Brainstorm! Challenge

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Beating at the beach was a hate crime

The recent conviction of Manuel Kupahu Jr., Robert K. Kupahu and Guy Meyers for brutally assaulting a good Samaritan on a Waimanalo beach while spewing racial epithets (Star-Bulletin, March 6) reminds me of a generation ago in the South, where a black man could find himself beaten or perhaps lynched for helping a white woman cross the street. Just substitute "f---ing haole" for the "N" word and you have in a microcosm the dark underbelly of aloha in our state.

Time and again, members of our community are assaulted or worse because of their ethnic ancestry, yet I cannot ever recall a prosecution for a hate crime. Shame!

Steve Lane
Honolulu

Citizens should have right to carry guns

Two bills now in the state Legislature, SB 2398 and HB 2309, have both been referred to their respective judiciary committees. Both bills would "require" that the police chief of each county issue concealed-carry weapon licenses (CCW) to citizens who have cleared all background checks.

Under current state law, the chief of police from each county "may grant (a license to carry) in an exceptional case." But the number of carry permits issued during the past 10 years is zero.

In a guest editorial (Star-Bulletin, Feb. 24), Honolulu police Chief Lee Donohue stated, "It is not necessary for private citizens to carry guns, except in the instances where there is urgent reason for a person to fear severe injury."

I'm sure at least a handful of private citizens during the past 10 years must have had reason to fear severe injury. Yet under the current law, acquiring a CCW license is all but impossible. We have read or heard news reports where victims of violence did suffer severe injury or death. If a CCW license was a true option, many of these tragedies may have ended differently.

A recent episode of "20/20" interviewed inmates who said what they feared most was not prison or the police, but a private citizen who is armed. It also reported that guns are used two to three times more often for defensive purposes than for criminal activity.

Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, so far has declined to hear SB 2398.

C. Uchida
Honolulu

Companies should put people ahead of profits

I am appalled at local businesses, with gas companies gouging prices to more than $2 a gallon and appealing a gas cap because it will take away their livelihood; and with insurance companies raising their premiums and then making millions in profit. It saddens me to see businesses be selfish and prideful.

This kind of business practice will only lead to a higher cost of living and force people to move to the mainland, where it's cheaper to live. Hawaii is one of the most expensive states to live in. We are prisoner to the gas and insurance companies. What we need is companies that will think about the people of Hawaii and not about making millions in profit. It will take only one company to start changing the trend and having the people of Hawaii make a clear statement that we will no longer put up with the kind of business practices that put profit ahead of people.

Businesses need to be about caring for people and not about themselves.

Alan Kim
Aiea

Successors may not fulfill Lingle's ed plan

The governor is accusing Democrats of "playing politics" with respect to the public school system ("Lingle renews school board push," Star-Bulletin, March 3).

She wants to establish seven school boards, do away with the Board of Education, replace it with a panel chosen by her, eliminate the position of superintendent of the Department of Education and assume those functions herself. All of the rhetoric boils down to "the governor wants to run the public school system with a select group of advisers and small local school boards still subject to the control and purse strings of the state."

Now, isn't that politics?

While the governor may be capable of such a task, what guarantee is there that subsequent governors will be so capable or even want that function? We have an established system now. It is being improved every day by experienced educators.

Let's quit this political squabbling and let Superintendent Pat Hamamoto fulfill the vision and promise that she related in her State of Education speech to the Legislature.

Bernard Judson
Kapolei

Separate boards will create inequity

As the grandson of immigrants and a former volunteer with seven second-grade classes at Kalihi Elementary School, I'd like the governor's advisers to know why I oppose splitting up the school board.

Separate boards will compete for limited government resources, and the children from neighborhoods peopled with successful and well-connected parents will have an ever greater advantage over the children who aren't.

The desire of successful people to work exclusively for the benefit of their own children, without the drag of schools where parents cannot or will not make the same effort, is natural. But its benefits are false.

For example, while politically unacceptable to admit this, abuse of crime-inducing drugs is highest among the least educated. And doesn't one house invasion gone wrong eliminate all the imagined advantage of a better school once separate?

I am not disparaging low-income parents. I just remember that though my grandparents revered education, they could not make themselves listened to, or consulted by, people like those advising the GOP on this issue.

It may be right to hold adults accountable for their own success or failure, but we will all regret not beginning all of Hawaii's children in the same educational boat.

George L. Berish
Honolulu

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[ BRAINSTORM! ] Does Honolulu need a city museum, and what should be in it? Does history matter? If so, whose history? Bishop Museum is one of the leading cultural museums in the United States, but it is not a history center. Honolulu seems to be the only state capital city without a municipal museum. Does Honolulu need a city museum? What should be in it? Where should it be? Should such a museum be a collection of artifacts or a learning center? Would such a museum be geared for Hawaii education or for entertaining tourists? Send your ideas by March 17 to: brainstorm@starbulletin.com Or mail them to: Brainstorm! c/o Nancy Christenson Star-Bulletin 500 Ala Moana 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210 Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 Fax: Brainstorm! c/o Nancy Christenson 529-4750