Letters to the Editor
Thursday, October 10, 1996

AJA league has the right to
limits its membership

The lambasting that the Americans of Japanese ancestry baseball league is getting for not letting in a non-AJA is becoming too violent. One letter writer even calls them Japanese, apparently not considering that they and all of their forebearers have been here, Americanized, for many generations.

They are just as American as Americans of English ancestry, or Americans of Russian ancestry, or Americans of German ancestry, etc., many of whom trace their foreign ancestry back only one or two generations, not five or six like the AJAs do.

Suppose there was a club of some kind on the mainland whose members are close-knit because of some common experience, like a hypothetical veterans group - the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys Rifle Club. If an AJA wanted to gain membership to that club because of his "marksmanship" abilities, what chance would he have, and how much discussion would take place, I wonder.

Ted Chernin


This 'league' will allow
only the Caucasians to play

I plan to start a new winter baseball league called the Americans of Caucasian Ancestry (ACA). Now just because blacks, Asians and Hawaiians won't be allowed to play in the league, I don't want people jumping to the conclusion that this league in any way represents discrimination or ethnic bias.

This is just an ethnic tradition that we are starting, sort of like what they used to have in the South.

Donald F. Adams
Aiea


Local inmates should staff a
major recycling center

Garbage, waste and unwanted manufactured items can be turned into a profit. I propose that our city and state planners set aside some land at Barbers Point Naval Air Station to create a combined state prison compound and major recycling center.

The state prison system could provide the labor. Prison inmates would sort out recyclable items to be sold locally or to ship to the mainland for sale and reuse.

A blue-ribbon panel should be formed - made up of business people, industrialists and city and state planners - to find experts in the field of recycling discarded items. The search should be conducted internationally to determine the feasibility of this proposal. If the panel finds this to be a viable project, it should immediately seek out companies willing to build and fund this recycling center, with government assistance in subsidies, land provision and tax incentives.

Prisoners would be paid. Their stipends should be set aside and given to them upon parole.

This proposal could greatly improve our prison overcrowding problem. It will also provide inmates with educational opportunities and potential for future employment upon their release from prison.

Albert Wong


SHOPO didn't deserve rap
for endorsing Swindle

I was shocked that letter writer Jacob Ng would so tastelessly insult the fine men and women of the Honolulu Police Department just because he disagrees with their political views.

In his Oct. 7 letter, Ng impugns the integrity of the entire HPD by suggesting that SHOPO, the police union, is led by officers who have no concern about violent crime. This is not only false, it is extremely mean-spirited.

Ng bases his attack on a number of falsehoods and distortions having to do with gun control. He wrongly asserts that congressional candidate Orson Swindle wants to repeal the ban on "automatic weapons, like the AK-47, and on the purchase of firearms by those convicted of domestic violence."

Swindle is not in favor of legalizing any fully automatic firearms including AK-47s. And regarding criminals, Swindle wants to keep all guns out of the hands of criminals - not just those guilty of domestic violence.

The reason the last Congress gutted the Center for Disease Control's Injury Control Program was because it was an inefficient, poorly run program that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. It had nothing to do with the National Rifle Association.

Ng owes the men and women of HPD an apology. He also needs to do his homework.

Brian Baron


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