More students should be able to take PSAT

The article "Roosevelt gives helping hand in search for right college" (Star-Bulletin, Sept. 30) was about the school's student center, where students can learn about colleges and how to apply to colleges.

It is great that the school has this facility. However, there is a way that the college-preparation activities can be improved. I am a junior at Roosevelt High School and will not be taking the PSAT because I didn't sign up early enough and the limited number of spaces were filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

The PSAT might be seen as unimportant by some, but it is not. My sister's PSAT helped her get an invitation to participate in Grinnell College's Honors Scholar Program for Minorities in Math and Science in the summer of her junior year of high school.

There are other juniors at Roosevelt who are not going to be able to take the PSAT. There isn't enough room in the cafeteria for all of the students who want to take it. If there isn't enough money to hire proctors, maybe volunteers could be found. Or maybe the tests could be held on another day, or regular classrooms could be used in addition to the cafeteria.

With the great college counseling available at Roosevelt, it really would be helpful for all the students, especially the juniors, to be able take the PSAT.

Ian Grimes
Roosevelt High School

Sleeping giant should awaken in Hawaii

Kauai has its Sleeping Giant. I predict another sleeping giant will awaken our state in six weeks. This giant is named "change." It will loom in front of us daily on TV and in print. This giant will mouth two significant words: It's time. I urge everyone to awaken with the giant.

An article on the front page of one daily newspaper cites the need "for voters to be frustrated enough to break the Democratic hold on the Capitol" and, likewise, our state. Have the Demo-crats improved public schools, energized our economy, reduced the cost of living, reduced the size and cost of government, eliminated corruption?

The Democrats have talked big but have not solved these five core problems. The election is not really about them, though. It is about the crying need in our Aloha State for real change -- a change in direction, a change in leadership and, most important of all, a change in meaningful results.

Linda Lingle and Duke Aiona offer Hawaii the one chance in the foreseeable future to heed the giant and implement this change.

Bob Vieira
Kailua

Amendment would ruin rights of accused

The November ballot will include a frightening referendum on whether to amend the Hawaii Constitution. The effect of the clever wording of Ballot Question No. 3 would be to abolish the grand jury and preliminary hearing processes. In their place, county prosecutors will be able to file felony charges based on hearsay information alone from the police.

The grand jury is an independent body of citizens who observe live testimony from the prosecutor's witnesses and decide whether probable cause has been established to formally charge another citizen. The grand jury acts as a barrier to reckless or unfounded charges and serves as a shield against arbitrary or oppressive prosecution.

In a preliminary hearing, an accused citizen and his or her attorney are present during the prosecutor's presentation of testimony. The accused citizen is given the right to confront the prosecutor's witnesses. A judge presides over the hearing and determines whether probable cause has been established to formally charge a citizen. The hearing prevents hasty, malicious prosecutions by allowing the accused the opportunity to challenge the grounds of the prosecutor's allegations.

Our Constitution does not need changing to permit the government to more easily launch criminal allegations against citizens based on second-hand information from law enforcement. The grand jury and preliminary hearing processes work fine and are valuable checks on the already immense power of law enforcement and prosecution. I will vote "no" to changing the Constitution and abolishing our long-standing constitutional rights to justice.

David Cain
Wailuku, Hawaii

Church, state ought to be totally separate

Thank the gods and goddesses (or lack thereof) for moral warriors like Mitch Kahle of Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church. Being willing to take on the misguided ire of every "Christian" with a holier-than-thou sense of entitlement to dominate state matters is brave, and he deserves praise.

America was started as a place intended to be free of religious persecution. So where do Christian cultists get off insinuating their "God" into civil matters? This is a secular nation, not a Christian nation.

Kit Grant

Separation movement is becoming absurd

Since the Pledge of Allegiance, McKinley High School's code of honor and now the Honolulu Police Department's oath are all unconstitutional, maybe we should take a look at what else is unconstitutional.

Singing "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" in government buildings must certainly be unconstitutional. We should eliminate all Bibles and religious texts from state libraries, and public schools should not be able to teach music, because musical notation was created by monks -- the Gregorian chant.

This also means that history books in public schools must be rewritten to exclude any religious beliefs that ancient man might have had in Mesopotamia or Egypt. And all mention of the Pilgrims and Puritans also must be deleted, since it alludes to our nation having been formed by people with religious beliefs.

Marriage (monogamous) is unconstitutional, because the concept of one man and one woman comes from Genesis, and restricting a man to only one spouse shows a favoring of a particular religion.

Boy, we Americans are truly being oppressed by the "Christian supremacy movement," aren't we? Christianity forces us to only have one husband or wife, and the government supports this. Where are the ACLU and the Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church when you need them?

Fletcher Young

Meat industry gains from animals' pain

A great debate rages across America over the justification for invading Iraq. Americans question whether disarming and displacing Saddam Hussein justifies the death of American and Iraqi combatants and innocent civilians. But there can be no justification for the war conducted every day against billions of innocent farm animals by the U.S. meat industry.

Each year, more than 10 billion cattle, pigs, sheep and other innocent, feeling animals are caged, crowded, deprived, drugged and mutilated in U.S. factory farms.

Oct. 2 marked the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who once said that "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." This date is observed in the United States and 20 other countries as World Farm Animals Day. Caring folks arrange exhibits, lectures, picketing and vigils. They open people's eyes, hearts and minds to the tragedy of animal agriculture and to the consumers' subsidy of it at the supermarket checkout counter.

Each one of us can resolve today to end this subsidy by refraining from purchasing meat, dairy and other products of our war against the animals.

Aliaska Brozen
Kihei, Maui

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Reflections on Patsy
and filling her shoes

Mink's fearless spirit will be missed

Patsy Takemoto Mink's life should be celebrated, although her passing will rightly be mourned. Hers was, in the words of writer William Faulkner, "a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before."

I think Mink would have been pleased with Faulkner's words when he accepted the Nobel Prize: "I believe that man (she probably would have insisted on the addition of 'woman') will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."

She had a brilliant, inexhaustible voice, but also a fearless spirit of compassion, sacrifice and endurance. Her testament will stand to peace and human rights through a quarter-century of hard work in Congress. Our best means of celebrating her great legacy are to vote for her memory in November and to continue her work to advance the human spirit.

Al Lynde
Ewa Beach

Mink's death silences strong liberal voice

Congresswoman Patsy Mink was one of the last of a rare breed -- a battling liberal. Her death leaves a void.

Richard Thompson
San Diego, Calif.

Put Mink campaign fund to honorable uses

While my sympathy is extended to Patsy Mink's family, I am disturbed that the Democratic Party is trying to manipulate the voters of this state by encouraging people to "honor" Patsy Mink by voting for her after her death. I suggest that there are better ways to honor the public service of this hard-working woman.

The Mink campaign fund could be donated to any of many good causes. For example, it could be used to open up the Kapolei Library, which could then be named the Patsy Mink Memorial Library. One room could be used to house artifacts from her offices in Washington and Honolulu. Or it could be shared among the schools around the state to upgrade girls' sports, since Mink was instrumental in passing Title IX. Still another idea would be to spend that money to immediately air-condition schools around the state.

Can anyone argue that any of these suggestions would leave a better memory through the generations than a vote that would cost our strapped state another $2 million? One need only ask, what would Patsy Mink want? Would she like to have a hollow, symbolic vote, or would she like to see the state of Hawaii with another operating library, children learning better because their classes are comfortable with air-conditioning, or to see more girls encouraged and able to participate in sports to improve their abilities and self-confidence?

I think Mink would like to have more people have the opportunity to develop the self-confidence and intelligence that allowed her to fight so well in the Congress.

Ruth Brown
Ewa Beach

Mink's husband could carry on her legacy

Like the many other people who feel heartbroken about the unexpected death of Patsy Mink, I cannot take my mind off this tragedy. I was fortunate to meet her occasionally and I was always inspired by her. I don't doubt that Sen. Daniel Inouye and Rep. Neil Abercrombie hope that her many supporters will want to give her one last vote in a special election to show their own feelings of gratitude for all Patsy did for us.

Nobody is surprised her last political opponent wants to prevent this and is claiming concern for the extra expense. Maybe we could start a special fund for those extra expenses.

Last but not least, many people knew that Patsy's strongest, most gifted supporter was her husband, John Mink. Has anybody been thinking of talking him into running for her congressional seat? This would be the greatest contribution toward a memorial for Patsy and a statement of their true partnership in their marriage.

Ursula Hare

Time for party change in U.S. House seat

With all due respect to the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, I am disgusted with the shameless deceit shown to the voters of Hawaii. With her gravely ill condition hidden from her constituents, neither she, her family nor the Democratic Party would remove her name from the November ballot before the deadline.

We now will be faced with an election pitting the highly qualified and respectable Republican Bob McDermott against an incumbent no longer with us. Furthermore, if the voters of Hawaii are as hapless as the voters in Missouri, we might even be faced with re-electing the late congresswoman, in which case a special election would be held at a cost of $2 million.

What a needless waste of the taxpayer's time and money. Attention, voters of Hawaii: It's time to vote for change.

Mark Stout

Posthumous votes would be pointless

The Democrats are calling for the people to vote for Patsy Mink on Nov. 5 in honor of the work that she has done for the people. If Mink wins, a special election must be held to fill the seat she obviously cannot hold. This election would cost an estimated $2 million.

That would be on top of the $2 million cost of a special election on Nov. 30 to fill her seat for 34 days until her term expires Jan. 3. This election, according to the chief elections officer, has to be held due to legal restraints.

If Mink wins posthumously, the second special election to fill her seat cannot be held until March. The individual voted in to complete her term gives up that seat Jan. 3. How does it help the people of Hawaii to be without representation from January through March?

There are many ways to honor Patsy Mink for her good works. Voting for her on Nov. 5 is not one of them.

Lee Guthrie
Wailuku, Maui

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Differing views
on attacking Iraq

U.S. shouldn't attack sovereign nation

How unbelievable, in 2002, that the United States has to use strong-arm methods to extort support in its effort to rationalize a war with Iraq. This Bush administration -- Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and, reluctantly, Powell -- is out of control. As if we have $35 billion laying around to initiate a war with a sovereign country.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and now Bush is trying to connect Sept. 11 with Iraq. He sucks up to Saudi Arabia by hosting visits at his ranch in Texas because he wants their airspace and oil.

If Saddam is a madman and is acquiring weapons of mass destruction, why is world opinion so against the United States launching a pre-emptive strike? Why don't all of Iraq's neighboring countries pay for this supposedly necessary war? Let the armies of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Russia, Pakistan and India take on Saddam.

The United States has a border problem, yet we are hell-bent on traveling 15,000 miles to beat up on Iraq, which "may" have nuclear weapons. So do 17 other countries. After Iraq, who's next? When will it end?

Paul D'Argent
Kihei, Maui

Democrats interfere with security issues

It's clear that the Democrats in Congress want to hold up votes on Iraq and homeland security until after the election. Their caucus is all over the field in the so-called debate they demanded, but clearly the votes are there to pass the president's version of both bills.

The Democrats' visible frustration at not being able to demagogue their old-saw campaign issues -- abortion and Social Security -- is pathetic. Now that serious national security issues are on the table, they're confused. Hawaii's senators have been noticeably silent on these issues, but maybe they could at least pass along a message to their leadership: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

The Democrats' inability to choose any of those paths for the good of the country is disturbing and counterproductive.

Greg Rice

Iraq resolution gives Bush too much power

Congress is likely to vote soon on a resolution permitting President Bush to use military power against Iraq. According to the Washington Post, the resolution is the broadest request for military authority since the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which launched the Vietnam War.

The president has made it clear that once the resolution has passed, he'll proceed without further consultation with Congress. In other words, it's the last chance for lawmakers to speak up on Iraq.

The draft resolution that Bush delivered to congressional leaders is alarming. It gives him the authority to "use all means that he determines to be appropriate" to "restore international peace and security in the region." If it passes, Bush could use this language to justify military attacks against virtually any country in the Middle East.

The resolution also ignores the role of the United Nations. It would allow the president to go into Iraq without the support of any of our allies, and without a Security Council mandate.

It's critical that we let our elected representatives know that a resolution authorizing unilateral war is unacceptable.

Marilyn Mick

U.S. risks same road as the Roman Empire

The Tom Cruise film "Born on the Fourth of July" should be viewed by all parents whose children may face military service in Bush's war. The movie, based on the life of wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, is a powerful message to parents who support our military adventures abroad and send their young off to war in the name of patriotism.

I say to parents: Love and cherish your children. You did not bring them into this world for cannon fodder. Speak out against against our current leaders who want us to attack Iraq. Support our few leaders, including Senator Inouye, who are putting up some resistance to Bush's war plans.

This is a turning point in American history, warranting every citizen's concern. Once we go down the road to "first strike," we will become no better than the ill-fated Roman Empire.

Corrine Goldstick

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Proposal treats
landowners unfairly

Chapter 38 will create rental shortage

The effect of Chapter 38, the city's leasehold conversion ordinance, is to create a housing and rental shortage in urban Honolulu.

Landowners are no longer leasing land for condominiums. Landowners are keeping their apartments in Makiki, Kapahulu, Moiliili and elsewhere in the family by giving their properties to their children.

Selling the leasehold was the only way these families would use their properties for condominiums.

Anyone who is priced out of the housing and rental market should ask the City Council members not to pass Bill 53 and to repeal Chapter 38.

M.F. Allen
Waimanalo

High property taxes force owners to lease

Real estate broker Michael Pang states that "lessors committed their land for investment because it served a greater purpose to maximize the potential of the land through development" ("Gathering Place," Star-Bulletin, Sept. 29).

I am a long-time small land-owner. The real reason that landowners leased their land is to pay for high property taxes. The city forced landowners to lease land for condominium development through these high property taxes, and now it condemns the land because it is a condominium.

Is this the United States of America or a communist country? Mr. Pang, don't try to tell me how to handle my investment. Your ideas are not mine.

E.A. McIntosh
Kona, Hawaii

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