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Monday, February 1, 1999

Tapa


Ward, Moses should be ashamed of hypocrisy

State Rep. Mark Moses acknowledged in your Jan. 15 issue that he may face criticism for hiring Gene Ward, failed GOP congressional candidate, as chief of staff for $2,600 a month, that some may interpret it as a ploy to keep Ward eligible for state benefits.

Ward, a critic of big government, believes that government should remain big enough and long enough -- until April 19 to be exact -- so that he can be vested in the state retirement plan. He has spent a substantial part of his career taking home taxpayer-funded paychecks, and has decided to take home just a few more to get to the promised land.

Apparently, Moses doesn't understand what a disservice he is doing to his constituency by not caring if his chief of staff stays on during the most critical part of the legislative session.

Both he and Ward represent the hypocrisy in conservative politics: "Don't do what I do, do what I say."

R. Harding Teves

IRS won't be thwarted by laughable threats

The verbal posturing of Dickie Wong, Bishop Estate trustee, and Bill McCorriston, attorney defending discredited trustees Wong, Peters and Lindsey, show a group of desperate people caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

If the IRS is truly questioning the admission practices of the Kamehameha Schools, certainly the likes of Wong's body -- "Over my dead body," Wong said on TV -- or anyone else's body is not going to stop it. Such bravado is laughable, to say the least.

Wong's and McCorriston's statements are merely more attempts by the trustees and their spin doctors to deflect, obfuscate and delay the investigation of what obviously are crimes committed against the beneficiaries of the estate and the Hawaiian people.

They may be able to run for a while, but they cannot hide. What goes around, comes around!

Rod Ferreira
Class of 1952, Kamehameha Schools
Kamuela, Hawaii

Bishop Estate Archive

Lifestyle should not preclude people's rights

I was disappointed with Anya Anthony's Jan. 25 letter on domestic partnerships. I was hoping for a fresh view point and instead found a Mike Gabbard clone spewing forth the same flawed logic.

Anthony states the prime objective of the gay-rights movement is to "secure legal approval of homosexual behavior." Perhaps so, but my question is this: Why isn't it legal for those with a sexual orientation outside the mainstream to pursue the lifestyle they desire and choose, with the same rights and benefits as the rest of us?

Please leave your religious arguments where they belong -- at home with your personal beliefs. Holier-than-thou moral opinions have no place in a public forum where universal/human/civil rights are concerned.

P. Kahelopua
Kailua


QUOTABLE

Tapa

bullet "There's too much aloha in our facilities."
-- Former Hawaii inmate Peggy Wray-Nakamura, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee that relationships between guards and inmates are very common in the state women's prisons, and that guards should be better trained and rotated through different facilities to discourage such relationships.

bullet "This is hardly a mandate from which to base the future of our people."
-- Rowena Akana, chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, reacting to the less than 9 percent of Hawaiians who cast their ballots in last month's Ha Hawaii election of delegates for a convention later this year.

bullet "When a women is denied equal pay, it doesn't just hurt her. It hurts her family, and that hurts America."
-- President Clinton, calling for a $14 million initiative to close the gap between men's and women's wages, and new legislation to enforce equal pay rights.


Article used faulty logic about government reform

In a front-page article on Jan. 18, your reporter wrote, "It's the first year of a two-year legislative cycle, new leaders are settling into committee assignments and everyone is focused on fixing the economy... So don't expect much to happen on the government reform front."

"So?" Meaning "therefore," as in, "Everyone is focused on dealing with the cholera epidemic, so sewage disposal and water treatment will have to wait." As in, "Everyone is focused on malaria, so don't expect much attention directed toward swamp drainage and mosquito control." As in, "Everyone is focused on bubonic plague, so eradication of rats and fleas will have a low priority."

The argument is missing more than a few steps, seems to me.

Malcolm Kirkpatrick

Governor should tell truth about the economy

Would somebody tell Governor Cayetano that he won the election? Now that it is over, he can tell the truth about the economy.

He proclaims that the state has a surplus of over $154 million, a feat that neither he nor Budget Director Earl Anzai can explain. And while hotel occupancy figures indicate an 18-year low, Cayetano would have us believe that our tax revenues are coming in like crazy. How can tax revenues increase while hotel occupancy is at such a low point? Are visitors coming into the state and then living on the beach in their rental cars?

A more likely scenario is that the $1 billion in capital improvement projects imposed by Cayetano in 1997 is now taking hold. The only drawback is that taxpayers will repay the jump-start with more than $3 billion in taxes to pay off the principal and interest.

Wow, what a way to get the economy moving again.

Garry P. Smith
Ewa Beach

Tourism promoters deserve to be recognized, thanked

Congratulations for your Jan. 25 article about Pleasant Hawaiian's Ed and Lynn Hogan. They certainly deserve Hawaii's recognition and thanks for 40 years of promoting tourism, bringing millions of visitors to these islands and being a responsible employer of thousands of people.

During the last 40 years, I've gotten to know the Hogans well. I have the deepest respect for them as astute business people and genuinely nice people.

When the well-being of all the people in Hawaii is dependent to some degree on the visitor industry, it's absolutely essential that we express our recognition and appreciation of the key organizations that produce the visitors, who in turn are responsible for our economic well-being. This recognition needs to go to our key tour wholesalers, airlines and hotel companies.

Andre S. Tatibouet
President, Aston Hotels & Resorts





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