MAHALO

'ANGEL ON A MISSION' DELIVERS MISSING WALLET

Recently, I realized that my son's wallet was missing from his wheelchair's zippered back pocket.

The very next day, I found a brown mailing envelope addressed to my son — it was hand-delivered — in our mail box containing my son's wallet.

Like an angel on a mission, a Mrs. O said that she found the wallet while she was visiting her husband at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. How the wallet got there remains a mystery.

Fortunately, my son's state ID and Medicare and Medicaid cards were still in the wallet. Just the cash was missing.

We are very appreciative of Mrs. O's efforts to see that the wallet was returned. Also, thank you to Mrs. O's associate, who felt that hand-delivering the package was important — you have certainly eased my concerns about obtaining the replacement cards.

May both of you be blessed with good health and happiness. Mahalo nui loa.

'LITTLE ANGEL' RETURNS LOST WALLET IN NANAKULI

I am truly grateful for a Good Samaritan (no one knows who that little girl is) who turned in my wallet, which I forgot at the Nanakuli McDonald's while having breakfast there.

I noticed my wallet missing when I got to work and called right away, but no one had seen it.

But when I hung up, this "little angel" turned it in to one of the morning managers and the manager tried to locate me when my husband came in to inquire about my wallet.

Our family is truly grateful, and would like to repay that "little angel" with a token of our gratitude.

From that day on, we have been at McDonald's every morning to see if the managers or workers have seen her. God bless that "little angel," whoever she may be.

TRANSIT DEBATE

RAIL VERSUS NO RAIL IS REALLY A FALSE CHOICE

If people want to sign the Stop Rail Now petition, I won't stop them from exercising their democratic right to protest.

The problem is when rail opponents demand that anyone who supports "the will of the people" must also sign it or else they are somehow enemies of democracy.

I support rail transit and I'm not afraid to take a vote on it. However, I have chosen to not sign this petition because it doesn't offer any alternatives.

Doing nothing about our congestion problems is not an option. Rail vs. no rail is a false choice, because even rail critics like Cliff Slater and Charles Djou think something should be done.

If HOT lanes are such a good idea, why didn't the anti-rail folks include this as part of their ballot measure? Perhaps it's because they care more about killing rail than offering an option the public will support.

If people want HOT lanes, build them. But let's stop pretending that this particular nine-word ordinance that offers no solutions is the only democratic way to settle the debate.

Mayoral elections, City Council votes and bills passed by the state Legislature are also forms of democracy last time I checked.

ARRESTS

PUBLICITY COULD DETER DRINKING AND DRIVING

Hooray to The Advertiser for printing the names of repeat DUI offenders. (Page B2, June 30).

Please keep it up. It could provide an additional incentive to think twice before getting behind the wheel after drinking.

OBAMA

NEW YORKER AND SAD STATE OF RACE RELATIONS

New Yorker magazine's Obama cover is satire?

Yes, if that means the depiction of the sad, tired state of race relations in the U.S.

OIL

RENEWABLE ENERGY IS ONLY SOLUTION FOR U.S.

Toshio Chinen's July 7 letter says that in order to "fix the oil problem" we should start drilling more holes in America, from Alaska to Florida, to look for more oil.

However, all of the major oil fields have already been discovered. According to a 2002 study, "The World's Giant Oil Fields," by Simmons & Co. International, the world's top oil investment banking firm, half of all oil comes from just 3 percent of all oil fields, and three of the five largest fields are already in decline.

When will Americans see? Peak production for light sweet crude has already happened, and the rest of the oil grades will follow. Digging up and drilling deeper into our homelands is not the answer.

Because we are the world's biggest consumer and polluter nation, a rapid and monumental shift in America's energy policy from dependence on oil to dependence on renewables is the only way.

Easier said than done, but then nobody ever said that life was going to be easy.

TANF FUNDS

RAINY DAY IS ALREADY HERE FOR MANY OF US

The Legislature blocked important TANF funds for needy families to save for a rainy day?

Is it not rainy enough today with the economic downturn, soaring prices on commodities, large local employers Aloha, ATA and Molokai Ranch going under, tourism dropping 15 percent and a Legislature that is not interested in aiding the people they represent?

That's rainy and cold.

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

NAIVE TO THINK OBAMA IS CHANGING POLITICS

Christopher Ballesteros, in his June 29 Focus section column, sounds naive if he thinks politics is being changed by Barack Obama.

Take, for example, the fact that the Democratic Party has already sent Gen. Wesley Clark out to bad-mouth John McCain on his war record.

Obama's comment on that tirade was to denounce such rhetoric, but he failed to even mention Clark's name. Why? To avoid soiling his pie-in-the-sky campaign?

If your generation of young voters, Christopher, are swept off your feet by Obama's supposedly clear boundary between what is responsible campaigning and reprehensible rhetoric, you had better take note of the Wesley Clarks out there, and remind Obama what he has promised you.

I, too, would like to see a clean campaign for a change.

I've been listening to a lot of "garbage" in my young 81 years. By the way, I hear tell that Clark may be Obama's running mate.

IT IS HARD TO SEE HOW ANYONE CAN VOTE GOP

I, too, was a Republican until Bush, Cheney and their neocons led the hijacking of the party by extremists.

Now the Grand Old Party has become the party of prejudice, intolerance, war and fiscal waste.

After all, this is the party that denied its best candidate the presidential nomination largely because he is Mormon, offering it instead to the default candidate, a once-maverick who sold his ideals for the candidacy, someone whose perception is so narrow that he stated that one of the major criteria for the selection of his vice president is his opposition to abortion and that the major criterion for the success of the Iraq war is the number of American casualties.

Faced with the choice between a candidate with serious physical and ideological limitations and a phenomenon named Barack Obama, how can anyone vote Republican this time around?

GOVERNOR

VETO AUTHORITY GOOD FOR LEGISLATION, STATE

Our governor's constitutional power to veto legislation is fundamental to the integrity of Hawai'i's system of government, which is based on dividing power and responsibilities into separate, independent branches.

By keeping power from accumulating in the hands of the Legislature, the governor's veto authority improves the quality of legislation and promotes compromise between the executive and legislative branches. The veto power also provides a final opportunity to examine legislation from a wider legal and fiscal perspective, and helps ensure that the laws passed by the Legislature provide a net benefit to the state.

The veto power enables the governor to reject legislation that contravenes our state and federal constitutions.

Additionally, fiscal prudence may not be possible without vetoing pieces of legislation that create unfunded mandates and present other forms of fiscal irresponsibility.

Similarly, legislation must be vetoed if it does not result in a net benefit to the state. While a legislator represents the interests of his or her district, the governor must take a broad-based approach, evaluating the overall, long-term impact of each piece of legislation on the state.

MEDICINE

RANDOM CONTROL TRIALS STILL RELY ON STATISTICS

Dr. Landis Lum on June 19 praised randomized controlled trials.

While they are the best available, randomized controlled trials still rely on statistics. If there is a 5 percent or lower probability that the results are a random event, then the study is accepted as valid. Thus at the 5 percent level, 1 out of 20 times the study results may not be valid but may be due to chance. Factors such as whether or not the patient took the exact quantity of study medicine prescribed affects the outcome. All physicians know of findings confirmed in randomized controlled trials but later disproven.

I generally agree with Dr. Lum that most healthy adults do not need supplemental vitamins or antioxidants. I think it unfortunate that he added the paragraph regarding vitamin E and dizzy spells. Is he sure that the vitamin E was responsible for the dizzy spells? Does he know how much vitamin E the patient took? I think inclusion of this paragraph suggests that Dr. Lum has already made up his mind about the issue. For me, that changed his column from wine to flat beer.