Teachers make too little by comparison

Three percent of the state teacher's salary for one year as a bonus for advance teacher training is an insult to the teachers. It would not even compensate them for the cost of this advance training. Both the state government and the union should have seen this.

What the teachers with advanced teaching degrees should really receive is an additional 1 percent or 2 percent above the regular salary with no time limits. Other professions pay more for advance degrees with no time limits.

Have you ever wondered what does a professional sports player do with his money from his $100-million contract? How does a teacher live economically with only $50,000 annually? Don't you think the teacher should get more than the athlete? How much does a state make that gives a lottery winner $141 million?

Maybe the teachers should come work for the federal government. The feds pay better.

Jimbo Miura
Mililani

DOE fails the curriculum test

For the past seven years I have asked state Department of Education teachers, principals, superintendents and board members if I could see a hard-copy printout of the DOE curriculum for grades K-6 in the content areas of language arts, mathematics, science and social studies/geography. I have been stonewalled at every turn.

Their last suggestion was to go look at some obscure DOE Web site. (More than half of DOE families don't have a computer and Internet connection.)

William Bennett writes in his latest book that parents should be very afraid when their child's school or school district cannot produce a printout of what they will be teaching the child at each grade level. Recently several teachers statewide have told me there really is no K-6 DOE curriculum; they make it up as they go.

Larry Loganbill
Moloaa Bay, Kauai

Political gain is goal of Bush's tax rebate

Robert R. Kessler stated in his Aug. 13 letter that anyone who does not support President Bush's tax rebate is a "whiner," a word often used to stifle debate.

President Clinton was able to eliminate the enormous Reagan/GOP budget deficit during his eight years and put this nation on sound fiscal ground. Bush is like a bull in a china shop in his reckless pursuit of votes in next year's election.

Believe me, I pay my share in taxes, but I supported Clinton's great effort to eliminate the deficit he inherited. I also support universal health care and a Social Security system that will still exist for the next generation. Bush is squandering the surplus for his own, and his party's, political gain.

Nancy Bey Little

[QUOTABLES] "I'm trying to call attention to the sacrifice that women often make in relationships, their families or in their jobs and often feel a sense of martyrdom." Daria Fand, Hawaii artist whose painting of a nude woman on a cross, was rejected for display in an art show at City Hall. Fand is suing the city for violation of her First Amendment rights. "When we cannot wash ourselves and cannot wash our clothes, we don't want to do other things." Faliha Sari, Female villager from Sirt in southern Turkey, describing why the women of the village are boycotting sex until their husbands fix the village's water system. Islam demands that followers bathe after having sex.

Parties driven by greed for power

One has to wish hard that Hawaii would have a true political party system. Instead, one party is doing its best to hang on to power, while the other waits to take over. Both are unwilling to learn the lessons of the past when greed for power and control becomes each's dominant behavior.

Linda Lingle's Aug. 10 column is critical of the convention center's location. While controversy over the location was going on, Lingle was mayor of Maui. Did she perhaps want the convention center on her island? It's difficult to recall that she was objecting then. There is, in fact, no other area in Hawaii where hotels abound to absorb conventioners who may number by the thousands. Was that perhaps another empty political statement?

I remember an interview I did with Lingle for the Filipino Chronicle before the last gubernatorial election when she might have won if she had had a vision for Hawaii. I asked her then what her vision was if she were to win, but she dodged the question by attributing her social conscience to a grandmother who raised her.

Her complimentary views on or about Dr. Edwin Cadman and University of Hawaii President Evan Dobelle sounded gubernatorial, a role she expects to assume in 2002. Did she perhaps consult Honolulu hospital doctors, many of whom teach at the medical school?

For one who watches closely what candidates for the top government job say or do, one has yet to come up with issues such as civil service reforms, or substantive social policies that will benefit Hawaii's people, particularly the disadvantaged. Rather, all three announced candidates seem engrossed with their personal ambitions, and feeding the hunger of their political parties.

Jovita Rodas Zimmerman

Stem-cell restrictions will hamper research

President Bush's restrictions on the use of stem cells are smart politics but bad science. By cutting off federal funding for any newly developed stem-cell lines he hampered our country's ability to develop this promising line of research.

The coming biology revolution might produce more high-paying jobs and wealth than the computer revolution has, and the country that takes an early lead will gather the lion's share of the economic benefits.

Fundamentalist Christians object to the deliberate taking of life, even in the earliest stages of development. So why not satisfy that objection by allowing federal funding for new stem-cell lines derived from fetuses dying from natural causes, such as from spontaneous abortions?

Jim Henshaw
Kauai

Tourists can bicycle while residents watch

As a bicyclist new to the city -- one year -- I am finding it difficult to understand what is and what is not legal in this city. I was told that riding on the sidewalks in the business districts, downtown and Waikiki was illegal but elsewhere it wasn't. However, it seems that if you are a tourist you are allowed to ride on the sidewalks of Waikiki.

My experience of Honolulu has been reminiscent of George Orwell's "Animal Farm," where some are more equal than others. I find that the police in this city are very good at keeping the residents at bay while the tourists play.

I hope that someday there will be more areas for cyclists to travel.

Paul Neely
Waikiki

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