Isn't it ironic? Hepatitis contamination in strawberries. Headlines everywhere. Children at risk. Nationally, many take ill. The CDC swings into action. Sales of strawberries plummet. President of distribution company resigns. Cigarettes are more deadly
than some strawberriesCompare that to the presidents of the various tobacco companies who have been lying for years, and who have been deliberately targeting advertising to children all over the country.
Which is the greater damage? Exposure to Hepatitis A or exposure to Joe Camel? How many will die from strawberries? How many have died and will die from tobacco?
Phyllis Hanson
Kailua-Kona
(Via the Internet)
I applaud your newspaper for carrying Terrill Chock's April 19 column on the topic of changes to interstate banking in Hawaii. Mainland banks don't care
about small businessesChock missed one very important point, though. If Hawaii's doors are thrown open to mainland banks, don't expect any small, independent banks to open up as well.
The big banks are the only ones that will have the resources to come to Hawaii and they won't give a damn about our small businesses. They'll go right after the big, juicy accounts that Bank of Hawaii and First Hawaiian have controlled for years.
They'll drive our small banks out of business by taking away customer deposits. Small businesses here will be the big losers!
I want our legislators to know that there are a lot of business people who wouldn't be in business at all if not for the small banks.
Phillip Gaillard
Once again comes Mike Fitzgerald's semi-annual column on how "money-grubbing" local stations delay sports so they can charge more for advertising, and because local stations are "too stupid to understand what WE want as viewers." Once again, I must respond: Fitz is like broken record
with lament for live sports1) The vast majority of Hawaii viewers cannot be home to watch live sports on weekdays because they have REAL jobs.
2) VCR penetration in Hawaii stands at 82 percent. This means that one in five households cannot, as was suggested, tape the game to view later.
3) Stations have commitments to their suppliers (syndicated programs, such as "Home Improvement" and "Wheel Of Fortune"), to their networks to run evening programs, and to their viewers that they not be disenfranchised when tuning in to their favorite local news (which, though hard to believe, is more important than sports to many people).
Were we to run weekday sports live, as Fitzgerald suggests, almost 20 percent of the population would not view the event at all, let alone on a delayed basis.
You might want to save this letter for baseball playoff time, when I'm sure Fitzgerald will whip out his column once again.
Mike Rosenberg
President & General Manager
KITV
In the July 12, 1989 edition of the Star-Bulletin, then-Lt. Gov. Cayetano was reported to have said that the total cost of the A+ afterschool child-care program would be $1.5 million for a half year ($3 million per year) if 29,000 children participated, and that it would cost participants only one dollar per day per child. The cost of A+ program
is spinning out of controlBy June 29, 1995, the Star-Bulletin reported that the DOE was spending $17 million a year to subsidize A+, 567 percent of the original estimate.
Now the Legislature is considering doubling the $55 per month fee currently charged, which, by my estimates, would result in a daily cost of $5 per day per child, or 500 percent of the original estimate.
Other than the obvious, this proves one point: Donkeys are very stubborn and elephants have good memories.
John Pechauer
Same-sex archive
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