must be built on effective strategy, communication and a clear understanding of history.

In paraphrasing a former U.S. president, "The greatest problem in the world today is the belief that what divides us is greater than what unites us."

Let's talk tough with the Iranians and hope they love their kids, too.

WARDROBE ADVICE

DON'T TOSS OUT CLOTHES, DONATE THEM TO CHARITY

Your Feb. 2 McClatchy-Tribune News Service article, "Most of Your Wardrobe Probably Needs To Be Tossed," unfortunately affirms the throwaway society that fills our landfills by using phrases such as "tossing," "dumping" and "getting rid" of 80 percent of the clothes in our closets.

While it's true that most of us have more clothes — indeed more of many things — than we physically need, the message contained in this article infers that we should simply throw away clothes we don't wear.

What about donating them to the Salvation Army or a thrift store operating for charity? What about giving them to someone who needs them? Why should we throw away perfectly good stuff?

Unfortunately, many messages permeating our media reaffirm our wasteful, debt-ridden, throw-away society.

Now, more than ever, the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle should be taught and promoted to our children.

The media has a bigger role to play in this than simply urging us to buy and discard stuff.

Simplification is an admirable goal, but wanton waste is not.

MANOA CAMPUS

UH IS AGGRESSIVELY FIXING ITS DORM ROOMS

The state auditor's report on student housing at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa highlights problems that we've already been moving aggressively to resolve.

Construction is under way on an 814-bed residence hall that will provide excellent accommodations when it's completed in the fall of 2008.

We agree that student dormitories need improvement. We neglected needed repairs and maintenance in past years and now need to work diligently to catch up. Over the next two years, more than $40 million will be spent to improve our residence halls.

The report questions whether we will be able to fill the beds that we're building. The answer is a resounding "yes." Many more students than we can accommodate want to live on campus to benefit from the many educational and social activities offered.

As the report suggests, we are making the Manoa campus an even safer place to study, to live, and to attend events and classes. Lighting improvements will soon be installed. We have hired additional security officers to patrol 24 hours a day.

More than 23,000 students and staff use our 300 acres daily, making this one of O'ahu's most densely populated areas. Yet our crime rates are no higher — and in many cases much lower — than neighboring communities.

We are moving forward to provide a quality environment for students and staff at Manoa.

FREEWAYS

SPACING CARS WOULD EASE TRAFFIC CONGESTION

A law that would make it mandatory to always have six or seven car lengths between you and the car ahead of you would eliminate traffic congestion on H-1 and H-2 freeways.

This interval occurs naturally outside of rush-hour jams.

Jammed-up cars must go slow, and cars packed tightly together do not allow for new cars to enter without cars already there having to slow down or stop.

The faster speed of the cars when observing the six- or seven-car interval clears more space for more cars more quickly than tightly packed cars. Do the math.

Let's call this the interval solution. Of course, there are no union jobs or new taxes attached to this solution, so forget it.

It seems counterintuitive but it works, except for politics.

ENVIRONMENT

CLIMATE CHANGE MAINLY DUE TO NATURAL CYCLES

Josh Lawrence's Feb. 5 letter argues that we must have even more government intervention in industry because, "Humans have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere. It's not theory, it's a scientific fact."

Well, yes, humans since caveman days have continually been changing the atmosphere — just not by very much.

But the theory that human activities are almost exclusively the cause of global climate change isn't a fact, but a rather speculative theory advanced by government-financed scientists who stand to gain a lot of funding if the theory predicts alarmist results.

Ask leading climate-change scientists these questions and watch them squirm: What percentage of global temperature change is due to natural causes versus human activities? 100 percent? 10 percent? 1 percent? 0.1 percent? If we ask other climate scientists, will they give the same answer?

In Al Gore's political stump speech masquerading as a documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," he uses a chart showing carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures for the past 650,000 years moving in lockstep up and down, in tune with ice ages and (brief) interglacial periods.

This is what you might expect — when the Earth grows colder due to natural cycles, you get fewer plants growing and thus less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Then Al Gore shows a sharp change in carbon dioxide levels due to human influence — but the temperature level doesn't move in lockstep. It keeps following the same path it's taken for 650,000 years.

Gore conveniently ignores the inconvenient truth he's just shown — that natural cycles are the primary driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide levels.