Don't let kumu hula's fame preclude just sentence
Chinky Mahoe is facing a court sentence after pleading no contest to sexual molestation of children in his care. As a teacher, this kumu hula was responsible for the nurturing and growth culturally, intellectually and spiritually of his hula ohana. However, his abuse of these young boys has permanently shattered their innocence.How can these boys regain their lost self-esteem? When will their fears stop? When will they smile again? When will they trust another adult again? What kind of future do they now face?
We cannot permit talent to be the venue for a cover-up. We cannot use the lack of prison space to be used as an excuse to let a criminal walk. A crime was perpetrated not only on the four boys who are now in court but to five more whose parents did not want their children to face the legal ordeal.
Chinky Mahoe should exercise his eminent talent teaching Hawaiian values, chants and dances in prison for as long as possible. Or is justice dead in Hawaii?
Lela M. Hubbard
Aiea
Mayor Harris is already working way too hard
In his July 14 letter, Chris Lee wonders why the city needs to fill the position of managing director, and suggests that the mayor "put in a few more hours at his desk," since many Oahu residents work two or three jobs.About the only way that Mayor Harris could work any harder would be if we were to set up a cot in his office. He's already working the equivalent of two or three jobs, and often putting in 80-hour weeks.
The idea that we could dispense with the city's managing director, in effect the chief operating officer of a very lean and efficient operation, is ludicrous.
Carol Costa
Director
Office of Information and Complaint
City and County of Honolulu
Doctors should heal, not assist with death
It is not difficult for those of us who went through World War II to evaluate good from evil. We read and saw on television the horrors of the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany made an effort to purify its race by destroying Jews and Germans with disabilities, defects and weaknesses that were not tolerated.In Hawaii, men and women have sought to perpetuate this culture of evil and death in our own hospitals, nursing homes and care homes by promoting suicide and physician assisted suicide.
This Kervorkian mentality that some physicians have adopted should not be accepted by our community. The job of doctors is to do good, not kill.
Kwock Young
Chiropractors are selective about nit-picking ads
It is amusing to see chiropractors up in arms and filing a lawsuit (Star-Bulletin, July 10) over the little notice in the Yellow Pages warning against workers' compensation fraud. Let your fingers walk through their ads and sample their many bogus claims and questionable practices.You will find chiropractors who crack backs for the treatment of asthma, allergies, colds, childhood diseases, digestive disturbances, chest pains and arthritis. They advertise that they administer mega-enemas, peddle supplements and use (unapproved and worthless) medical devices.
On Maui, several chiropractors heavily advertise their ability to cure hypertension, diabetes, liver disease and even cancer. All such activities are outside the legal scope of chiropractic and thoroughly reprehensible, but most of the ads emphasize coverage by workers' comp and insurance policies.
Do the leaders of the profession ever complain about these ads? Of course not. They run some of them.
Kurt Butler
Kula, Maui
Wedding chapels don't belong in neighborhoods
We live adjacent to the proposed wedding business at Bayer Estate and we're tired of reading letters from people outside our little neighborhood who aren't even listening to us.The Mirikitani rental property isn't unique. There are others like it nearby -- try walking the neighborhood. The majority of lands run from the highway to the sea, with large yards. Some of these lot owners have already been approached by wedding mill operators trying to cash in on the Japanese visitor industry.
They tried it at Diamond Head, at the Walker Estate in Nuuanu, and now in Aina Haina. When are these people going to learn? Commercial use doesn't belong next to homes!
Louise Swartz
Dorothy Ako
Legislature would certainly have approved non-bid job
Man! Whatta fairy tale, Star-Bulletin! You don't really expect anyone will believe that July 17 story on the governor's good pal Bert Kobayashi not having to bid on $40 million worth of contracts out in Kapolei, do you? And we poor suckers thought the Bishop Estate hassle was the story of the year!Yeah, and I'm sure Kathy Inouye, Makai Village's chief operating officer, agonized all by herself that good ol' Bert was probably out of his mind to authorize a year's work with no state contract. You know -- the big financial risks involving the middle school? Why, what if the Democratic-controlled Legislature didn't authorize the funds later on?
Why didn't we think of that possibility? They could have said: "No sir, Governor, we just can't afford it." Of course, they couldn't say that. Ben would understand, and Bert would have said, "That's the breaks. We gambled and lost." Suuuurre!
Ray Thiele
Kailua
Twigg-Smith family has long opposed monarchy
Knowledgeable students of Hawaii's history know that Thurston Twigg-Smith's grandfather, Lorrin A. Thurston, was a founding father of the Honolulu Rifles, that forced the Bayonet Constitution upon David Kalakaua in 1887. He was a leading perpetrator in the illegal overthrow in 1893 and was chairman of the annexation commission and the driving force behind the unconstitutional annexation in 1898.Few know, however, that at least four generations of Thurstons have been ardent annexationists or apologists for it. In 1854, Thurston blood boiled for annexation in the veins of Twigg-Smith's great grandfather, Asa Goodale Thurston, speaker of Hawaii's House. According to the journals of Robert C. Wyllie, "Speaker Thurston had pressed annexation so vehemently that he had given great offense to Native House members."
Michael Dougherty
Waimanalo
Cayetano's innocence is dubious distinction
The governor's latest television ad brags that he has had a scandal-free administration. It says much about the governor and the Democratic Party when the best thing they can say about their top candidate is that he hasn't committed any crimes.Robert Gallagher
(Via the Internet)
Voters must see through PR and smear campaigns
While no one has attacked her character, gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle has already begun accusing others of running smear campaigns against her. I see this as a strategic political attempt to portray her opponents as villains and to keep the voting public from checking the facts.There is no smear attempt on the part of her opponents. Questioning campaign claims is part of the political process, and should stimulate us to investigate each candidate prior to voting.
As voters, we have the responsibility to test all claims and not vote on the basis of slick PR rhetoric. To get this state rolling once again, we need to see through the political smoke screen and vote on the basis of a prolonged, proven track record.
Randy Dela Cruz
Aiea
'Old boys' protect their own in political merry-go-round
Whenever I see commentary by someone like Democratic Party Chairman Walter Heen, picking nits with the Lingle campaign, it reminds me how the American concept of separation of powers has been abused by the majority party in Hawaii.Around 1981, a City Council redistricting plan was overturned by the federal courts. Walter Heen, a Council member himself when he was made a judge, was named by the federal court as a "master" to supervise redrawing of the district lines. The "Heen Plan" cut the number of winnable Republican seats in half.
The new plan was the usual old-boy network gerrymander. Elected old-boy politicians become old-boy appointed judges nominated by old-boy governors and confirmed by old-boy senators, who then rule on political issues in favor of the old-boys.
Then the old-boy judges retire to become old-boy party chairmen, who criticize the ethics of non-old-boy candidates while supporting old-boys who run for office. Some old-boy chairpersons (remember O'Connor?) even run for office themselves to keep the merry-go-round going.
Is this a great state or what?
James V. Hall
Democrats are to blame for Bishop Estate mess
Democratic Party Chairman Walter Heen's July 11 View Point column neglects to point out a very important question: While he takes Linda Lingle to task on how she would have handled the investigation into the Bishop Estate, he never suggests how it was we got into the crisis in the first place.Of the three Bishop Estate trustees who are creating road blocks in the judicial system, and thereby preventing a swift resolution to this mismanagement of trust funds, one is a former Senate president and another is a former speaker of the House. They are both Democrats.
Heen is chairman of the very party that ensured the system by which these two individuals could control the nation's largest charitable institution. He should be looking at how the system became so perverted to allow these politically powerful Democrats to obtain such positions in the first place.
Marge Young
Ewa Beach
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