Brainstorm! Challenge

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Democrats don't 'get it' after all

The six veto overrides by the Legislature's Democrats should prove once and for all that they really "don't get it." At the beginning of the legislative session I remember distinctly House majority leader Scott Saiki saying, "we get it." Everyone assumed that with statements like that we really were on our way to restructuring and cutting out the wasteful practices of the past.

Overriding Governor Lingle's vetoes, particularly the veto that now requires the more expensive means of solving public worker contract demands through binding arbitration, will leave the state millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, further in debt.

The Democrats would do well to remember the old saying, "When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging."

Fred Gartley
Kaneohe

Speech contained many 'misstatements'

Why are we just now so concerned about President Bush's "misstatement" about Saddam's supposed efforts to obtain uranium from Africa in his State of the Union Address. That speech contained many misstatements. Here are three:

» Bush said: "We will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations."

» Fact: His tax reduction is projected to push the deficit to more than $1 trillion over the next five years. That's just one of the many problems he will leave for future generations.

» Bush said: "To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic education reform, which must now be carried out in every school, in every classroom, so that every child in America can read, and learn, and succeed in life."

» Fact: The No Child Left Behind program has been widely discredited, for its single-test-based method of evaluation and its unrealistic requirements for schools in challenging environments. His first education budget after he signed the NCLB Act proposed a cut of more than $90 million below the previous year and more than $7 billion less than Congress had authorized.

» Bush said: "This tax relief is for everyone who pays income taxes ... Ninety-two million Americans will keep this year an average of almost $1,100 of their own money."

» Fact: Averages can be used to mislead. (The popular analogy is that a group comprising Bill Gates and a dozen bums would have an average worth of a billion dollars.) One- third of all Americans will receive nothing, and half of all taxpayers will get less than a $100 reduction.

Bush has been sold to the American voter with a PR campaign that depends upon the use of impressive but misleading sound bites with the expectation that most people won't bother checking. Let's hope that voters will now be more critical when listening to the hype and more skeptical about the disjoin between what is being said and what is being done.

John M. Flanigan
Retired math professor
Kaneohe

Lawsuit threatens will that helps Hawaiians

As a Kamehameha School student, I was outraged by the decision to set forth a lawsuit against the schools' admission policies. The only reason Kamehameha Schools is the victim of such a suit is the fact that it is one of the wealthiest schools in the nation and many people would like to see all Hawaiian programs flushed down the toilet.

You don't see Saint Louis School getting sued because it doesn't allow girls, or Sacred Hearts Academy because it's an all-girls school. Sex and race are both under the same constitutional amendment. Pauahi's desire was to create educational opportunities in perpetuity to improve the capability and well-being of people of Hawaiian ancestry. There are still many Hawaiians who need to benefit from Kamehameha Schools. By allowing a second non-Hawaiian to enroll, the desire of our beloved princess would not be fulfilled.

The acceptance of a non-Hawaiian to the Maui campus was a mistake, but that will not happen again. This lawsuit is going to destroy a 116-year-old legacy and will. There are many lawsuits being fired at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Queen Liliuokalani Trust, Pauahi's trust and Kamehameha Schools, which is more reason why we should all stand together and become one.

Aubrey Kekiwi
Mililani

Admission policy doesn't adhere to will

Was not the Kamehameha Schools specifically founded by the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop to help educate Hawaii's orphans and children of the poor?

If so, the Kamehameha Schools should not have any other admission preferences until all individuals in these two target groups are recruited, admitted and educated.

Richard Y. Will
Honolulu

Recipe book lives on after author's death

I'm a serious cook. So my greatest joy was a note a year ago from the noted Kauai cookbook author Maili Yardley asking me for my favorite recipe for her own use.

Maili -- written that way but pronounced Ma'ili -- died recently. Her book "Hawaii Cooks Through The Year" (first edition) lives on as a culinary guidepost in my old-fashioned, island-style kitchen. Baked mahi with shrimp soup and sour cream and her orange marmalade-glazed corned beef should be part of every high-end home chef's offerings.

What recipe did I send her? My baked mushroom-spinach-sour cream roll-up in a Greek pastry crust. I do hope she made it for her husband, Paul, a marvelous painter and her Lawai soul-mate.

Bob Jones
MidWeek columnist
Honolulu

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