Support UH football team by buying season tickets
My compliments to Paul Arnett for his terrific article in Saturday's paper on Coach Fred vonAppen and the woes of the UH Rainbow Warriors. I've been impressed with Arnett's work for years. He's an exceptional writer. Honolulu sports fans are lucky to have him.Hawaii's sports fans, and the university in particular, are also lucky to have Coach vonAppen. He is a smart, honest and inspiring educator, and the football program he is trying to build will bring great honor to the islands.
Let us do all we can to help him. At least buy a 1998 season ticket. UH plays powerhouses Arizona, Northwestern and Michigan. This is the league we want to be in.
Steven Goldsberry
Janto has nerve whining about 'rehabilitation'
Regarding Frank Janto and his eloquent request for special services (Star-Bulletin, July 21), is somebody keeping a list of what prisoners say we owe them? Janto, a murderer and a child molester, says my tax dollars should provide him with therapy.Let's see, right now we buy prisoners three meals a day, shelter in paradise, TV, free lawyers, and all this after a free education in a free country. I hear life on the inside is hard: rape, sodomy, having your possessions taken away. Sounds like life on the outside, thanks to the thugs not yet locked up.
Janto says he learned right from wrong through his mistakes. Now he has the opportunity to learn that punching a woman, pounding her head on the concrete until she's dead and dumping her body into a trash dumpster is a no-no.
OK, Frank Janto, listen: A 75-year sentence is your lesson for murder. You can have all the therapy you want, once you've finished your homework.
Neva Keres
Prosecutor shows he is as heartless as the criminal
Peter Carlisle's "Don't feel sorry for this man" (Insight, July 25) is as callous, cold-blooded and mean-spirited as Frank Janto. Janto, while reprehensible and a disgrace to the human race, is also a victim of the social structure, society and the justice system.It is all there in Carlisle's own words: Janto fell through the cracks, big time. His actions throughout his life speak for themselves. Where was the net for him?
Carlisle and Janto are of the same gene pool; they are just on the opposite sides of the fence.
Robert A. Hiatt
Columnist seems to hold grudge against Councilman
Does Charles Memminger -- "award-winning" columnist, tobacco industry apologist and teen smoking advocate -- wish that City Councilman Steve Holmes had gotten "snuffed" (Honolulu Lite, July 22)?In his column, Memminger crawled through the bottom of his journalistic ashtray by wistfully creating scenarios in which Holmes was thrown off a viaduct, beaten to a pulp, threatened by knife, gun, father, brother, boy-friend and tree trimmer.
What is as revealing as Holmes' poor judgment is Memminger's vicious disposition. Not only does he bear Holmes a very personal grudge, but Memminger should not -- under any circumstances -- be approached while smoking.
Juliet Begley
Charter commission will serve as rubber stamp
Mayor Harris is making a mockery of the City Charter Commission. Look at his appointments: People closely tied to the mayor comprise the majority. As such, there is ample cause for the suspicion that they will merely "rubber stamp" the mayor's proposals.Darolyn Lendio, the mayor's top choice for the commission, declared that "it would be prudent to accept the mayor's recommendations given the very limited budget and the time we have." Now really, is this going to be the open, objective, citizen process that it's supposed to be?
If the mayor is really interested in serving the public, why aren't the commission meetings being televised, like City Council meetings? Or is the mayor afraid that voters will see the mockery he is making of the process?
Chester M. Obara
Pearl City
Governors duel over Kapolei contracts
Which governor to believe? Former Gov. John Waihee says it wasn't his fault that Kapolei schools weren't built on time. Current Gov. Ben Cayetano says it wasn't his fault either, and that because of the delays, he had to "act fast" and give his close friend, Bert Kobayashi, a non-bid contract for $40 million to get the schools built.According to Waihee, after Cayetano became governor, he canceled the contracts awarded by Waihee and re-awarded them, apparently in this case to Kobayashi. One has to wonder aloud: Did Cayetano cancel the contracts because Waihee had awarded them to his friends and not to Cayetano's?
While the attorney general may be technically correct that this is not illegal, wouldn't it be illegal to purposely cancel awarded contracts just to give them to your friends? I think so.
Pam Smith
Ewa Beach
Attorneys sink low in defending trustees
The transparent tactics of Michael Green, the private attorney for Bishop Estate trustee Lokelani Lindsey, are much like the tactics of Bill McCorriston, lead attorney for the three majority trustees of the estate. The use of terms like "weasel words" by McCorriston and now the characterization of Kamehameha Schools as a "factory of failure" by Green are shabby attempts to deflect attention from their discredited clients.Green's attempt to place the blame for Lindsey's bungling on the shoulders of Dr. Michael Chun, president of Kamehameha, will not fly. It is both factually reckless, morally irresponsible and an indictment of just how low Lindsey will stoop to retain her trusteeship.
The real truth is that the Kamehameha ohana, alumni, parents, teachers, students, staff and Hawaiians in general support Chun, unequivocably. We only hope that the general public can see through this charade being continued by Lindsey's spin doctors.
Rod Ferreira
Kamuela, Hawaii
Trustees are doing great job -- of hiding the truth
I have to laugh when I hear that Bishop Estate commercial: "There's a lot to learn about Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate." Yeah, there sure is -- and if the majority trustees would stop stonewalling, the public might have a chance to learn it.Phil Rother
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