DONNIS THOMPSON

LEGACY IN ISLE HISTORY, BLACK HISTORY HONORED

Dr. Donnis Thompson was a pioneer and an incredible courageous black woman. She came to the University of Hawai'i as a young woman ready to set the standards for women athletes to achieve their highest potentials. Her contributions to the University of Hawai'i are too numerous to count. Yet today, as we watch the UH women's volleyball team and UH women basketball players, Hawai'i can stand with much pride!

We honor Dr. Thompson this Black History Month in Hawai'i. She is an African-American woman who is part of Hawai'i's history, along with President Barack Obama.

The African American Diversity Cultural Center Hawai'i museum will honor her memory and contributions by establishing a "Donnis Thompson Gallery" in its historic preservation facility.

PARK FEES

SHAME ON STATE FOR COMMERCIALIZING SITES

At 75 years old, I would have preferred not to have to fight any battles. But when I learned that the state plans to commercialize the Pali Lookout and Ka Iwi Park to accommodate visitors and collect a fee, I told my grandson it is time to put on the war paint.

Shame on the Department of Land and Natural Resources for peddling paradise for $1 and further weakening Hawai'i's gracious aloha spirit. But more importantly, this action promotes segregation between us, local people, and them, the visitors.

We need to strike Ka Iwi and the Pali Lookout from the DLNR's hit list, well-buried within the glossy title of the state's "Recreational Renaissance."

The overall plan has merit but got sloppy toward the end, when it took the "status quo" route to commercialize two important landmarks. Today's Diamond Head park, complete with information center, T-shirt sales, nonstop huge buses of tourists and two fluorescent-lit soda vending machines, is not something to be proud of — this is not proper care of special places and very inconsiderate to future generations.

I can only hope our legislators see the writing on the wall: "Paradise for Sale for $1 — Visitors Keep Right, Locals Stay Left." Please join me in the protest to stop this madness.

KAILUA BEACH

DREDGING HELPS OTHER BEACHES BEAT EROSION

I have been visiting Kailua Beach Park for more then 10 years. I have enjoyed sitting under a tree 100 yards from the boat ramp. The beach in front of our favorite place was at least 25 yards wide.

I have lived in Virginia Beach, Va., and the outer banks of North Carolina. Virginia Beach and places on the outer banks maintain their beaches by dredging sand from the ocean in front of the beach. It's drawn up from the ocean bottom and piped in to the beach and spread by bulldozers.

It has worked to maintain a hundred-yard beach in Virginia Beach and the same in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

WITCOVER COLUMN

PART ABOUT DEMOCRATS JUMPING SHIP LEFT OUT

Nowhere in Jules Witcover's column (Feb. 2) concerning the recent vote by the House does he mention the 11 Democrats who jumped ship, creating, in the process, a bipartisan relationship that includes House Republicans and House Democrats against President Obama.

My uneducated guess is that if 11 House Republicans had jumped ship, in President Obama's favor, Jules Witcover would not have left that information out of his op-ed.

TEXTING BAN

PROPOSAL INADVERTENTLY TARGETS WORKING DRIVERS

The proposed new ordinance (Council Bill 4) that would restrict the use of mobile electronic devices while operating a motor vehicle will add hardship to volunteer emergency workers and small businesses on O'ahu.

Although the likely intent of the ordinance is to curb dangerous wireless texting while driving, the bill as written would also prohibit taxis from using their mobile data terminals, truck and delivery drivers from communicating with their dispatchers, and volunteer amateur (ham) radio operators from serving their communities.

This would add considerable hardship to businesses already struggling to cope with the economic downturn and serve the community.

Councilmen Rod Tam and Donovan Dela Cruz should immediately amend or withdraw their proposed ordinance as it is poorly conceived and overly broad.

Let's think of ways that really improve public safety.

ECONOMIC STIMULUS

BILL A HUGE WASTE OF TAX DOLLARS, ADDS TO DEFICIT

It is very likely that, in a couple of years, we will look back at this month and see it as President Obama's Hurricane Katrina. Instead of a weather-induced calamity, we face a financial storm. The flood of foreclosures, bankruptcies, and pink slips is rising rapidly, and what does our political leadership do?

The president and Congress rush through a pork barrel spending bill roughly twice as expensive as the entire Iraq war.

And what will this bill bring us? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the majority of the funding will not be spent quickly enough to have an impact on the current recession.

Add to that the fact that the bill does relatively little for struggling homeowners or the small business employment engine.

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie's statement in The Advertiser that all credible economists support this process is demonstrably wrong. The stimulus as proposed doesn't even meet the criteria for timeliness laid out by the president's own economic adviser, Mr. Summers, prior to his appointment.

Sure, improving our highways after the recession is over will be a good thing, but at what cost, given that the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, during the lifetimes of those reading this letter, will exceed the cost of 50 Iraq wars.