Let's rethink U.S. trade relations with China

If China is going screw around with us and our Navy plane and our guys, we should reconsider their status as a "most favored nation" trading partner. I say pull that status now and see how fast they return our guys and plane.

Robert "Rabbett" Abbett
Kailua

Let Bishop Estate story die quietly

How newsworthy can it be that the ousted Bishop Estate trustees mishandled funds, used their influence in questionable ways or mismanaged the schools? ("Secrets of the Trust," Star-Bulletin, March 2-4 | 4/2 | 4/2 | 4/3 | 4/4 | ). If anyone in Hawaii does not already know that, they must have just learned to read.

As a Kamehameha schools parent I ask that you stop rehashing old news to sell newspapers.

The "Broken Trust" essay published in the Star-Bulletin incited the total re-engineering of Bishop Estate. Extremely painful though it was, the schools have a new beginning. Please don't drag it back into the mud for your own economic purposes.

From 1997-2000, the controversy and attendant media frenzy surrounding the Kamehameha Schools and its supporting estate did nothing but damage to the children of Kamehameha.

Perhaps there was no other way, and we should thank the Star-Bulletin for its part in a new beginning for the schools. However now that it's done, please let it be.

Kay Akino
Aiea

Others can learn from Klein's myopia

I cannot believe that former Supreme Court Justice Robert Klein could not see that his input into Bishop Estate student selection was not a conflict of interest.

First, he was by law a judge who is supposed to remain impartial in every case.

Second, he failed to see his input as an unprofessional act.

Third, did he really think that Bishop Estate personnel and the public would see his request in the same light of regular people? "Judges do this all the time," he said to justify his actions.

Former Justice Klein failed to understand how his actions were perceived by the public. A serious moral failure on the part of anyone who wears the title of "judge." Let others learn by his mistakes and not lower their standards.

Al Aliment

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Bishop Estate Archive
Kamehameha Schools

It's a brave new world for women athletes

Thank you for printing David K. Choo's insightful April 1 column on women's athletics and Title IX.

In my short 45 years on this planet (all of it in Hawaii) I have noticed a marked change not only in the nature of the sports scene but more importantly in the attitude of women growing up with the availability of sporting programs from an early age.

Co-workers of mine who were born after Title IX can't imagine a world where equality in sports doesn't exist. I have to strain to paint the picture of the times when I was growing up in Palama in the '50s and '60s when girls didn't play organized sports.

Things that my mother's generation could only dream about have happened, chiefly a changing of the way boys and girls are socialized, which allows them to see each other as equal peers and not objects or lesser beings.

I remember the discussions that the "adults" had when youth sports first were being integrated with boys and girls on the same teams. All the cries of doom that rabid Little-League dads had about letting girls play on the same teams as their boys seem so distant now.

Not all federal mandates are bad, Title IX is a good example of how well-thought-out and executed programs can work to the betterment of society. Does anyone really think that the local and state legislative bodies across the country would have ever pulled something like this off? Not in a million years.

Thank you for having the courage to print this very good piece.

Atomman Y.S. Kimm
Kaneohe

[QUOTABLES] "We have moved so far away from dealing with the tough issues of the day. I think the community is impoverished by it." The Rev. David Hansen, Saying Hawaii's churches don't speak out enough about community issues of justice and ethics. Hansen recently stepped down as Hawaii conference minister for the United Church of Christ. "Everyone's core values, hopefully, were developed when they were young. But it certainly can't hurt to be reminded of the particulars of the law." Duke Bainum, Honolulu City Councilman, on a bill that would mandate ethics training for 1,500 city officials, including the mayor and City Council members. The bill comes in the wake of admitted campaign spending violations by one Council member, and questions raised about another.

Babysitting is another perk at the Capitol

I am outraged.

Calvin Say, speaker of the House, during a caucus of the House's Democratic members (as reported in West Hawaii Today, April 4) had the audacity to suggest, even encourage, members to bring their children to the Capitol building to be supervised by their staffs in case of a teachers' strike.

Senate President Bobby Bunda is taking a similar approach.

Say said he was not "recommending it be done in the private sector." In other words, this is a perk, one of many, just for political insiders and to hell with the public!

I think every parent who finds themselves with school kids without supervision because of this strike should just drop the kids off at the Capitol and let the legislators' paid staffs supervise them.

After all it's their tax dollars that are paying those staff members.

Michelle "Mike" Kerr

Teachers should take governor's offer

I am a student from Aiea High School. I am really concerned about this teachers' strike. Gov. Benjamin Cayetano has tried to propose several settlements and shown efforts to compromise by increasing the pay raise percentage. None have been considered acceptable to the negotiators representing Hawaii's teachers.

National surveys have shown that the education we are receiving in Hawaii is not at the top. It has also shown that our teachers are not paid at the lower end of the pay scale.

I personally know that we have some very fine teachers in Hawaii's public school system. However, I can't say all of them are the finest.

To the teachers, I say please take the governor's offer. Give the state time to come up with funding in the next two years, and in those two years prove that you all deserve this pay increase by improving our standardized test scores in the national ranking. Give us the chance to obtain the best education possible to become successful adults in life.

Boyd Torricer
Aiea High School

Mayor ought to admit we need bus fare hike

Say what? Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris has said that he opposes an increase in fares for TheBus, but won't veto the fare hike.

Harris is obviously well-suited to follow in the shoes of Gov. Benjamin Cayetano, who vowed to make education his top priority, but doesn't want to pay for it.

Auwe! When will our elected officials say what they mean --or mean what they say?

Ken Armstrong

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