Talk to children about
online chatsThe issue: A Hawaii man used the
Internet to lure a 14-year-old
Oregon girl here for sex.THE case of a Kalihi man's luring of a 14-year-old Oregon girl for sex is proof that Hawaii's remoteness provides no protection against the seamier side of the Internet. Parents need to talk with their children about their online activities and report sexual solicitations to authorities.
Lando Millare was sentenced to three years in prison this week after pleading guilty in federal court to soliciting sex from the girl last June. Millare, 31, then an assistant at Kaneohe Public Library, had told the girl he was 17 and bought her a plane ticket to the islands, meeting her first in Los Angeles. Her parents contacted Honolulu police after her daughter didn't telephone them as planned, and police arrested Millare a half-hour after he and the girl arrived at his apartment.
Such solicitation occurs more frequently than parents might suspect. A national survey published last year found that one in five Internet users ages 10 through 17 had received unwanted sexual solicitation in the previous year. One of every four youths solicited said it made them feel very or extremely upset or afraid.
However, in only one-fourth of the incidents did the youths tell a parent, and only 10 percent of the incidents were reported to an authority like a teacher, an Internet service provider, a law-enforcement agency or a hot line. Youths kept the exchange entirely to themselves half the time, not even telling friends or siblings.
The study, conducted by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, found that two-thirds of the solicitations were made in Internet chat rooms. In nearly all cases, the youths were solicited while they were at computers at home or someone else's home.
The solicitations don't always fit the stereotype of being made by older men to young girls. One-fourth of the aggressive solicitations were made by females, and a third of the targeted youths were boys. The youths said adults made only half of the aggressive solicitations, although the accuracy of that estimate is questionable. Millare told the Oregon girl he was 17.
The solicitations present a difficult problem for parents. While child-molestation cases normally involve 7-to-13-year-olds, older teens are more often lured on the Internet, and are more likely to regard parents' perusal of their online activities as invasions of privacy. The best approach may be the old-fashioned one -- talking about it.
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ALTHOUGH profiling may be objectionable on global and national political fronts, it is precisely the tool needed to eliminate hazards for Hawaii in the plant world. It would change the way in which non-native plant life enters the islands to better protect Hawaii's environmental and economic interests. New system needed to
weed out bad plantsThe issue: The state is searching
for a new way to evaluate non-native
plants for importation.The state's current system for allowing plants to be imported consists merely of a list of about 80 noxious weeds that aren't permitted. If a plant isn't on the list, it is cleared for entry.
The system was designed primarily to protect sugar and pineapple crops, which are no longer major industries here. The outdated guidelines do not reflect the contemporary acceptance of alien plants as a threat to the island ecosystems.
The most notorious of these aliens is miconia, the South American ornamental imported to Hawaii in the late 1950s, which has devastated native plant life on Pacific islands such as Tahiti. A fast-propagating species, miconia has taken over thousands of acres of forests in Hawaii, endangering watersheds and costing the state millions of dollars to fight.
A new proposal would reverse the process for import approval. The importer would be required to fill out an application about the specific plant and the plant would be evaluated against a profile designed to show potential harmful effects. If the plant fails the test, it would be banned.
A University of Hawaii botanist is putting together a matrix that scores a plant on such matters as its life history, natural environment and reproduction. The scoring can be conducted in a matter of hours; importers would not be burdened by a long processing period. These profiles also can be shared and evaluated by plant experts in the Pacific region to see if their research matches up and if they have found problems that could have similar effects here.
More than 4,600 non-native plant species exist in Hawaii. Many were imported for decorative home gardens, others for such uses as animal feed. In earlier times, there was little understanding about the harmful nature of the plants and how the permissive environment in Hawaii would encourage their spread.
Commercial growers and nurseries understandably are wary of a new system that may keep certain plants out of the state and so affect their businesses. Most acknowledge, however, that the current process doesn't work. "I think it's time we scrutinize what we bring in," said Ernie Rezents of the Maui County Arborist Advisory Committee. "It's time to bite the bullet."
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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comJohn Flanagan, contributing editor 294-3533; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
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