Organ donors create life-saving gifts

I would like to thank the Star-Bulletin for the article on how organ donations have decreased this year ("Tissue donations down from last year," Nov. 19).

I say this because I am a 16-year-old kidney transplant recipient who has received a donation from someone who died in March. It hurts to read that donations are down, but hopefully the article will show how truly important it is to talk to your family about organ donations.

It was through another Star-Bulletin article that I saw the face of the mother whose son donated a kidney to me. Since then, I have met his family and now we have a great connection and a great relationship.

Shiela Pixler
Ewa Beach

Loss of dignity greater than economic losses

Hawaii's tourism industry, the related retail and services industries, and of course the airline industry are hurting. Though their problems can be directly attributed to the horrific events of Sept. 11, they are further damaged by our own government's actions.

President Bush called the destruction of the World Trade Center attacks on freedom itself. The government's actions since then have attacked freedom even more. Law-enforcement agencies now can eavesdrop on our phone calls and Internet communications without warrants.

They can hold immigrants up to a week without charges. They are encouraged to detain subjects based on a racial profile. At the airports, traveling Americans are subject to random pat-downs.

This single terrorist event has effectively undermined our protections as Americans, provided by our Constitution.

Now we have the airline security measure. As the airline industry falls further into economic disarray, our leaders haven't figured out that it is not the fear of terrorism that has deterred Americans from flying; rather, it's the indignity of the security measures.

Airport security has become much more than inconvenience and burden. It's now a matter of not being treated with dignity and respect. We should first be considered Americans, exercising our privilege to travel in our great nation, instead of being considered potential terrorists. This is the new mindset of what is fast becoming a police state.

Our great country has lost more than human lives and buildings. We've lost being treated with dignity and respect by our government and our law-enforcement agencies.

Mel McKeague

[Quotables] "I'd been reading in the paper about the different groups doing things to stimulate the economy and I thought, 'What can I do?'" Mike McKenna President of McKenna Motor Cars, who gave his employees early Christmas bonuses of $50 to $5,000 -- totaling $55,000 -- with the order that they spend it immediately to help Hawaii's economy. "We are about to feel a double whammy. Besides the worst prediction of 30,000 people being furloughed from jobs, by December we will have the first group being dropped off the welfare rolls." Daniel de Castro Salvation Army spokesman, on Hawaii's economy entering the holiday season.

Time to privatize the public school system

The results of the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress science test that show Hawaii public school fourth- and eighth-grade students scored among the lowest in the nation proves once again the failure of the system.

Why is it we didn't have this problem before teachers destroyed their profession and the education system by going union? What do our kids get out of it but so poor an education that teachers and politicians send their children to private schools?

I believe it is time to privatize the education system in Hawaii. The governor has the power to do this. Let's go.

Don McDiarmid Jr.

Criticism of Guild is sexist poppycock

Joel Mark and Roger Van Cleve (Letters, Nov. 18) had a chauvinistic field day in their piling-on of Alice Guild. Guild is guilty only of doing what women often do -- that is, trying to keep everyone happy (and often making no one happy as a result).

Mark went so far as to accuse everyone here of being insufficiently patriotic to suit him, saying red-blooded Americans should no longer come here and that people in California and Florida are "real Americans" so people should go there instead.

What extreme generalizations, poppycock and jingoism.

Nancy Bey Little

Anthrax swept through Kailua dairy farm

In early 1942 Campos Dairy sprawled on both sides of Kailua Road. The fields extended all the way to the beach road called Kalaheo and mauka across the swamp into the hills behind what is now Hahani Street.

Some of the cows at the dairy came down with the dreaded anthrax disease.

When a cow died, it was burned on the spot in a huge pyre that smoldered for days.

What frightened me the most was a ranch hand sitting with a rifle ready to shoot any stray dog or cat that crossed into the contaminated field. My parents explained that this was the only way to stop the spread of the disease but, to an 11-year-old, the sight was devastating.

I asked a classmate, Delores Campos, who lived on the ranch, why they didn't seem to worry about coming down with anthrax. She said they removed their shoes outside the front door, island style, then stepped into a pan of disinfected water by the doorway.

After quite a while there were fewer pyres burning. Later, stray dogs were again allowed to roam the fields.

I can offer no solutions to our problems, but anthrax has visited Kailua in the past.

Jane Freeman Lipp

Sacrificing Makua for training is worthwhile

I am a lifelong resident of Waianae. As I drove home from work the other day, I saw the soldiers returning from Makua Valley to their base.

I thought of how safe I felt as they continued to train for purposes that none of us, as civilians, will ever be prepared for. I want the Army and every other branch of the military services to know that I appreciate all of their efforts, training, hard work and sacrifices.

By allowing them the training they need in Makua, we are doing our part to help the cause. I think this is a cause worth sacrificing our valley for. These are days of much sacrifice.

Jackie Franco

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