Letters To The Editor
December 06, 2006 - MidWeek
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Del.icio.usKim Coco’s secret
Bob Jones’ column about media coverage of Board of Education electee Kim Coco Iwamoto strikes me as truly bizarre.
He maintains the public had a right to know pre-election that she is transgendered. Why? So that we could discriminate against her on that basis? His rationale: “School policy” is “community sensitive.” Sensitive to what? Age? Race? Religion? Or just sexual orientation?
Mr. Jones grants anonymity to an unnamed doctor at Kaiser, though not to Ms. Iwamoto. The source’s field is urology, but Jones tosses off a quote from a “casual discussion,” saying there are usually “serious psychiatric issues involved” with those seeking sex change operations.
In the next paragraph, however, Mr. Jones reports that Ms. Iwamoto, far from being wacko, is in fact a civil rights attorney and a licensed therapeutic foster parent. So what’s the message? What we did have a right to know is what every candidate thought about educational methods, planning and budgeting, schools, teacher ratios, and so on. Is he familiar with the candidate’s view on those? He didn’t say.
A far more relevant lack of disclosure: Linda Lingle’s breast cancer scare when she first ran for governor, kept secret until after the election. Didn’t we have the right to know that a vote for her might in fact have led to an administration headed by Duke Aiona? Just imagine. Yet no voice was lifted in protest when that was finally revealed post-election. Priorities, Mr. Jones.
H.E. Henderson
Honolulu
A deadly mistake
Dan Boylan’s column “Bush’s Faith-based Incompetence” was right on the money, essentially epitomizing man’s fallibility with his religion. It taxes the imagination of mortals like me how self-proclaimed God-inspired leaders like Bush and his conservative evangelical supporters can turn out to be so woefully wrong and so deadly wrong, as in Iraq.
Larry T. Hayashida
Wahiawa
Predictable bashing
Last week, upon learning of the mishap involving President Bush’s motorcade escorts, I jokingly said to co-workers that the Bush-haters would blame him for it, as they blamed him for the track of Hurricane Katrina last year. Today, the day we read of the death of Officer Favela on the front page of Honolulu’s morning newspaper, I got my issue of MidWeek.
The title of Dan Boylan’s column caught my eye so I started to read. In the first paragraph, Boylan writes, “He [Bush] visited military bases, wreaked his usual havoc (this time at the expense of four motorcycle cops) and departed ...”
Among Boylan’s always blindly partisan and usually juvenile columns, this takes the cake. The only thing sadder than your paper publishing such nonsense is that college students who sign up for his classes have to listen to it.
Paul Ferguson
Aiea
Not Bush’s fault
Dan Boylan’s hatred toward President Bush is making him sound like he’s the one who is incompetent. Blaming President Bush for the tragic accident that eventually claimed the life of Officer Favela crossed the line between editorial commentary and pure vitriol. All presidents require security to protect them from people who are led to do insane things after having been primed by hatred-filled speech such as Mr. Boylan’s.
It is interesting that he brings up the country’s revered separation of church and state. The only thing he and other secularists revere is the abasement of all things that were cherished and deemed good in this country only a few short years ago - people worship at the altar of abortion; the Boy Scouts are homophobic and undeserving of our respect or support; marriage is anachronistic and doesn’t deserve any more reverence that gay sex-based “marriages,” and the proper use of and handouts of condoms at schools take precedence over teaching any moral teachings of the 10 Commandments. (Oh, I forgot, my side can’t shove any of our views of morality down the throats of secularists, who want to make all the rules.)
Finally, let me quote the one book Mr. Boylan and his ilk most fear. The great prophet Isaiah knew that there would be people like them when he declared, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
Certitudes like having faith in Jesus Christ may spell political irrelevance, but just because everyone else is doing something evil doesn’t make it right.
Michael Sudlow
Hauula
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