Urge Sen. Hirono to support the ENACT Act

My mother was born in Paia some 97 years ago. As many young families, she, her siblings and immigrant parents established a life of hard work and gratitude. Little did the family know that only 19 years prior to mom’s birth, Alzheimer’s disease was discovered.

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most terrifying diseases imaginable. Presently in Hawaii, nearly 29,000 people aged 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease. As a caregiver, I understand firsthand the impact this disease has on families across America. We strive to provide the highest quality of care, addressing physical and emotional needs, along with “living in the moment” with a loved one. I am an advocate and volunteer with the Alzheimer’s Association Hawaii Chapter.

On May 16, I attended the Alzheimer’s Impact Movement (AIM) Advocacy Forum with my fellow Alzheimer’s advocates. During the forum, I met with Sen, Mazie Hirono’s office to explain why Congress must continue to prioritize legislative action against Alzheimer’s disease.

Specifically, I urged Senator Hirono to support the bipartisan Equity in Neuroscience and Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials (ENACT) Act (S. 1548/HR. 3085) to increase the participation of underrepresented populations in Alzheimer’s and other dementia clinical trials.

Congress must ensure equitable representation across the various ethnic minorities in our country, including Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders alike. Please join me and the Alzheimer’s Association in encouraging Senator Hirono to invest in policies that address the national public-health crisis of Alzheimer’s disease.

CALVIN HARA, Lahaina

The Declaration is impressive

Possibly it is thought when reading our Declaration of Independence that it is lengthy. After reading several segments of our country’s notice to England’s king, it can impress readers with intelligent creation.

This portion picks up where it concluded in the last presentation.

“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

BONNIE DeROSE, Lahaina

Four civic skills we need to keep our democracy

As primaries roll out around the country, we’re tracking voter turnout. Raised on Schoolhouse Rock’s cartoon civics lessons, I know that being a good American means voting.

Those 1970s cartoons weren’t wrong. Voting is the most fundamental act of democratic citizenship. That’s why it has been fiercely contested throughout our history.

But now we’re in the 21st century, deluged by information, increasingly divided, with few models of bipartisanship.

Democracy now requires much more than voting. What should a 21st century Schoolhouse Rocks teach?

Finding information — Most fundamentally, we need to be skilled seekers of information. In this era of deepfakes, bots and fragmenting media platforms, the ability to access and evaluate information is key. Algorithms push us ever more deeply into one point of view. To address multifaceted 21st century issues, we need deliberately to seek a variety of information, including backstories about controversial events, from differing sources to construct the whole picture.

Understanding our own biases — We must process information skillfully, getting around our inherent neurobiological biases. For example, we naturally lap up information that confirms what we already think but ignore information that challenges our world view. We also are wired for double standards: we attribute another person’s bad behavior to their personality (“she’s late because she’s disrespectful”) while giving ourselves a pass for the same behavior (“I’m late because traffic was bad”). Understanding these natural biases lets us challenge ourselves to explore issues more fully.

Having conversations (not arguments) across divides — Understanding biases promotes a third democratic skill: truly talking with one another. Research, including my own, shows that liberals and conservatives alike often experience cross-divide conversations as an assault on their values. Yet most people also believe these conversations are important and would like to have them to feel connected and informed.

Having complicated relationships — Perhaps the most important, and most difficult, 21st century citizenship skill is maintaining relationships with people who think differently. For a democracy to function, we need not only a robust marketplace of ideas, but also the ability to work together for policy that meets widespread needs. It’s challenging to hold conflicting feelings about people, appreciating their good qualities while disagreeing on politics. But perhaps we make it harder than it is.

Research shows we overestimate both how much the other party dislikes us as well as how much they disagree with us about policy. Asking genuinely curious questions and remembering what we appreciate just might help us find that we have more in common than we think. Our 21st century democracy needs us to develop these skills.

MELINDA BURRELL, PeaceVoice