Hawaii has long been home to jazz lovers

Thank you, Heidi Chang, for the thoughtful "This Sunday" column on jazz in the June 22 Star-Bulletin! Horace Silver has always been one of my favorite pianists, and his "Song for My Father" is a classic.

Honolulu certainly has a history where jazz is concerned, dating back to the 1940s and earlier. My dad played sax in the Air Force Band and that's how he met my mother.

Jazz still lives in the hearts and souls of many Hawaii residents, and we are privileged to have the Hawaii International Jazz Festival in July and many fine local jazz musicians still keeping up the musical heritage in a few venues around town. Let's keep the music playing!

John Kolivas

Lingle gives assault victims a 'New Ending'

Let's make this clear: Governor Lingle has vetoed SB 658, which would have made hospitals provide information regarding emergency contraception and provide that emergency contraception, should a sexual assault survivor request it.

Emergency contraception is not abortion. It reduces the risk of pregnancy, but does not abort an impregnated embryo.

Catholic hospitals across the country already dispense emergency contraception to rape victims, and I doubt that there would have been serious misgivings among Catholic hospitals here. But I guess the governor knows what she's doing. Call it a "New Ending" for rape victims' rights.

Dorothy A. Morris

Gee, thanks a lot for making it convenient

Thank you, Mayor Harris and the Honolulu City Council, for raising our bus fares. Also, thank you for allowing the bus company to cut services. Thank you for forcing some of our people to take money from their grocery budgets to pay for the extra bus fare. Thank you for the long wait for our buses, especially in this hot weather. Thank you for the crowded buses and for forcing our senior citizens and handicapped to stand because no more seats are available for them. Thank you for putting more cars on our roads so there will be longer waits to and from work.

Thank you, Mayor Harris and members of the City Council, for driving your cars and clogging up our roads and highways. You are setting a good example for the public.

David Bohn

Kalihi-Palama Neighborhood Board member

Injured-worker veto bad for small business

Governor Lingle talks a good talk about making things easier on small businesses, reducing insurance costs, being fair to workers and reducing government waste. But talk is cheap. Recently she vetoed HB 1013, which indicates that she is opposed to requiring final examinations of Hawaii's injured workers to be done by medical examiners selected by mutual consent of the injured worker and the insurance company.

Because of the veto, small-business insurance costs will increase, insurance companies' costs will increase, final resolution of work-injury claims will take longer because the number of injury claims that go to the Labor Appeals Board will increase dramatically and government time within the Department of Labor will continue to be wasted on efforts to force injured workers to be examined by insurance doctors who make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from their employers.

Lingle sided with the insurance companies rather than with workers who are injured trying to keep Hawaii's economy strong. Her actions do speak louder than her words.

Joseph F. Zuiker

Ewa board members already breaking rules

The June 12 meeting of the newly elected Ewa Neighborhood Board shows the members are off to a rousing start. Only eight of the 11 members bothered to show up, and then they violated the rules of the neighborhood board plan. According to the rules, the member with the most votes becomes the acting chairperson until a new one is elected. Former chairman Jeff Alexander just couldn't abide by those rules and decided to run the meeting, even though top vote getter Gary Bautista was there.

Alexander continued with the meeting despite objections from board member Tesha Malama. According to the plan, no business may be conducted until a new chairman is elected, so all votes taken during the meeting were in violation of the rules and are void.

Since a complaint to the Neighborhood Commission about violations by neighborhood boards can take longer than two years to be heard, such a complaint is not worth pursuing. I would suggest that the Ewa Neighborhood Board at least try to adhere to the basic rules of the city and county.

Pam Lee Smith

Former Ewa Neighborhood Board member

Genuine Jones worth every bit of his pay

Those who have problems with University of Hawaii football coach June Jones' new salary ("Sidelines," June 22) are the same people who would buy Picassos from K-mart and then go home thinking that they got the bargain of a lifetime. After all, what's the difference between something real and something fake? Any quest for excellence must be incomprehensible to those who have spent their lives mired in mediocrity.

Jones will be receiving a salary of $800,016 because he is a genius at what he does.

Phil Abe

Pearl City

UH's Frazier cares enough to raise money

Teachers, educators and others who are complaining about June Jones' contract should stop blaming him and blame the Board of Education and the Board of Regents for not getting an adequate salary. Whatever amount of money Jones makes doesn't affect teachers' salaries.

The governor, both boards and the Legislature should learn from University of Hawaii Athletic Director Herman Frazier, who values his employees enough to go and find the money to compensate his coaches adequately and at the same time make UH athletics into a first-class organization.

Michael Englar

Pearl City