GENETIC MODIFICATION

CHANGING KALO ERODES HAWAIIANS' LIFELINE

My mother used to serenade me with songs about exotic places. Travelogues of oceans, forests and island sweethearts. This is how she passed on knowledge. Songs reflecting simpler times and storytellers of the past. Our people were more disconnected than ever. Being Hawaiian was not popular. So to sing her aloha was her moment of self determination.

Her spiritual integrity impressed upon me indigenous ways of knowing. "Leave that popolo berry! It wants to grow there."

If someone was to have told her she could no longer share limu among her classmates without a permit she would have sighed, "That's why we going die out." But she would respectfully accept it. She felt people saw her particular relationship with the 'aina as peculiar.

Replanting kalo is the living lifeline that holds the stories of our past. Changing the genetic makeup of kalo will erode that lifeline.

Hawaiians are now re-establishing their priorities in maoli culture. A moratorium on varieties of maoli kalo and introduced kalo as specified in SB 958 is needed for more reasons than just keeping steroid-like pumped up food off our tables.

It's needed so we can pass on to our keiki more than just "stones." We can pass on the story of Haloa.

OUTREACH

KAMEHAMEHA HAS HELPED OTHER STUDENTS

Thousands of students and educators in Hawai'i public schools have benefited from numerous initiatives funded by Kamehameha Schools. The school's implementation of its strategic plan is a prime example of how to prudently create, develop and maintain educational programs and services that are sustainable and effective.

Kamehameha Schools addresses a wide range of needs. Collaborative efforts like Na Lau Lama focus on improving outcomes for Native Hawaiian students in public schools statewide. Native Hawaiian communities and students benefit from quality educational services facilitated by its professional staff.

In addition, partnerships such as the Kahua program offer professional development opportunities that build teaching capacity in our communities and schools.

Students benefit from the guidance they receive from teachers and tutoring specialists in subjects ranging from reading and writing to math and science and culture.

On a broader scale, the Ho'olako Like Department assists start-up and conversion Hawaiian-focused charter schools with funding and curriculum aid. And, new century conversion schools in high-need areas can turn to the Ho'okako'o Corporation, a nonprofit organization that is supported by Kamehameha Schools, for services.

So, is Kamehameha Schools spending its money wisely? Yes, it is.

LETTER TO VATICAN

ABERCROMBIE TAKING POTSHOTS AT CHURCH

Neil Abercrombie's letter to the Vatican is misguided because the Catholic Church has not been silent on the issue of torture —unless we are talking about a different Catholic Church.

Is this the same Catholic Church whose pope confirmed that physical and mental torture is intrinsically evil ("The Splendor of Truth," Pope John Paul II, 1993) and whose catechism provides that prisoners must be respected and treated humanely?

Is this the same Catholic Church whose United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to the U.S. Senate in December 2007 in support of the very legislation mentioned in Mr. Abercrombie's letter and urged that Congress must be "unambiguous in rejecting torture and cruel treatment as dangerous, unreliable and illegal?"

It seems the problem is not so much the alleged silence of the church as the fact that people do not seem to be listening. Mr. Abercrombie's time is better spent on working to pass legislation banning torture than on taking uninformed potshots at the Catholic Church.

INFRASTRUCTURE

WHY CAN'T THINGS THAT ARE BROKEN GET FIXED?

I work Downtown and the once-beautiful waterfall on Fort Street Mall fronting King Street has not functioned for more than a year. Now it is just a big pile of rocks.

For the sake of Downtown taxpaying workers and tourists, it should be doing what it is supposed to — looking beautiful and "green."

Also, the lights that went off along the highway up to Mililani because of copper theft last year are still not on, and it is a very dark area at night. Is this ever going to get fixed, or do we who drive that way suffer darkness indefinitely?

These things are humbug. If what is currently broken can't get fixed (including road surfaces), how can our politicians be serious about taking on a huge transit project?

TRANSIT

RAIL NOISE WILL BE MOST OF THE DAY, EVERY DAY

The comments by transit project environmental engineer Lawrence Spurgeon (Letters, March 13) helped shed some light on the issue of noise that will come from a steel-wheel-on-rail vehicle.

But noise is more than a matter of decibels, as Mr. Spurgeon, Mayor Hannemann and other pro-rail supporters seem to think. There are many noises that can be intensely stressful without reaching the decibel levels set by the feds, city and state as severe or moderate.

Such noises might include arguments outside a neighborhood bar, various kinds of music (jazz, rap, opera, reggae, etc.), barking dogs or crowing roosters, the muffled pounding of a nearby hammer or the screamed bursts of a tile cutter, which get on the nerves of different people in different ways.

None of these kinds of noises might reach 67 decibels (one of the federal standards), and mostly we learn to live with these annoyances, providing they don't last too long.

But the rail transit system would run from 4 a.m. to midnight. So it seems that the mayor and other rail supporters would be asking all the thousands of people who live along the route from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center to put up with the screeching of steel-on-steel up to 400 times a day, 365 days a year.

Something to think about — if you can find a quiet place to do it.

CENTRAL COMMAND

ADM. FALLON'S RESIGNATION ACTUALLY WAS A YEAR TOO LATE

Your editorial and Island Voices column on the resignation of Adm. William Fallon were both wrong.

Knowing the administration position on Iraq and Iran before his confirmation, the admiral should not have accepted the Central Command if he could not support it.

His public statements after taking that position served to undermine the president's foreign policy. By telling foreign counterparts that the U.S. would not use military force, he may well have emboldened the Iranians in their pursuit of regional power and nuclear weapons.

His indirect opposition to the troop surge strategy in Iraq and pressure to accelerate troop withdrawal may also have weakened and reduced the president's options on Iraq in a similar way. Indeed, if the surge continues to succeed, we may be able to further reduce troops, but telegraphing that desire to al-Qaida in Iraq months in advance is not the smart way to get there.

So, Adm. Fallon's resignation may seem principled, but it was a year too late. The administration's strategy was clear at his confirmation. And to those who disagree, try imagining that Fallon had publicly advocated a much more aggressive policy toward Iran. I doubt that you would have applauded that particular free expression of dissent by a senior officer.

Civilian authority over the military and over the nation's foreign policy has to remain sacrosanct. As soon as we begin to demand and expect public dissent from senior military officers, we step onto a very slippery slope.

WAR IN IRAQ WILL BE KNOWN AS BUSH'S FOLLY

With the resignation of Adm. William J. Fallon last week, an all-too-familiar pattern took shape. America's brightest military minds dutifully report what the president doesn't want to hear, then are forced to resign.

Wasn't it five years ago that our commander in chief — who never actually suited up for combat duty himself — strutted on deck of an aircraft carrier in his well-pressed flight jumpsuit — which never actually tasted combat — declaring to the photographers with a snappy salute, "Mission accomplished!"

Wake up, George W., your inept micromanagement of our nation's war effort has cost us trillions of dollars — trillions of dollars that could have been put to constructive use — and thousands of lives that ended far too soon.

Your bungling choices as commander in chief have resulted in the resignation of many of our nation's brightest military minds, and your oafish handling of the Iraq war should enter the history books as George W's Folly.