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Law makes treating athletes difficult

Thanks to Sen. Norman Mizuguchi and Rep. Calvin Say for agreeing to review the new medical privacy law HRS 323C Act 87.

Among the many problems with this law, including the criminalization of medicine, is one that particularly concerns me as football season approaches.

My understanding is that the law would criminalize the act of the team physician informing the coaches and athletic directors on the status of their players before, after and during games. The team physician is prevented by this law from telling anyone else what is wrong with the athlete, what needs to be done, and even when the coaches can expect the athlete to go back into the game. This will make it particularly difficult for the coaches to make judgments about injuries that occur during the game.

Unless a general release is signed, ahead of time, the doctors will be subject to criminal prosecution by doing their job. I am afraid that as written, the law will increase the liability of the team physicians -- most of whom volunteer their time in the first place -- and may prevent several doctors from participating as team physicians. We already have schools that can not get doctors to volunteer to cover games and events. This will only make matters worse. Your consideration of these problems is greatly appreciated.

Neil Thomas Katz, M.D.
Chairman
Hawaii Medical Association
Sports Medicine Committee

Increase in tourists is not good news

The media seem to be rejoicing in yet another increase in tourism. The TV newscasters are smiling broadly while telling us that visitor count is up another 8 percent.

I'm sure the hotel stockholders living on the broad expanses of the mainland are also laughing, but is this increase going to improve our quality of life here?

Should we in Hawaii be:

Happy about another few thousand cars clogging our freeways? We're crawling now.

Overjoyed to have our diminishing water supply going down the shower drains even faster?

Pleased that our sewers will be overloaded if the trend continues?

How many visitors do we hope to entice to come here before we implode, before tourists decide that being crowded like maggots on a wound is not a paradisical experience and look for a less stressful destination?

Rosemarie H. Tucker

Sorry state of zoo reflects on mayor

On July 29, I visited the Honolulu Zoo with three out-of-town guests where sponsored special events were being provided young kids.

I was appalled, embarrassed and very disappointed -- as were my Arizona friends -- at the uncut grass, weeds, dirty, polluted ponds, with sickly looking animals and grossly neglected everything at the zoo.

Mayor Harris, this is another example of a mismanaged city department.

Martin Halsey Grubb
Pearl City

Quotables "He was just a wonderful man, loved essentially by all of us -- even the people he drove wild." Dr. Martin Rayner ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE PACIFIC BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII-MANOA Speaking about the brilliant and lively personality of Dr. Frederick C. Greenwood , internationally recognized researcher and PBRC director, who died Tuesday of liver cancer "I'm going to say that peace begins within. It is about aloha, love; it's honor and respect for one another. And it's about having a higher power you believe in, to guide and direct your ways." Aunty Malia Craver KUPUNA AND PEACE ADVOCATE WHO COUNSELS FAMILIES USING THE HAWAIIAN PRACTICE HO'OPONOPONO On what she will say during her appearance this month at the 53rd annual U.N. Conference on Non-Government Organizations in New York

Rainbow logo has divine origin

The logo fiasco involving the University of Hawaii Rainbows must be taken to its logical conclusion. If a rainbow is the symbol of all things gay, then its original creator, God, must be a queen.

Surely, no straight man could conceive of such color combinations.

If I were the Bows, I'd be proud to sport a logo from the divine designer himself!

Hans Anderson

Hugh Yoshida forgot importance of rainbow

I am an alumnus of the University of Hawaii, class of 1940. Most of my former classmates are opposed to changing the Rainbow logo to the letter H.

We feel the rainbow embodies the spirit of our alma mater, which goes, "In green Manoa Valley our alma mater stands, where mountain wind and showers refresh her fertile land. A flag of freedom beckons above her shining wall, the larger truth and service our alma mater calls."

In addition, a song that we sang at football games went like this: "Fight, for old Hawaii, fight for you and me. A rainbow streaks the sky, hold your colors high..."

Did UH Athletic Director Hugh Yoshida and others who decided to change the rainbow logo ever consider its significance?

How Tim Chang

Let nature rule Northwestern Islands

President Clinton has afforded us a vital opportunity to guide the management plan for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Star-Bulletin, July 25). Because we are losing our last remaining wild and undisturbed areas around the globe, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands should be kept natural and free of commercial activity.

It may be true that the care of the entire planet is in our hands, but every piece of it does not need to be molded by our hands. We can care for it also by keeping our hands off. This is what should be done with the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The military has taken its hands off the island of Midway. Let's not now put it and the remaining islands in the hands of commercial interests.

Leave them for the seabirds. Leave them for the Hawaiian monk seal. Leave all of the Northwestern Hawaiian islands for nature to operate, not in the hands of the secretary of commerce or the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, but in the hands of an agency tasked with protection and preservation, such as the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Steve Tearney

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