MANY HELPED

HOMELESS PROJECT WAS WELL-RECEIVED

The students from room 21/22 at Pearl City Highlands Elementary School would like to thank the Pacific Beach Hotel, Ala Moana Hotel, Pagoda Hotel, WEBCO and our retired computer teacher, Ms. Hikichi, for donating toiletries to help us with our class project. They donated soap, shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, toothbrushes, face towels and other toiletries. We will give all these items to the homeless.

Our class project was to help the homeless. This was a part of our civic responsibility. We had to write letters to different companies. We addressed envelopes to different companies and hotels. Mr. Leroy Ching, our principal, helped pick up the items for us. We sorted different items into bags. Our teacher took them to the homeless shelter.

Thank you again for helping us with our class project. Thank you, Mr. Ching, for letting us do this project and for picking up the items from different hotels.

ASIA TURMOIL

COMMENTARY ON JAPAN MISSED KEY POINTS

Regarding Ralph Cossa's Oct. 16 commentary "Yasukuni Shrine flash point for Asian relations": This article (which also appeared in the Japan Times) is enlightening only in that it demonstrates Cossa's strange combination of hubris, bias and naiveté.

Only a day after this article appeared, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid homage to the Japanese war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine, which includes 14 Class A war criminals. Not only did he not heed Cossa's wildly unrealistic advice, but he almost literally thumbed his nose at what Cossa condescendingly calls the "sensibilities of many in Korea, China and Japan."

As a predictable result, Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors are even further strained. China and South Korea have canceled diplomatic meetings with Japanese officials, including those preparatory to summit meetings between Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao and with South Korean President Roo Moo-hyun.

This comes on top of an increasingly dangerous standoff between Japan and China over potential gas in the East China Sea. And it may have contributed to the postponement of the next meeting of the six-party negotiations on North Korea's nuclear programs — so critical to peace in the region.

So much for what Cossa calls Japan's "record of promoting peace and prosperity in word and deed."

The fact is that Koizumi's unconstitutional Yasukuni visits in the face of vehement Asian protests are only the tip of an iceberg of resurgent Japanese nationalism, militarism and estrangement from the Asian mainland. This trend is encouraged by the United States, which prefers Japan to become more dependent on it and the "alliance" rather than to drift toward a more neutral or, heaven forbid, pro-China position.

MICHELLE WIE

EYE CAN PLAY TRICKS WHEN PLAYING GOLF, TOO

Three cheers for George Nakamura's Oct. 20 letter to the editor that aptly describes the problem with the diagram explaining Michelle Wie's DQ.

It's easy to draw two perpendicular lines on paper, but not so easy on a three-dimensional terrain with the original ball lying in a bush. The line is not painted, remember, it's imaginary. Of course it's always better to go farther back than risk going closer, but that would put Michelle in the bushes again.

Now that Michelle and other players will be calling officials more than not, the officials too will need to crank up their game — increase their numbers and carry long tapes, protractors, compasses and GPS. I say this somewhat sarcastically, of course.

The eye plays tricks, too. Take your index finger and middle finger, as in displaying the V sign, then turn your hand, and line both fingers up with an object such as a tree. Now close one eye, then the other. Stereo vision has its limitations. We all have a dominant eye.

Now with your hand and fingers still up, move your head behind your hand from left to right and watch your middle finger move to the left and right of your index finger. It's all about perspective. Now you know why on television the golf ball always seems to come out from impact to the right. It's because the camera is behind and to the player's right.

CAR TIRES

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FREE AIR SERVICE?

During a recent trip to some gas stations, we were stunned to find out that many service stations have disabled their free air service for automobile tires. What is this world coming to?

First we deal with the high cost of gas; now we must drive outside of Wahiawa to pay to inflate our tires. Isn't this the meaning of inflation? How cheap can those whom we patronize get?

Almost everyone owns a cell phone; next, everyone will need an air compressor in their car trunks.

GOLF COURSE USE

SHAME ON WATER PANEL

How shameful that the Commission on Water Resource Management has allocated potable water (i.e. drinking water) to irrigate a golf course in Waiawa. Water is our most precious resource, and it is indeed heartbreaking to see the state waste it on yet another golf course. All residents should be outraged that this precious resource has again been taken from the people for private uses. Auwe!

SPORTS

EXTENDING TITLE IX TO HIGH SCHOOLS WRONG

While there is great interest in the Akaka bill, which would affect everyone in Hawai'i, currently there is a bill proposed in the Congress that would have a greater effect. It's a measure to extend Title IX to high school-level sports.

Under the bill, high schools would be forced to cut sport positions for boys and limit the number of boys in sports to the number of girls willing to participate; thus, high schools with football teams would have to eliminate their boys' baseball, wrestling and soccer teams, which would be offered to girls only.

The blind enforcement of Title IX assumes that all boys and girls are the same, and while similar special-interest groups are using data showing that girls are less interested in competitive sports than boys (as a means to get more funding for girl-only exercise classes in high schools), this bill would eliminate sport positions for boys in the hundreds of thousands.

I urge everyone who cares for children and recognizes that boys and girls are different to tell their congressmen that boys shouldn't be restricted from playing high school sports just because girls don't share in the exact same interests.

CITY NOTABLES

HARRIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUT ON 100 LIST

What? Former Mayor Jeremy Harris is not on the list of 100 notable Honoluluans? Oh, I see, Mayor Hannemann is overseeing the anniversary celebration.

Isn't it time to put aside political vendetta and move on? Not having Mayor Harris on the list makes it a joke. It's a list of deceased notables and living notables who either haven't angered the administration or can't affect the current administration politically.

A truly big man would have made sure the commission included Mayor Harris. I'm very disappointed.

KAMEHAMEHA

EXPLANATION ISN'T NEEDED IN RULING ON DISCRIMINATION

This is in answer to the Kamehameha Schools graduate (Letters, Oct. 25) who wanted the judges in the recent Doe v. Kamehameha Schools to explain their decision to deny programs and opportunities that rely on race as the deciding factor for qualification.

Obviously, the writer is too young to remember what this country went through; the sacrifices made and lives lost when we as a people decided we no longer thought it was right to determine one's opportunity, social status or economic capacity based on the color of one's skin, ethnicity or any other quality that made them "different."

We as a country decided we wanted everyone to have equal opportunities based solely on their own abilities. At the same time, we felt it was only fair to distribute the limited resources any country has to better its people based only on need, both financial and special, as well as ability. There would no longer be closed doors, separate bathrooms or privileged classes.

I lived through these times and worked for these changes because I believed people were all created equal and should be treated that way. I was there for the assassinations of our political leaders of all ethnic groups as well as the suffering and even death of people just like me who did nothing other than fight for the rights of all people of the United States to equality.

It was a long, hard and very necessary fight and it is still going on.

I find it very sad that Kamehameha Schools is not teaching this part of our history in their classrooms because if it were, the writer would not have to ask for an explanation of the judges' ruling. I also find it disheartening to find so many people left who believe they are entitled to special privileges based only on the fact that they are of a "special" race.

Whether you are black, white, Native Hawaiian, Hispanic, Japanese, Filipino, or any other race, ethnic group or belief, discrimination is wrong!

NORTHWESTERN ISLANDS

LET'S LEARN HOW TO MANAGE FISHERY

Regarding the Oct. 25 article on the proposed bottom-fishing ban in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands: Another alternative to either the status quo or complete closure would be to increase or improve the existing partial closure in the reserve created by President Clinton's executive order back in 1998.

Since no recreational fishing is taking place up there and the commercial fishing is by permit only, there is an opportunity to learn how to manage this fishery, as well as other fisheries like it throughout the Pacific.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have banks and islets of various sizes, a fact that could be taken advantage of to figure out how many fish can be removed from different types of areas without having a negative effect on the population.

It could also be used to figure out how large no-take areas should be, not only to sustain the population of a species on a particular sized bank, but also to enhance the area of the bank open to fishing. For this to work, fishermen would have to agree to certain conditions in return for the privilege of getting a permit to fish in the reserve, such as being willing to fish only in specific locations and to quit fishing an area if its determined that too many fish are being taken.

That information is of course dependent on creating a better catch reporting system, one that is less geared to protecting "secret sites" and more to providing specific and accurate information for monitoring exactly what is going on.

If a true partnership could be nurtured, I also think fishermen would be willing to join in the stewardship of the reserve via reporting illegal entry and activities by foreign vessels and assisting in research efforts.

A number of these guys have already been a tremendous help over the last few years by providing blood and tissue samples for DNA analysis. While the potential transfer of genetic material from the northwestern to the main island regions of the archipelago is being used to support the proposed ban, there are no existing data for the vast majority of marine species here to support that contention.

This is an ongoing and active area of research that needs a lot more work. The fishermen, if allowed to continue some type of limited fishing in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, could continue to assist in this effort.