JFK Jr. refused to ride his father's coattails

With the loss of his father, I cried for John F. Kennedy Jr. Now, as he leaves us, I cry once more for America's favorite son.

There will never be another person like him. Like father, like son, they both were one of a kind.

John-John refused to walk in the footprints of his father, the president. He walked with the people.

It is not how long you lived that counts the most. It's what you have done to bring love to others during your lifetime that will be remembered.

Richard P. Kinney

Dems think government should always butt in

Bill Clinton and Neil Abercrombie just don't get it. Abercrombie's July 17 View Point column, "Medicare must pay for drugs," displays again what liberal Democrats childishly believe: that government programs alone can solve society's difficulties.

Why is college tuition nearly prohibitively expensive? One immense contributing factor is the U.S. Department of Education with its armada of tuition grants and loans.

These things foster a luscious and artificially stimulated supply of college students, which makes college administrators fiscally fat and lazy.

If the federal government starts paying for drugs, the price of drugs will go even higher. And, of course, administering a Medicare drug program will be an expensive undertaking riddled with fraud. When will liberal Democrats realize that unintended negative consequences of their crusading are dangerous for the commonweal?

Alan T. Matsuda
Treasurer
Libertarian Party of Hawaii

Partial restoration is insult to veterans

Mayor Harris has taken a lot of flak for his stand on the Waikiki Natatorium. It seems like he's the only politician who remembers that it's a memorial to Hawaii veterans.

It's amazing that a protest against the Natatorium could occur in Hawaii, which has a long and proud military history. Here, of all places, is where we should understand just how much we owe to our vets. To restore the Natatorium only partially is a real slap in the face.

It's too bad the Kaimana Beach folks and the courts were in such a hurry to make full restoration impossible. All they have done is create more problems for the future. All this interference with the restoration is going to do is create an expensive problem in the future.

There's such a thing as being penny-wise and pound-foolish. Is Mayor Harris the only one who understands that?

Cecil Meadows
Aiea
Via the Internet

Ocean is just as 'dirty' as Natatorium pool

I've got news for the folks who oppose restoration of the Waikiki Natatorium: People have been building enclosed salt-water swimming areas for a very long time and they have never been shown to be a health hazard.

They are no more and no less hazardous than swimming in the ocean, which also has bacteria in it. Every time you swim in the ocean, you swim with the same scary bacteria that everybody is suddenly worried about at the Natatorium pool.

Once the Natatorium is finished, I predict all of these protests will suddenly vanish. It will be a great place for people to go and enjoy themselves, which is the kind of thing we need more of in Waikiki. Let's get on with the restoration and move on to the real issues.

James Santos
Via the Internet

Stevenson's grass shack should be fixed

One beautiful, sun-drenched morning, my husband and I invited a couple of friends to an early lunch at the Waioli Tea Room in Manoa. It was delightful to see how well the Salvation Army landmark has been restored.

After lunch, while taking a walk around the grounds, we were disappointed to find the unkempt, dilapidated condition of Robert Louis Stevenson's grass shack. There were two old chairs and a small table on which, I believe, the writer penned his tales of the South Seas. There was a large puka in the hut's ceiling.

During his time there, while en route to Samoa, Stevenson suffered from chronic bronchial disease. In Hawaii, he told the stories that he had gathered on his travels to only one person, 14-year-old Princess Kaiulani. Under a huge banyan tree in Waikiki, the niece of King Kalakaua and Queen Liliuokalani listened raptly to the storyteller.

In 1894, Stevenson died at the age of 44 in Samoa, homesick and far from his homeland. Can't the Waioli Tea Room extend its renovations to include his grass hut? Doesn't the author of "Treasure Island" deserve as much?

Ine Higa

Quotables "I said, oh my God, somebody hit her. I went into orbit." Louise Ireland MOTHER OF MURDER VICTIM DANA IRELAND Testifying at the Big Island trial of Frank Pauline Jr. about what she said when her other daughter, Sandy, described seeing Dana's mangled bicycle on the side of the road "Overall, Hawaii looks pretty good. Any state above 25 is doing pretty good." Fatima Saadat MEMBER OF THE CHILDREN'S RIGHTS COUNCIL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. On Hawaii's 13th-place showing on the council's list of best (and worst) states in which to raise a child

MDA camp was highlight of summer

I want to thank the Muscular Dystrophy Association for another great camp experience this past June at Camp Erdman. It was a week of pure fun for me and the other campers.

Many sponsors donated money, food, goods and services. We also had a great group of volunteer counselors.

I am anxiously awaiting next year's MDA camp.

Neil Kalani
Mililani

Hawaii isn't (and can't be) high-tech haven

Richard Borreca is right in his July 21 Capitol View column, "Attracting high tech to Hawaii." High-tech and other companies that employ computer-literate people for data entry and other equally skilled positions would be crazy to set up shop in Hawaii, where the cost of living is high, the schools are suspect and homes are overvalued.

They can make their employees (and, hence, themselves) much happier on the mainland for far less payroll costs. There are only a few high-tech individuals who can afford to live in Hawaii; their effect of our economy is minimal.

Our political leaders who paint a picture of Hawaii as a high-tech mecca are only presenting a subterfuge, because they have no solutions to our economic woes. If this is the best they can do, it's time for new leaders.

Robert Chanin
Kailua

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