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Federal plan for Hawaiians won't work

There are more than 30,000 native Hawaiians, some of whom have waited for more than six decades, still languishing on the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' waiting list.

Instead of a trust relationship with the state, these Hawaiians do not trust the state at all and for good reason, in spite of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Does anyone actually believe that the state's congressional delegation will be able to take care of an even larger number of people claiming to be Hawaiian -- with one drop of Hawaiian blood -- including those with one Hawaiian ancestor out of 500?

Of course not. The state seeks to eliminate the blood quantum requirements of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920, using the Rice decision as a false pretext to accomplish this end.

Emmett E. Lee Loy
Attorney at Law

OHA Special

Rice vs. Cayetano decision

Holo I Mua: Sovereignty Roundtable

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No scooper detail for Outdoor Circle

Our organization's members loved Corky's July 25 front-page cartoon depicting a mounted Honolulu police officer with a bag, tied on the back of the horse, and a sign saying, "Donated by The Outdoor Circle." While we won't be following around the mounted police, we will continue our efforts to keep Hawaii clean, green and beautiful.

Jo Ann Best
President, The Outdoor Circle

Quotables "I saw that the beach boys, the musicians and the entertainers are mostly gone, so I felt compelled. If we didn't get their stories now, it would be way late." Edgy Lee ISLAND FILM DIRECTOR Whose multi-media package of a documentary film, soundtrack album and book chronicles Waikiki past and present "I've never seen a kid that would turn in this kind of money. Whoever raised this child raised him right." Marcelle Francis OAHU MOTHER OF THREE After 12-year-old Charles Monsell IV found five $20 bills she had dropped at a Hickam Air Force Base store and returned it to her

Community must unite against landfill

I commend the concerned people of Hawaii Kai for their opposition to Home Depot. Furthermore, Mayor Harris recognized their opinion and supported residents. That's what makes him a good mayor!

Another example of concerned citizens making their voices heard is in Pearl City, where residents are objecting to a state youth sex treatment center being located in the community. Their uproar got Governor Cayetano's attention.

Now we need this type of concerned citizenry to get involved in opposition of the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill expansion on the Leeward Coast. If we don't, we are going to be stuck with this landfill until the year 2017.

This project will bring no benefit for the Waianae Coast, only:

In excess of 100 large trucks a day, six days a week, going both directions on Farrington Highway.
Excessive amounts of dust, litter and foul odors.
Excessive amounts of gravel and small pebbles from the entrance/exit of the landfill for several hundred yards heading toward town.

Robert Stratton
Waianae

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Reason for changing UH logo is silly

So our University of Hawaii athletics department has decided, without any input from the alumni or students, to yank down our beautiful rainbow logo because our big, strong football players may be teased about being gay while competing on the mainland.

You're kidding. I didn't know wearing a rainbow made you gay.

John G. McDermott

Decades of tradition have been discarded

The brain trust at the UH athletic department has decided it doesn't want the rainbow to be the university's logo anymore, so decades of tradition are thrown out. Then some guy from "the continent" is hired for $35,000 to come up with the block letter H. Duh.

So now what? At upcoming football games, will the cheers be, "H-Power! H-Power!" instead of "Rain-Bows! Rain-Bows"? Whatever happened to the uniqueness of Hawaii? Are we merely motivated by selling new merchandise?

Jim Reed

Hugh Yoshida deserves an apology

KGMB-9 News has talking heads whining about the UH athletic department dropping the old Rainbow logo because of its close association with the gay rights movement. A fusillade of so-called gay spokesmen demand an apology to this group of misfits.

If homosexuals are so hot on this issue, why haven't they paid copyright licensee fees to the UH all these years?

If anyone deserves an apology it's Athletic Director Hugh Yoshida for having his good name smeared on the altar of homosexual political correctness.

Mark Genovese
Haiku, Maui

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Former lab director was wrong on turtles

Richard Shomura's Friday View Point column, "Longliners are whipping boys," demonstrates that admitted ignorance of the facts is no obstacle to expressing an opinion with confidence.

The tremendous influx of longliners to Hawaii that created the problem with turtles didn't even begin until Shomura retired from the National Marine Fisheries Service 12 years ago. When he was active, the NMFS Honolulu laboratory was almost completely oblivious to the impacts of longlining.

Shomura suggests that, instead of spending money on observers, the longliners should be allowed to fish free from observation, and NMFS should develop a turtle population model to assess the relative importance of contributions to the turtles' mortality.

NMFS has had such a model for years. Also, under the law, the relative contributions of the sources of an endangered species' mortality are irrelevant. You can't help drive a species into extinction just because someone else is also doing it.

Shomura wonders whether the problem isn't really the hunting of turtle eggs. In fact, the Mexican and Central America beaches where turtle eggs and nesting females were once hunted are now fairly well policed, but the population continues to drop drastically as commercial fisheries catch adult turtles.

More difficult to explain is Shomura's casual attitude toward the worldwide extinction crisis and his ignorance of mankind's role in it. This is particularly unfortunate given that Hawaii is notorious for its number of endangered species.

Paul Achitoff
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund

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