Students don't value free tuition

Hawaiian students should not receive free tuition at the University of Hawaii. While I am not adverse to a heavily subsidized arrangement, requiring Hawaiian students to pay perhaps 20 percent of the normal fees, experience has shown that free tuition works to the detriment of student motivation.

If free tuition were a good idea, Kamehameha students would not be paying anything to attend that school. If anyone can afford to provide free quality education, it is certainly the Bishop Estate.

KS/BE wisely charges nominal tuition so that students and their families have an investment in and consequent appreciation for their own education. As Americans, we have unfortunately come to believe that value can be attached only to that which costs us financially.

As tuition has risen in the UH system, we have seen fewer dropouts in our classes. When students paid only $45 for a semester at the community colleges, they would abandon their studies for a job at McDonald's. When they pay $500 a semester, they think twice about dropping out.

Free tuition for Hawaiians or for anyone else takes away an important part of the learning process. We need to benefit from the lessons provided by Kamehameha Schools in making this decision.

Robert Engle
Professor of Music
Kapiolani Community College
Via the Internet

Plaintiff didn't deserve personal attack

The last paragraph of OHA Chairwoman Rowena Akana's Other Views column last Saturday contained a disturbing personal attack on Harold Rice. Rice, the plaintiff in the civil-rights law suit of Rice v. Cayetano, has raised a significant issue that deserves its full hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Akana, in her attempt to imply "a different agenda" on the part of Rice, is engaging in the same sort of innuendo that met civil-rights advocates from Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King, to the present day. Attempts to personally malign the plaintiffs in such actions are a classic way of avoiding discussion of the true issue.

Such personal attacks demean the spirit of the people of Hawaii, so both sides in this dispute should put an absolute moratorium on them. Stick to the issues.

H. William Burgess

Only Hawaiians should vote in OHA elections

I thank Rowena Akana for her eloquent March 27 Other Views column, "What's your real agenda, Mr. Rice?" She explained the OHA trustee election process, noting how it all got started.

We non-Hawaiians need to fully understand and respect the whole history of this beautiful state we live in and its indigenous people.

Native Hawaiians who went through all the injustice they were forced to face know how to best handle their own affairs. They understand what the heart of being a true Hawaiian means. We should let them have the freedom to exercise this.

Marion Reyes-Burke
Kailua
Via the Internet

Quotables "I don't have the kind of personality that's going to fail to take action because I'm afraid that I may make an enemy." Colleen Hanabusa Freshman state senator from Waianae On her outspoken assertiveness at the Legislature "They can rescue that pilot (whose fighter plane crashed in Yugoslavia), but they can't get the white boy who bombed four abortion clinics." Dick Gregory Social activist Speaking to a University of Hawaii crowd on "Race, Class and Minority Struggles"

Air strikes are sadly backfiring

If only the Clinton administration would realize that what it is doing is better calculated to produce the exact opposite result than what it intended.

Do they want to stop the killing of innocent men, women and children? Their actions will increase the slaughter.

Do they want Milosevic to be reasonable? It will make him and the Serb leadership dig in their heels all the harder. (In Balkan terms, it is better to be "right" and defeated than to accede to foreign aggression.)

Do they want to separate the regime from the Serb people by issuing silly statements about the strikes being directed against Milosevic and not the people? It will drive them closer together.

Do they want to arrest the disintegration of the Balkans? It will accelerate the trend.

Richard N. Griffin
Kaneohe
Via the Internet

Light-rail system could improve lifestyle

Hawaii needs a light-rail system that takes people from home to where they work and, once they are at the station, from where they can walk or easily get to their homes or offices. Also, the transportation system is needed so that they can easily access beaches on the more remote side of the island and take the load off popular spots like Ala Moana.

The light-rail system could be made so colorful and interesting to tourists as well as locals. It could be a place where people could have little shops and congregate. It would help people talk to each other and help bring back the "spirit" of the islands.

As the population of Honolulu becomes more elderly, residents will need a light-rail system just to get to the hospital or to visit doctors regularly. Buses are fine, but I have ridden the light rail in cities like San Jose. All it takes is planning and imagination.

June Takafuji
Aiea
Via the Internet

Live televised final was gift to fans

What a great decision by KGMB to show the NCAA National Basketball Championship game live. It was great! The only difficult part was trying to avoid hearing the score of a delayed game because, once you've heard it, watching the game is meaningless.

Now, if Monday Night Football would be broadcast live, Hawaii sports fans would be ecstatic.

Mel McKeague
Ewa Beach
Via the Internet

Water is being wasted at beach parks

The people at the Board of Water Supply always tell us to conserve water, and even give out citations for wasting water. Yet the citation should be going out to them.

Go to any local park along the beaches and you'll see showers and faucets going drip, drip, drip. No one seems to care one bit.

Somebody should be getting an "F" for wasting our precious water. Check it out for yourself. I did!

Allen K. "Glassman" Nakano
Waipahu

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