Concert series delights, challenges

The Chamber Music Hawaii concert on the evening of Jan. 20 was outstanding! I was inclined to stay home under the covers on that cool evening -- I'm so glad I didn't.

The music was so different and challenging to the artists and audience both. All of the composers were from Hawaii. Two of them were at the concert and introduced their works. I was delighted, too, that the Doris Duke Academy Theatre was nearly full.

The musicians, all from our Honolulu Symphony, deserve a full audience every time. There are so many others who may appreciate Chamber Music Hawaii. They should plan to attend the Galliard String Quartet: "Fire and Ice" concert on March 24. Chamber Music Hawaii's full schedule is available online at chambermusichawaii.com.

Norma B. Nichols

Hawaii needs better tourism experts at top

Regarding "Lingle threatens trust by tapping private funding" ("Raising Cane," Star-Bulletin, Jan. 26): Of course there will be no private funding to help pay the salary of a new tourism czar. It was never really intended. Publicity was Governor Lingle's goal.

Let's face it, we have no real tourism expert in charge who has any professional weight. The Hawaii Tourism Authority's chief thinker, Rex Johnson, has no qualifications for the job but makes $240,000 a year. Frank Haas, director of tourism marketing, also is undeserving of his position.

Instead of crying foul about Lingle's proposal, we should concentrate on ways to free funds that could be used to hire a knowledgeable tourism professional. Let's shed the useless HTA and use that money to pay for Lingle's new director of tourism.

We also should focus less on war and more on terrorism, with respect to tourism planning. War will most likely produce a weaker dollar, to the advantage of foreign travelers. And war will prevent U.S. citizens from traveling abroad, but they might still travel within the country. Let's get 'em!

Dieter Thate
Dieter's Tours

Dealers, police benefit from illegal drugs

In Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," the slave Jim talks about being rich when he is freed. In slave-owning days, people had a clear understanding of what freedom was. A free man owned his body and the fruits of his own labor. We seem to have lost that distinction. Who owns your body?

Apparently, our city prosecutor and Senate president don't think teenagers own their bodies. To them, random drug testing is no more a violation of their rights than searching their school lockers. Children, in this view, are property, free to be searched like a room or a car. They seem to believe that the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches has no more application to teenagers today than it did for blacks under slavery.

Drug addiction, a minor community irritant when it was legal, has become a major problem for everyone since it has been made a crime. Those who benefit are the drug traffickers and all the people in law enforcement and corrections who have received billions of dollars in taxes our country has wasted on this fool's errand.

We Libertarians believe freedom works. Society is better off when it is governed by ideals of respect and tolerance than by stone throwing, judgments and punishments for those whom some see as not living a moral lifestyle. Please help us build a more respectful society.

Tracy A. Ryan
2002 gubernatorial candidate
Libertarian Party

Blame lax parenting for schools' problems

I read with great and vested interest Star-Bulletin's Jan. 28 story "Sometimes you gotta go, but the supply bins are empty," which detailed the outrageous conditions of Hawaii's public-school bathrooms.

My son is a Castle High School student. Every day he comes home with horrendous stories regarding the out-of-control behavior of the students and the deplorable condition of its bathrooms.

Each day when I pick up my son from school, I am bombarded by the most obscene language I have ever heard -- coming from the students! Also, many of the young women dress in a way that is totally unacceptable, unless their high school "major" is streetwalking.

Many of the teachers tell me they receive almost no support from the school's administration. In fact, they are forbidden to send unruly students to the office for discipline.

I mostly blame the parents of these unruly and disgraceful students for the problems that plague our schools. I ask all Hawaii's parents, what are you doing to raise your children, other than feeding them? Are you teaching them right and wrong, and to respect others? Are you practicing wholesome role modeling at home? Are you teaching your children to respect their school, its teachers and property?

If you couldn't answer "yes" to all of the above, you are the reason we don't have toilet paper, soap, responsible students and clean, safe campuses.

James L. Tumblin
Kaneohe

Seize and resell cars of drunken drivers

I wonder how many more men, women and children have to be killed on America's highways by individuals driving while intoxicated before the nation's state legislators pass forfeiture laws ("Man gets 20 years for DUI death," Star-Bulletin, Jan. 25). If you're caught driving under the influence, the auto being driven is forfeited and sold, free of any liens.

Robert Buchanan
Reno, Nev.

Editorial on spam counters Web edition

On Jan. 21, the Star-Bulletin published an editorial titled, "Feds should rein in spam." The most annoying spam I encounter every day as I click on the Star-Bulletin online is the vacation advertisement that automatically appears and has to be clicked on and closed before one can clear his or her computer decks, so to speak.

Stop taking money for imposing this spam on us yourselves and I'll give more credence to your support of state legislation to eliminate it. Otherwise, it makes you appear hypocritical.

Robert W. Donigan

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