LETTERS for December 17 issue
LOOKING FOR A FRIEND
I am hoping that someone in the Lahaina area may be able to help me.
I work out of an office at Lahaina Center. Over the past five or six months, I’ve made friends with an older Filipino man with a little dog named Ben or sometimes Bennie.
They usually come by on Saturdays, and I collect cans for him to pick up and recycle. I don’t know his name, but he is probably around 80.
I haven’t seen them for about a month now, and I’m hoping that he’s okay and just taking a break.
But if anyone can help me out with any information, I would really appreciate it. I miss seeing him and Bennie on the weekends. My number is 250-8640. Mele Kalikimaka.
DOUG KARR, Napili
A TEACHER’S POINT OF VIEW
When the furloughs started to happen, we as teachers were encouraged to write to our state representatives and the papers and express our feelings. I have waited this long just wondering how all of this was really going to affect our students and us as teachers. You may be tired of hearing it if you are not a parent, but since so many of us are, I thought it was time for me to give my two cents… whatever it may be worth.
As one of 13,000 teachers in our state, I know this is the information I got: On the table were 36 days of furloughs. I never was sure if this meant we were to just lose those days in pay. I am not sure teachers really knew what our options were at that time, but then our union stepped in and wanted to negotiate the terms. Most of us just sat back and waited. The union negotiated, and they came up with 17 days of furloughs and an 8 percent cut in teachers’ pay. We would not work — we would lose our pay, which amounted for many teachers to about $400 per month in gross pay. We wouldn’t be working those 17 days, we would not get paid and our students would not attend school on those 17 days. So that’s what has happened.
Then a lot of stories were published, many of them very negative against teachers. It has been stated that it was the teachers who did not want to work. That is not the case at all.
Let’s say you are told by your employer that you will come to work — let’s say on Fridays — and the pay you would have received would not go to you, but to our state. You will work for free. However, because you are working for free, we will be able to balance our budget. That should make it worth it to you!
I ask you this: how many of you will go to work tomorrow and give your wages to the state? How many of you will do this for the next two years, and sign a contract to do so?
If all employees, no matter what business you are in, agree to do this, then let’s do it!! I’m thinking right now you are all saying, “Not in this lifetime!!” So why do so many people think the teachers and other state employees should?
As a teacher, I will tell you this… I want to be in my classroom five days a week. I cannot teach five days of curriculum in four days. We now have to look at what is most important for our students to learn. Well certainly not P.E., music or art… those subjects don’t have much to do with passing the state test, which seems to be so important in our state. Our state testing is another subject in itself!
I heard a parent say, “Teachers should just go to school and teach. That is their mission.” You are right. Teaching is a mission — we certainly don’t do it for the pay!
So I propose, if you have anything negative to say about teachers, please write to our state government and express that you, too, would like to give them your “Furlough Friday” pay. When you all get on board, I will be the first person to step into my classroom and teach without pay. I miss my students, and according to them, they miss me, too!!!
Our school motto: We’re all in this together…
KAREN TWITCHELL, Third Grade Teacher, King Kamehameha III Elementary School
GLOBAL WARMING PROPONENTS IGNORE DATA
It is amazing how few media stories exist about “Climategate,” the massive international scientific fraud.
E-mails between the perpetrators of the “global warming” fraud illustrate how far they will go to prevent publication of any scientific data that deviates from their climate agenda.
Anyone not completely agreeing with their agenda is labeled a “denier,” because they deviate from the U.N.’s IPCC fictitious scientific policy. In fact, there are over 30,000 deniers not agreeing with IPCC policy (see http://www.petitionproject.org/).
In the “Climategate” exposure story, many leading scientists were caught intimidating scientific journals to keep skeptics (deniers) from being published, which would result in possible questioning of data supposedly making the case for man-made global warming.
“Climategate” illustrates that some scientists and their political collaborators not only ignored basic scientific requirement for openness, but deliberately went to the opposite extreme. Time after time, opposing climate views were excluded from being heard at U.N. conferences and also in U.S. congressional hearings.
The “Climategate” e-mails illustrate that there is a blind ambition to further a cause among some of the world’s leading climate scientists, and at worst, criminal activity.
The reaction to “Climategate” by much of the mainstream media is proving to be revealing. They either completely ignore the reports on this climate scam or attempt to defend their biased reporting and the actions of the exposed climate scientists.
Something is not right within the global warming enthusiasts’ agenda.
DON GERBIG, Lahaina
STOP WHINING AND FOLLOW THE RULES
I cannot stand people who whine when they are in violation of zoning laws. The person who wrote the commentary about the walls in Launiupoko apparently does not understand the rules of society.
Zoning laws are made to protect our precious island from turning into Oahu and other large, disgusting cities. Those walls that have been there for ten years were in violation from the day they went up until the day they come down.
Launiupoko is considered ag land, which by itself is a pile of crap! I don’t see agriculture on these lots. I see people subdividing their lots, which was not supposed to happen. Being zoned ag, you homeowners get a smaller property tax than the rest of us landowners on Maui.
So stop your whining and be thankful you even own land here on Maui!
SU CAMPOS, Napili
NOISE A PART OF LIFE
Dear residents of Wahikuli — I sympathize with you. I truly do. Yet don’t forget where you live: Maui.
I had to find a job in Asia, since my own country couldn’t sustain me — embarrassing.
I live in Taiwan, and here, everything and everyone is just plain din, noisy and rudely loud.
You may trade with me. I come home and endure the noise, and you live where I have to endure.
Governor Lingle, you have done crap for our state! Pack your bags and go home!
DR. G. WOODMAN, Taiwan