Real estate, not aid, is OHA's mission

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has lost its paddle and compass and is adrift from its original purpose of helping Hawaiians.

OHA's apparent new policy is not to aid individual poor Hawaiians with its stash of $450 million, but to start buying real estate.

First they were eyeballing the old post office building. Now they're interested in purchasing Waimea Valley. As one supporter put it, the valley should be preserved for Hawaiian children so they won't forget their culture and heritage.

So, let me get this straight: Preserving culture and heritage is more important than food on the table, decent health care, education and rent money.

Case in point: An elderly Hawaiian couple applied for assistance from OHA. Their income is well below the poverty level. After paying their rent and for necessary medications, they have only pittance left for food. OHA turned them down, telling them it was no longer OHA's policy to help individual Hawaiians, and suggested they apply for state welfare.

This unconscionable drift from OHA's original mission has to be challenged. It simply has forgotten that the money entrusted to them is taxpayers' money, and is supposed to go to individuals and groups of Hawaiians in need -- not to buy real estate.

Art Todd
Kaneohe

Dead-last economy, dead-last education

With the U.S. Commerce Department report showing that Hawaii had the worst economic growth rates in the last decade ("Hawaii's economy dead last in 1990s" June 4), it is no coincidence that Hawaii also is dead last in funding for public schools. Nor is it coincidence that enrollment at the University of Hawaii has been dropping considerably while tuition keeps rising.

The connection is simple: no money for education, enormous subsidies for affluent tourism-business owners.

As a one-industry state, Hawaii will continue to drop behind the rest of the world. Without educated workers, Hawaii will remain dependent upon recurrent ups and downs in the tourism industry. Any businesses requiring many well-educated employees must go elsewhere.

The Tax Foundation of Hawaii finally admitted that our tax levels have been slipping for decades compared to our rising cost of living. Still, the "tax hell" myth still is being used to justify more cuts in taxes while subsidies for the tourism industry keep growing.

Each year, tourism-government connections dig the state deeper into a bottomless economic-education pit. As the governor, the mayor and both political parties add more pro-tourism projects and tax cuts to the deadly mix, the outcome will be Third World economic and educational systems for the people of Hawaii.

Jerome G. Manis

[Quotables] "The job Les Murakami has done makes it easy for whoever the next coach is, and I'm fortunate it's me." Mike Trapasso, Assistant baseball coach at Georgia Tech, after accepting the head coaching job at the University of Hawaii. "He had a feeling he was going to win something." Rebecca Aris, After her husband, Alex, won a $1 million keno game at a Las Vegas casino.

Missouri and Arizona belong together

As a frequent visitor to Hawaii and the Missouri, I agree totally with your editorial about the location of the USS Missouri and combining the Arizona memorial with the Missouri.

As a Missouri resident, I feel there is no better place for the ship than to be next to the Arizona. I am awed each time I come to the ship to volunteer my time to help make it a better attraction for visitors to Honolulu. The history and sacrifices of our "Greatest Generation" should never be forgotten.

Thank you, Hawaii, for bringing the USS Missouri to Pearl Harbor.

Clarence Hyde, Jr.
Grain Valley, Mo.

Roosevelt High's war heroes remembered

Memorial Day has come and gone with some not remembered as they should be. Many men and women from Hawaii fought in World War II, but they are never or rarely written about or talked about, as is the 100th and the 442nd.

These unsung heroes were in every military service in every area of the war and a large number of them either died or were wounded. They earned many medals. They were Hawaiian, Chinese, haole and every race and mixture under the sun and every color from brown to yellow to white and all from Hawaii. They all fought for their country, our United States of America.

These heroes of Hawaii were not Japanese Americans or Hawaiian Americans or haole Americans or Chinese Americans. They were all just Americans.

One such group who gave their lives and who have had little, if any, public notice are the 35 classmates and members of Roosevelt High School. They have no club to remember them or newspaper stories every year about them. The only public notice they have is that their names are listed on a small plaque at the main entrance to Roosevelt High School, although I doubt many of today's students have ever stopped to look at it.

Today I list these 35 heroes' names and I ask my fellow Americans for a moment, to honor each and every one of them equally on this, a special delayed Memorial Day, just for them:

Clyde Adams, William A. Anderson Jr., William C. Bartels, Richard F. Bickerton, Vincent Brady, Douglas S. Brier, Sidney Bush, Clarence C. Campbell, James Doyle, Ralph B. Ensminger.

Stanley Franklin, Bruce Furmidge, Charles S. Frey, Ernest K. Guard, Robert Hayashi, Edward M. Henley, Henry S. Houghton, Albert S. Howard, Clifford Howard.

Harvey T. Jensen, Weldmer R. Kramer, William S. Marks, Jack McCombs Jr., George Ozawa, David Redmon, Evan Redmon, Robert B. Smith, Philip F. Smithline, Allen Tilford, George Tivy, Edward F. Tuohy, Wilbur R. Watkins, Park Watson, William D. Wilson and William E. Williams.

Don McDiarmid Jr.
Kailua

Oklahoma bomber is no hero

The Waco cult leader is responsible for the death of his followers. They turned to him for guidance and leadership. He failed them. Instead they met death.

Yet Ken Chang (Letters, May 24) blamed the U.S. government for the tragedy and said Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing is justified, making him a martyr. He is not!

He is a coward -- heartless, and ruthless for killing innocent men, women and children. Even if he had been killed in the bombing, that wouldn't have made him a martyr.

How Tim Chang

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