The CPR Hula will sway
its way into the schools

I thank Dr. Wes Young for his April 30 column, "Hula helps CPR training." The column introduced the role of something as simple as the CPR Hula in the big picture of CPR training.

The column touched on the chain of survival relating to cardiac arrest outside the hospital setting, not to mention the positive effect of CPR training in other emergency situations.

Mentioned in the article was the very special group of students who learned the CPR Hula at Kamehameha School, on April 7.

This was our first opportunity to teach the hula to young people. They were a small group but their laughter and extremely quick understanding of not only the hula but what to do in case of an emergency really impressed us.

It has given us encouragement to continue to go to other schools with the CPR Hula.

Sue Archer
EMS Division
MICT, City and County of Honolulu

Why aren't more objecting
to shortened quarantine?

Hawaii is somewhat short of unique to me with the Board of Agriculture's decision to liberalize the animal quarantine rules. This place we call home is more like many other places now.

The governor has demonstrated that one man with a gripe can unilaterally change a system within the government in an autocratic way. With his election, he won the privilege of making certain changes to fit his personal agenda.

Why haven't other health professionals come forward over this issue? Surely, I don't represent a unique concern. Where are my colleagues from the schools of medicine and public health? They should step forward to provide their expertise (for or against), regardless of whom it may offend.

Where are the pediatricians, who have privately given lip service to a concern about rabies in our environment? Where are all those environmentalists? Are they more concerned with the introduction of alien plants than the rabies virus?

I urge my friends and neighbors to be vigilant and to think about ways to keep Hawaii rabies-free. It is not a nice disease!

Dr. Nick Palumbo
Clinical Veterinarian
Professor Emeritus
John A. Burns School of Medicine

(Via the Internet)

City must coordinate length
of traffic signals

I am not surprised by the complaint voiced in the April 26 Kokua Line about the safety risk caused by queuing on the H-1 east-bound university off-ramp. The culprit is the long light at the intersection of Dole and University, which is the responsibility of the city Department of Transportation Services.

The intersection's signal cycle varies between 130 and 160 seconds in the morning peak period. This setting is inappropriate for the volume at this location, and is inconsistent with the Highway Capacity Manual, the national standard which specifies that "cycle lengths normally vary between 60-120 seconds."

Over the last few months, my students and I have been collecting traffic signal data. Many busy intersections in Honolulu (e.g. along Vineyard Boulevard) operate under unacceptably long cycle lengths (about 160 seconds and often exceeding 180 seconds).

The intersection of Kula Kolea Drive and Likelike Highway runs on a 270-second cycle!

Traffic signals in Honolulu must be set in accordance with standard traffic engineering practice and be coordinated for efficiency. Their present settings exacerbate congestion, increase fuel consumption and pollution, aggravate motorists and, at some locations, increase the risk for accidents.

Panos D. Prevedouros
Associate Professor
Civil Engineering
University of Hawaii-Manoa

Capital punishment
is not inflicted fairly

Now, at the dusk of the second millenium, American citizens are issued traffic citations, arrested for domestic disturbances, convicted of misdemeanors and put to death substantially based on gender, socioeconomic status and race.

Our eye-for-an-eye mentality has provided our selectively irresponsible states the allowance to execute those who murder whites significantly more frequently than those who murder African Americans.

In eight states, the disproportion is from three- to seven-fold in favor of those murdering blacks. In every executing state, convicted African-American murderers of white victims are executed dozens of times more frequently than white males.

Justifying capital punishment through arguing the benefits or necessity of deterrence and retribution can only begin after the fundamental failures of unfairness are resolved.

In a country that has racism rooted to the very core, the resolution of unfair and arbitrary execution of our citizens, if achieveable, is in the very distant future.

Until such a time, arguing the morality and usefulness of capital punishment, except to abolish the practice, is valueless.

Randall Thompson
Aiea
(Via the Internet)

---

Same-sex archive

---

Want to write a letter to the editor? Let all Star-Bulletin readers know what you think. Please keep your letter to about 200 words. You can send it by e-mail to letters@starbulletin.com or you can fill in the online form for a faster response. Or print it and mail it to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or fax it to: 523-8509. Always be sure to include your daytime phone number.