PARKING PARADIGMS

Fees may force some changes

With parking rates at UH-Manoa set to rise, one could hope that higher fees would encourage students to bus or carpool to school. Bad traffic could always use some alleviation.

Then again, area neighborhoods might suffer even more, as cash-strapped students and visitors comb already packed streets looking for free parking.

The measure goes before the UH Board of Regents today.

DUE DILIGENCE

Keep safety at the top of the list

The tragic death of boxer Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter sent shivers down the spine of many parents. Exodus Tyson died after suffocating from being caught in the loop of a cord hanging under a home treadmill, the Associated Press reported.

Ordinary, seemingly harmless items can quickly become instruments of injury or death for innocent tots. It does, as child experts say, just take seconds.

It's tough being vigilant 24/7. But the experts do stress the need to try to plan ahead and childproof surroundings. Beware of open windows and sliding doors. Keep cords and ties out of reach. Watch out for choking. Expect the unexpected.

SEEING EYE TO EYE

A link between cultures

Thirty-three years ago and from across a continent and ocean, Sonia Sotomayor made a link between Hawaii and Puerto Rico, the homeland of her parents.

In her 1976 senior thesis at Princeton University on the future of Puerto Rico, ranging from independence to statehood, 21-year-old Sotomayor, now nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, made this observation: “;The experiences of Alaska and Hawaii since statehood with cultural destruction has been indicative of the cultural loss Puerto Rico would eventual (sic) face if statehood for the island were chosen. Under the commonwealth status, there has been a gradual deterioration of the Spanish language among the Puerto Rican populace and a growing Americanization of the island.”;