Long live Star-Bulletin

Long live this two-newspaper town. The news that the Honolulu Star-Bulletin will continue to operate is wonderful. The real winners will be members of the reading public, who will continue to have at least two points of view on the news. Thank you, David Black!

Roy E. Shigemura

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Bulletin shutdown archive

Rodrigues should go

Union leader Gary Rodrigues, though facing an assortment of federal charges, must be presumed innocent until such charges are adjudicated in the federal court.

One cannot overlook, however, that he maintains a seat on Hawaii's Judicial Selection Commission, which wields a great deal of political influence and power.

According to Rodrigues, at his swearing-in ceremony to join the commission on July 17, 1997, he promised to refrain from voting on the reappointment of any judge or justice presiding over cases that involved the United Public Workers union. It is admirable if Rodrigues kept his promise.

It would also be admirable for him to gracefully resign from the commission or, at the very least, to recuse himself from all further meetings until such time that the federal charges alleged against him are duly and properly resolved via the federal court system. This move would fully remove all appearances of impropriety on his part.

Benjy Wong
Kailua

Rodrigues furlough?

If Gary Rodrigues goes to prison for fraud and corruption, will he be furloughed to attend his Judicial Selection Commission meetings?

John Sender

Awaiting an apology

What is all this clamor by the Japanese families of the victims, demanding a personal apology and a personal letter from the U.S. Navy for the Ehime Maru accident?

Pray tell, did we get a personal apology from Japan for the deliberate bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941? I was awakened by the sound of planes flying above on that fateful morning.

And the nerve of some of our local Japanese parents telling their children who went to school with mine that Japan did not instigate the bombing.

Ellen Hee

Offensive photo

I was quite appalled at the big photograph on the front page of your features section on March 8. The picture of Masami Teraoka's artwork featured a graphic display of pubic hair.

I understand that you can wave the "freedom of speech" flag to readers like me, but to devote a full third of a page to this is a bit over the top, since people of all ages have access to your newspaper.

In the future, I hope more discretion can be applied in your publication.

Worcester P. Bong

Return Hurricane fund

Arthur Lessing's March 8 letter states the Hurricane Relief Fund (HRF) must not be given back because "you don't buy homeowner's insurance then demand your premiums back when your house doesn't burn down, do you?"

His argument would be valid if the HRF had been providing real insurance. I recall my HRF "policy" stating that this is not guaranteed by the State of Hawaii or any insurance company, and claims would only be paid if money were in the fund. I certainly don't mind paying premiums for a "real" insurance policy -- one that takes my premium dollars and agrees to pay the claims if there is a disaster. This was clearly not the case with the HRF.

I see nothing wrong with returning some of the premium dollars to people who paid for this so-called "insurance."

Wesley K. Yamamoto
Aiea

Ideas on Ala Wai

It is very hard to discuss sensibly something that makes no sense. Many reasons have been offered against the idea of losing the Ala Wai Golf Course and building a park. But those reasons get about as far as a corn flake thrown into the wind.

This is because the governor's wish to initiate this project is not a product of rational thought. What it is a result of is unknown and likely to remain so. Therefore, in the interests of deciding on some other basis than good sense, I suggest:

>>The governor should declare the Ala Wai Golf Course to be a park and close it to golf for a brief -- very brief -- period of time. Invite those members of the public who will use it as a park to come out and romp around and be counted. Guards would have to be placed around the water hazards and tees to prevent theft of the yardage tablets, but that will simply be a foretaste of the persons necessary to police a mini Central Park. Of course, to be realistic, Cayetano should also invite those less-savory elements of society who might use it for muggings.

>>The governor should issue an order to remove the tree that catches second shots or prevents clear third shots on the 10th hole, and let it remain a golf course. Then he would have the satisfaction of knowing that he changed something -- making some golfers happy, others anything but.

Consequently, he could drop the project without the loss of face, declare victory and see another rerun of "Field of Dreams." You know: "If you build it, they will come..."

John C. Roberts

Immersion worries

As a professional educator, I've struggled with my own ambivalent feelings about the Hawaiian Immersion Program. Nothing could be nobler and more justified than a program for the preservation of the Hawaiian culture. Its pedagogy requires its students to be taught exclusively through the Hawaiian language.

My chief concern is centered around the psychology of language learning. It has nothing to do with constitutional questions, and everything to do with the future opportunities for those precious children.

Young children learn languages with ease because of automatic language learning center in their brain, which shuts off at age 12.

Thereafter, it becomes increasingly more difficult to learn a new language. Therefore, what is the rationale for severely restricting their acquisition of early language skills to only the Hawaiian language, in this Information Age?

Why not empower those children with English and Mandarin or Japanese, or Ilocano, or French, German, Spanish or Russian for their own socio-economic power in this new millennium?

The Europeans have known this secret for centuries. Is there any wonder about their remarkable multi-lingual skills?

Hideo Yoshimoto
Wailuku, Maui

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