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College nicknames became practical jokes

Bill Kwon's column about collegiate nicknames ("Sports Watch: Taking the (nickname) game too far," June 15) brought back memories of Stanford's change to "Cardinal" (the color) from the politically incorrect "Indians."

Ever renegade, the Stanford band supported the name "Trees," as in Palo Alto. Second place in the campus referendum was "Robber Barons," such as Gov. Leland Stanford.

The referendum winner was "Thunder Turkeys," as in the university administration, which vetoed popular choice. But then, it was the 1970s, and even at the time it was all kind of hazy.

Paul Brewbaker

Governor betrayed immersion expansion

I am appalled at Governor Cayetano's veto of Senate Bill 2722, which would have established by statute a Hawaiian Language Immersion Program within the Department of Education. Cayetano cited the 1987 establishment and recent expansion of the Hawaiian Language Immersion Program as reasons for the veto.

If the immersion schools have been adequately expanded, why do so many schools turn away numerous students every year for lack of classroom space? If the program is so adequately expanded, why do many parents with children in these schools have to drive miles and miles to get their kids to school every day because there are no immersion schools in their area?

Senate Bill 2722 was a good bill. I put a lot of time and energy into this bill, and then asked my father, state Sen. Whitney Anderson, to be its chief sponsor. He accepted, and I then obtained the signatures of every member of the Senate Committee on Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs.

The education superintendent even testified in support of the measure. I spoke and met with the Hawaiian community before and after the legislation was introduced to gather information on this subject, and all involved seemed to agree that this was a positive measure. Should Cayetano decide to run for elective office in the future, I would rather vote for Magilla Gorilla.

Ikaika Anderson
Waimanalo

Legislature did little to help senior citizens

We wish to express our disappointment with the recent legislative session. The results had little good news for our senior citizens. The pressing need for addressing issues of long-term care for the elderly received hundreds of hours of attention, but in the end the results were timid. The Legislature is not facing the crisis that a growing number of our frail elders and their families are facing.

Many bills designed to protect elder citizens were killed -- criminal checks for workers in care homes, penalties for elder abuse, use of funds from Medicaid fraud recovery for elder abuse programs, increased safeguards against telemarketing fraud.

As an example of an exercise in futility, the Legislature passed a bill requiring the Executive Office on Aging to develop a single access information and referral system for long-term care services. In the end, though, no budget was allocated, making even these modest steps impossible to undertake.

We believe the citizens are concerned about the quality of life of our vulnerable elderly. We will continue to press the Legislature for a willingness to tackle the issues and to spend the needed resources to assure accessible and quality care to all our citizens.

Bruce McCullough
Chairman
Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs

Quotables "You see things, you hear things, you're allowed to go places you're not supposed to be." Nancy Yamasaki HEAD OF CITY'S PARKING ENFORCEMENT SECTION On her job as a city meter maid in Chinatown during the 1960s "The former trustees like to tell the public about their home runs but not their strikeouts." Randy Roth LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII On court filings indicating that the Bishop Estate declared more than $235 million in capital losses and wrote off more than $100 million in bad investments since 1989

State is inconsistent in discrimination cases

Hawaii Attorney General Earl Anzai signed onto an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court indicating the state's support of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which said that the Boy Scouts could not discriminate against gays (and others) in terms of membership.

Girard Lau, a deputy attorney general, said: "The bottom line is, we try to eradicate discrimination whenever possible." Hawaii's position was that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is no different than discrimination "on the basis of race, religion, national origin or other reason prohibited by law."

At the same time, the state was writing an amicus brief in support of Alabama's position that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act is unconstitutional.

Discrimination based on the existence of a disability is discrimination, covered by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

How can the state oppose discrimination as described by Lau while supporting discrimination on the basis of a disability? Perhaps this inconsistency is why Hawaii has been forced to settle suits against it involving the state hospital, the state departments of Health and Education (the Felix case) and the Medicaid waiting list (the Makin Case)

Maybe it is just plain discrimination by the governor and the attorney general.

David Pfeiffer

Attorney general's efforts are misdirected

The state was recently found in contempt of court for violating the terms of the Waihee-Felix consent decree. Instead of working on this very important issue, our state attorney general felt compelled to use state time and resources to file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the scoutmaster who wants to practice homosexuality while being involved in the Boy Scouts.

Would you let your young 15-year-old son or grandson share a tent with a scoutmaster who practices homosexuality? Would you want that individual who practices homosexuality to teach your children his version of morality?

It is not bigoted or homophobic to say that the practice of homosexual behavior is at odds with the Scout code of being "morally straight." Young men join scouting because of the values and morality that are taught. Please, let's stop this nonsense.

Bob McDermott
Republican State Representative
Aliamanu-Foster Village-Aiea

Estate tax should be repealed, not eased

Death and taxes are inevitable, but do death taxes have to be? I find your June 15 editorial favoring the easing of the tax rather than its outright repeal highly questionable. Shouldn't there be a time in everyone's life when the government isn't reaching into their wallets? Or does government have an absolute right to clamp onto every penny -- because that is what governments do?

The Los Angeles Dodgers, among other concerns, was sold specifically because the O'Malley family had estate tax considerations to deal with, and look at the mess that resulted.

Suppose the Star-Bulletin was family-owned and suppose that tradition was highly revered. Would you want that kind of tradition thrown out the window because the government, in its infinite wisdom, decided it wanted more of the family's money? I didn't think so.

If even the tax-hungry Democrats think this is a good idea, then the Star-Bulletin shouldn't second-guess them.

James Ko

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