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Team scores points for forgiveness Imagine after all the hours of practice, hard work and sacrifice that your soccer team makes it into the state high school boys' soccer tournament. Imagine winning your first game and feeling so high that you could conquer the world. Then imagine while riding the bus to the quarterfinals game, that your team is told the game you won the previous night had to be forfeited because one of your teammates violated the eligibility rules. Imagine Athletic Director Ken Watanabe having to tell the coaches and soccer tournament officials of the rule infraction. Imagine the anger, frustration and disappointment felt by the athletic department, players, coaches and parents. Imagine after playing in your final consolation game that your team gathers at the school, where parents, players, coaches and supporters get on the bus and drive to the house of the absent, ineligible player. Imagine that instead of scorn, the offending player is offered forgiveness. Imagine the players and parents offering hugs, words of encouragement and support to the ineligible player and his family, even after he made a serious error in judgment. Imagine what the world would be like if we all had the same kind of integrity and compassion that was exhibited by Castle High School's athletic department and the boys' soccer team after it forfeited a game Feb. 10. John Wooden once said, "Sports do not build character -- they reveal it." Imagine what was revealed that night. Their character and conduct was much bigger than any trophy to be won. Imua Castle High and its boys' soccer team! Ron Yogi Kaneohe

Company will bungle next election, too

The same outfit that admittedly bungled the last election tabulations will probably be running the show once more.

It looks as though Election Systems & Software, a company with a track record of incompetence, will be rehired. You would never see this shibai in the private sector, where incompetence is not rewarded and elections chief Duane Yoshina would have been fired.

When the administration stated that ESS appears to be the only company that can meet the specs -- which one bidder who pulled out described as ridiculous -- I have to wonder: What exactly are those specs?

After last time's miscounts, amid allegations of voter fraud, it is unconscionable to hire these guys again.

Roy Frank Westlake

Strawberry suspension wasn't harsh enough

I read your Feb. 28 sports section with disgust.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig maintains Pete Rose's lifetime ban from baseball for gambling, yet suspends three-time-loser-drug-addict Darryl Strawberry for only a year. Where is his sense of values?

Is Selig saying that if a Pee-Wee Little League player was caught making a bet on his ballgame, he would be suspended from baseball? But this same kid can get caught smoking crystal meth three times and will only get a year-long suspension?

What kind of sick message is being sent to baseball players, their parents and the country? That it's OK to use illegal drugs, so long as you don't get caught?

Gary N. Suzukawa

'Pampered' state workers get rate hike

I am one of those pampered state employees who, after seven years on the job, is earning $11.30 an hour. We have just been informed that the new rates for our HMSA medical plan are to go up by 118 percent over what we were paying just 12 months ago.

I trust the governor and my union will be as vocal and indignant about this as they are about cutting my contracted benefits. I also hope that folks see just exactly what our HMOs are up to!

John Sprinzel
Kaunakakai, Molokai

Regular screening of gun owners is needed

Periodic gun registration requirements are not what "are most likely to isolate and reveal offenders." What we need is periodic screening of the gun-owning population for offenders, namely certain law violators and recipients of restraining orders.

Laws providing for confiscation of alleged Xerox gunman Byran Uyesugi's arsenal after his 1994 background check, not gun reregistration, are what might have stopped him. We need laws restricting gun ownership, together with strict enforcement.

Larry Lee
Kaneohe

Anti-gun politicos should be voted out

There is too much anti-gun legislation pending that is aimed at the law-abiding citizen. What have we done to deserve the disfavor of our elected officials?

Look at the gun situation from a different perspective. If one of the Xerox Hawaii employees had been able to legally carry a concealed weapon, he would have been able to protect himself and others from the gunman.

Yet the majority of Hawaii's politicians and law enforcement leaders don't believe the good people of this state deserve the right to protect themselves. It's a sad situation. We need to remember on Election Day which elected officials didn't trust us.

Dan Saito

McCain shouldn't have used the 'G' word

John McCain's use of the racial slur "gook" got little response and outrage from the liberal media. I guess Asians don't really matter when it comes to politics.

One thing's for certain. My "gook" vote won't be for the "mick" senator from Arizona.

Frank T.J. Tran
Pearl City

Quotables "My view doesn't change of my friend. To know him is to love him." Clayton Hee CHAIRMAN OF THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS TRUSTEES Saying he holds no animosity against Governor Cayetano for saying that the OHA board was "dysfunctional" and that all elected trustees should be immediately replaced in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ruled a Hawaiians-only vote was unconstitutional "The Hawaiians have been screwed, blued and tattooed for years. When is it going to stop? It's time for us to stand up and fight for ourselves." Art Frank HAWAIIAN ACTIVIST FROM WAIANAE Expressing his anger at one of the many state Senate hearings on the Rice vs. Cayetano decision and its impact on the Hawaiian community

Trask understands little about King, Gandhi

Mililani Trask maintains that her plans for "civil unrest" would follow the templates used by Martin Luther King Jr. and India's Gandhi. I am shocked at her mention of these two courageous men. It takes more than just using their "template" to bring about change, but a good deal of understanding of what they tried to achieve -- peace and equality for all citizens.

The great Mahatma Gandhi, in contrast to Trask, loved all Indians, regardless of tribal, racial or religious backgrounds. In fact, his whole movement had the preservation of India's unity at its heart, the lessening of human conflict and the education of those who had problems living with their neighbors.

He was not an exclusionary activist for a "Hindu only" society. Neither did Martin Luther King Jr. harbor resentment against all non-blacks nor advocate forming a nation for blacks only within the United States. He, too, was a proud U.S. citizen whom we honor by giving him a special day in our calendar.

Trask should not mock these great men, or belittle their efforts, by comparing them to her brand of "civil disobedience."

Ulrike Siddiqi

Trustee's call for civil resistance is justified

Even though I agree with the governor that our OHA trustees are sometimes "dysfunctional," they were elected by the Hawaiian people. Under no circumstance should they be removed.

I urge all my ohana, my kanaka maoli friends and other Hawaiians to come together and unite as one people.

Let us follow Mililani Trask's advice about "civil disobedience and resistance," all the way to jail, if necessary.

For once let's work together and fight for all the injustices over the past 100 years. But even more important, we must fight for future generations of Hawaiians.

Art Frank
Waianae

Hawaiians shouldn't adopt methods of the master

As a consequence of the Rice vs. Cayetano decision, some are considering civil disobedience. Civil disobedience provokes violence upon one's self and is an acting out of a cycle of victimization that serves neither side well.

At this year's Sovereignty Sunday, participants were reminded of a quote by Audre Lorde, "We cannot take apart the master's house using the master's tools."

Violence and victimization -- whether spiritual, physical, emotional or psychological, even when wielded by the self-professed victim -- are still tools of the master.

Napua McShane
Kurtistown, Hawaii

Don't cause problems for the silent majority

I understand that the OHA folks aren't happy with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, but civil disobedience only hurts their campaign.

Take a look at the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. Issues the protesters were hoping to bring up got clouded and forgotten because of the violence.

Remember, Hawaii is just starting to come out of its economic depression. Let's not ruin it. Don't cause undeserved strife for the majority of us who are busting our butts to make it out here.

Andy Kauffman
Kaneohe

Rice is an outsider like other Caucasians

In 1893, the United States government intervened in the affairs of the Hawaiian people. History repeats itself with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

I hope to see the day that this colonial attitude will be driven from my homeland. Hawaii is not and will never be America.

Harold "Freddy" Rice, you are an outsider just like your ancestors were. You are not native nor will you ever be native. Research your roots and go back to whatever place you truly belong.

John W.K. Luuwai
Huntington Beach, Calif.

Liquidate the trust and distribute the money

Although I am not a native Hawaiian, I have a suggestion on how to resolve the issue of OHA and Hawaiian sovereignty. As a resident of Hawaii, I am concerned about the dangerous possibilities that may arise if we don't do something soon.

First, I don't believe sovereignty should be given to Hawaiians, because I am against creating a society within a society defined and segregated by race. After all, history has shown there is nothing to be gained by glorifying racial boundaries.

Yet, despite my disapproval of sovereignty, I am in favor of some form of reparations that will resolve this issue in the hearts and minds of both Hawaiians and the rest of the citizens of this state.

Because Hawaiian leaders have shown themselves to be more concerned with their own power than with the interests of anyone else, the best solution would be to literally take the power out of their hands and to put it in the pockets of the people.

All of OHA's assets should be liquidated and distributed into individual accounts of all Hawaiians (get rid of OHA's blood measurements) and should be used for housing and education.

Cindy Mackey

In this case, two half-heads are better than one

With respect to the Trask-Cayetano fuss, Jonathan Swift suggested a method when satirizing politics of the day. Old editions of "Gulliver's Travels" contained a picture of two politicians with the tops of their heads sawed off so as to be interchanged -- the half-brain of one with the half-brain of the other.

Swift's recipe: "The method is this: you take a hundred leaders of each party, you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size...It seems, indeed, to be a work that requireth some exactness, but...if it were dexterously performed, the cure would be infallible...

"The two half-brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon ...produce that moderation...so much wished for in the heads of those who imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern."

John M. Flanigan
Kaneohe

Editor's note: John M. Flanigan should not be confused with John M. Flanagan, editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.

U.S. Public Law 103-150 OHA Ceded Lands Ruling Rice vs. Cayetano U.S. Supreme Court strikes down OHA elections Office of Hawaiian Affairs

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