Hawaii ACLU reveals its bias

The Hawaii ACLU voted 12-3 against inviting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to a Davis Levin First Amendment Conference debate. Prior to and during the vote, the vilification and rhetorical lynching of Justice Thomas was disgraceful.

Shame on the Hawaii ACLU. Referring to Justice Thomas as anti-Christ, a Hitler or a Goebbels, reveals ACLU's bigotry; calling him a black Uncle Tom who is insensitive to civil rights (read racial quotas) is racism.

National ACLU president Nadine Strossen considers the attacks on Justice Thomas as racist. She stated that she is disappointed in the Hawaii ACLU, mild reproof for a group of bigots who practice racism.

J.C. Gilbert

Don't mourn passing of Liberty House

Regarding Macy's buying Liberty House: The mourning for times gone past is baloney.

Liberty House has twice shown that it doesn't know how to compete outside of a market it can't control. It failed in California 20 years ago, and it failed here when it could no longer keep out competition.

In the years of its monopoly, Liberty House, as a part of the Big Five, charged all it could wring from the consumer -- and this isn't a "paradise tax," it is a form of extortion.

Pleading high transport costs from the mainland is another form of baloney. Transport on the Mississippi River is the cheapest method of shipment on the mainland. The waterway from Chicago to New Orleans is 2,000 miles -- just our distance from the West Coast.

Nostalgia for "Old Hawaii" rings very much like nostalgia for the "Old South," when plantation workers were compliant and owed their souls to the company store.

Hawaii is joining the rest of the world, and we are such an asset that we will be highly valued. Not to worry.

Beverly Kai

Make dog obedience training mandatory

As I am saddened by the recent rash of dog attacks on children, I wish to respond to J.C. Gilbert's suggestion of tailoring the annual licensing fees for people who wish to own "vicious canine pets" (Letters, June 19).

How would that solve the problem? Paying more each year would make your pet less vicious?

When someone decides to own a dog, it doesn't matter what breed, they've accepted a responsibility to care for it and to adhere to laws like the leash law.

Dogs are animals with innate animal instincts. Only when they are trained the proper way will the chances of a dog going back to pack-like behavior subside. Perhaps someone should introduce a law that certain canine pets should have to go through obedience training, for a fee.

Perhaps the state and a dog-training organization can partner to aide public safety and prevent dogs of any breed from being destroyed because they were failed by their owner.

E. K. Ahana
Ewa Beach

[Quotables] "All I can say to him is there is no 'closure,' but there is life after tragedy." James Young, Husband of woman who drowned their five children in Aiea in 1965. Young, pictured above at the time of the crime, was directing his comments to the husband of Andrea Yates, who committed a similar act in Houston last week. "They're walking out of there like a sieve." Peter Carlisle, Honolulu city prosecutor, on the frequency of breakouts by dangerous mentally ill criminals who are sent to the Kaneohe State Hospital.

School lunch is cheap compared to mainland

I am a "Kailua boy" who works in the California public schools and I would like to respond to the article about Hawaii's school lunch cost (Star-Bulletin, June 22).

I do not know how Hawaii has been able to keep its school lunch prices down when you look at the overhead of salaries, benefits, and all of the stainless steel and sanitary requirements that are needed to stay in operation.

In the town of Red Bluff, Calif., students pay $2 for the government-subsidized meal. This is very cheap for all of the federal "mystery meat," cheese and milk that a child receives. How can Hawaii charge only half of that with your added cost of operation?

I commend the dedication of the administrators and mainly the staff of this program. You are able to provide an effective low-cost meal to the kids of Hawaii.

Chris Uchibori
Red Bluff, Calif.

Bush dumps valuable judicial nominee

President Bush's withdrawal of Honolulu attorney Jim Duffy from the nomination for judge of the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is shockingly partisan and unprincipled.

Jim Duffy is one of Hawaii's and our nation's finest law-yers -- intelligent, a great practitioner, independent-minded and humble, to boot.

After being nominated by President Clinton for a place on the U.S. Court of Appeals, he would likely have been appointed to fill a vacancy on the Hawaii Supreme Court had he been willing to reject Clinton's nomination.

An appointment to the Hawaii Supreme Court would have allowed him to do his work here rather than having to fly to and from San Francisco. Instead, his integrity and sense of duty led him to stick with the ill-fated nomination.

Now, the GOP's excessive partisanship has resulted in the withdrawal of his nomination in order to appoint a lawyer who has a close association with the Republican Party. This move had deprived us of Duffy's service on the bench.

Democratic U.S. senators would be well justified to withhold approval of Richard Clifton's appointment to the federal bench unless and until Jim Duffy receives his appointment to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Senators Akaka and Inouye should be strongly urged to pursue that strategy.

Richard S. Miller
Professor of Law Emeritus
Richardson School of Law
University of Hawaii

Controversy shouldn't disqualify Clifton

I encourage the U.S. Senate to confirm Rick Clifton to a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no doubt about his qualifications and he has been endorsed by the Hawaii State Bar Association and the Hawaii Women Lawyers Association.

It appears an attorney who represents an unpopular or controversial client can never serve in a public office. This has not been the case throughout U.S. history.

John Adams defended British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston massacre. Yet he served in the Continental Congress, as vice president and as president.

Alexander Hamilton defended loyalists (Tories) whose property had been seized during the Revolution. He served in the Constitutional Convention and as treasury secretary.

Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall represented black sailors charged with mutiny during the Second World War.

Any of us may be on the "wrong" side of public opinion or government action. We should all hope there are attorneys willing to represent our unpopular positions.

If you ever want to be a judge, don't represent gays or lesbians, prisoners, the Republican Party, people denied the right to vote, or anyone else unpopular or controversial. Much better to run for elected office and then resign or be defeated. "Stick close to your desks, and never go to sea..."

Brian N. Durham
Attorney
Makakilo

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