Letters To The Editor

Required reading

Such interesting columns in the March 14 MidWeek! Mahalo to Susan Page (“A Real Women’s Health Issue”) and Michelle Malkin (“The War On Conservative Women”) for telling it like it is. Those columns should be required reading in every high school.

Kalina Chang
Kahalu’u

Truth of FGM

I worked in Africa about five years ago. The horror of female genital mutilation, as detailed by Susan Page, is even worse than she wrote. Most girls cannot control their bladder either, so they smell. Nobody wants the women and girls around because of the smell, so many live in the area of garbage dumps etc. There is a U.S. woman doctor who has an African clinic that does as much repair as possible and also helps with women starting businesses so they don’t have to beg.

Kathleen M. Campbell
Waialua

Whose doctrine?

Regarding Susan Page’s column inspired by law student Sandra Fluke and subsequent vile comments by Rush Limbaugh: Ms. Fluke was speaking about private insurance companies disallowing the birth control pill as part of health care insurance provided by her school, not free taxpayer-provided contraception. Big difference. If Catholic/Jesuit Georgetown University can deny Ms. Fluke contraception, can the Mormon Church dictate the care an employee receives by virtue of Mormon doctrine? Or what about Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Religious doctrine should never allow a person to be prevented from making their own decision. That is God’s greatest gift to us, free will, the freedom to have the right to choose. You cannot pick and choose what rights women should have and should not have.

Elaine Nishime
Honolulu

It was courageous

I’m sure Susan Page and MidWeek will both be criticized for her column, but thank you to her and to MidWeek for having the courage to publish such an article.

Debra Lee
Kailua

It’s about control

The pictures of Sandra Fluke and Rush Limbaugh drew me to Susan Page’s column. When Ms. Page mentioned her young granddaughters, I thought she might defend Ms. Fluke for speaking out on something which may become significant to her granddaughters some day. Instead, she seemed to use the subject of female genital mutilation, which is not a problem in our country, to disparage Ms. Fluke’s legitimate concerns, not about free contraceptives for sexually promiscuous “sluts,” as Limbaugh called her, but about access to contraception through insurance programs for adult female students intent on controlling their own lives, health and career choices, including women like Ms. Fluke’s friend, who needs oral contraceptives for another reason besides contraception.

For women and girls who cannot control their own reproductive functions and health, the meaning of the word “freedom” becomes very hollow, especially when it is used so carelessly by the same people who seem intent on restricting the basic human rights of more than half the population!

Lita Mikami
Waialua

Rail to nowhere

Having a tax base of $800K to support $5.3 billion rail is like selling a Ferrari to a hamburger flip-per. Ignore our failing infrastructure (sewer, water, electric, roads and public facilities), the high taxes, the high cost of living and the serious fiscal deficits.

Also ignore the high maintenance and operational costs, surely to exceed the estimates, the cost overruns to build the system, the barrels of oil needed to run the system and the taking away of prime agricultural land for obtrusive steel structures.

Rail will not reduce traffic congestion. Our population density is unlike New York City or Tokyo, so the anticipated ridership is a myth. Besides, the project’s original goal was to serve the Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii, which it obviously will not. Instead, we have a rail to nowhere but bankruptcy – or escalating taxes and fees, or both.

Instead, let’s add dedicated lanes and/or expand TheBus, a nationally recognized award-winning system, which rail would, in fact, steal funds from.

Frank Koide
Mililani

Another Dobelle?

Why do we need a rail board? It seems like another waste of Hawaii taxpayer money to pay such a huge salary ($245,000-plus) for Daniel Grabauskas to be CEO of the new Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. What will his actual job duties be for him to receive a salary more than twice as high as our governor?

This reminds me of another extremely well-paid state employee, former University of Hawaii president Evan Dobelle. Like Mr. Grabauskas, Mr. Dobelle came from the Northeast with strong ties to a political party. This seems like the beginning of a long road of higher taxes and fees for the people of Hawaii and the eventual bankruptcy of our beautiful state.

Colin Kau
Honolulu

Model pride

We are so proud of local model Michelle Vawer being in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. When one of our models introduced her to us at age 17, we knew she would be a star.

We are also very proud to have started Maggie Q, Kelly Preston, Kelly Hu, Tia Carrere and so many others on their road to success. With hard work, talent and determination, dreams do come true!

Sharon Cavin International Manager
Kathy Muller Agency

Send your letters to dchapman@midweek.com.