Letters To The Editor
August 16, 2006 - MidWeek
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In reading Dan Boylan’s column about the homeless situation in Hawaii, I just had to shake my head. While all Hawaii residents may want to encourage more affordable housing within the state, there are a great many variables that need to be factored in, and the solution is just not going to come through legislation, as far as I can see.
Just look at the homeless on Maili Beach. There’s a perfect study in poor life choices. Those who are working, and making only minimum wage, and who really want to improve their status need only take advantage of the myriad of public educational and vocational programs that are constantly being offered to them (at the beach) by the social agencies who see them constantly. Improve skills, improve income - that’s a start.
Now look at housing prices. It’s not realistic to expect contractors to sell homes for less than it costs to build them in Hawaii, where the cost of land, materials and labor are extremely high - much higher than in other locations in the U.S. Lower those costs, and you lower the standard of living for a large portion of our community - it all trickles down.
Nancy Calhoun
Leeward Oahu
Playing God
Bob Jones’cat was loved for 17 years. Then, she was killed by injection, because her health was not good. Bob was unable to watch his cat suffer and decided on this course of action. He misses Babe, but feels that this was the best way to handle this uncomfortable situation.
Then he begins to slip into the talk of euthanizing humans. Down the slippery slope, Bob. Why allow your loved one to suffer, when you can just have them snuffed out. After all, who wants to suffer?
I don’t know what religious faith yours is, Bob, but mine says that “God” is the creator of life. God gives life, and God decides when we will die. So who are we to play God?
Holland has been “legally” killing people for a long time now. Now infanticide is legal. Old people are afraid to go to the hospital in Holland. They might be “put to sleep.”
In our country, because of genetic testing, over 80 percent of Down’s syndrome babies are aborted. Did you wonder why you don’t see many of these very loving and special humans anymore? When will this nightmare of killing the imperfect stop?
Margaret Sanger, the foundress of Planned Parenthood, (the No. 1 abortion provider in our country) was a white supremacist, bigot and eugenicist. She would be very happy to agree with Bob Jones’ way of thinking. You know, secular humanist.
Teresa Fredericks
Kapolei
Family benefits
The recent contract talks between Local 5 (the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union) and the huge multinational corporations stirred some very strong feelings on a personal level. It seems like just yesterday but it was really in the mid-1960s when my father’s union retirement pension was cut at the time I was graduating from high school. All of a sudden the money that Mom and Dad had planned for my college education was history - gone.
My dad was a very hard worker. His work ethic was outstanding. He had worked for his pension and he earned it. What a shock to find out that Dad and Mom ended up with limited means for his retirement years!
Not only did his cut in retirement benefits affect them, but my college years as well. Some 23 years after my high school graduation, I finally earned my college degree. Unfortunately, my parents never lived to see me graduate from college. According to projection charts, I would have earned, at a minimum, approximately $20,000 more each year if I had a college degree. In other words, $640,000 is the difference between what I could have earned with a college degree and what I earned without a college education.
When corporations start cutting benefits, they need to understand the present effect and the long-term effect of those cuts on the workers and their families. In reality, the compensation belongs to the workers for working all those years. Retirement benefits are calculated on time worked. They are not gifts or handouts. These retirement benefits are not the property of the corporations, and should not be treated as such.
Carolyn Martinez Golojuch,
MSW
Makakilo
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