DRUG TESTING

NO REAL HARM WHEN TEACHERS ARE ON DRUGS

Would someone please offer a coherent explanation as to why my tax dollars should go toward drug-testing teachers? How specifically does a teacher who smokes pot pose a danger to students?

Friday's editorial piece echoes the opinions expressed in the letters to the editor on the same day: that the safety of the children should remain the central focus of the DOE drug-testing debate. However, none of the writers offers any explanation as to how our children are in danger.

In her letter, Sheri Leaman wrote, "What would be the cost of ignoring this issue, with the result of causing real harm to even one child? You cannot put a price on that kind of devastation." What "real harm" is she referring to? What "kind of devastation?" Based on this line of reasoning, the only responsible course of action a parent should take upon hearing that their child's teacher smoked a joint would be to rush that child to the emergency room. I doubt any parent has done this.

Any teacher who poses an actual danger to a student should be fired immediately regardless of the content of their urine. Please use my tax money to buy books.

HOMELESSNESS

NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THOSE WHO NEED HELP

Many individuals see homeless people on the side of the road and think to themselves, "Why don't they just get a job and stop asking for free handouts?" That was my thinking until a few weeks ago when I was able to volunteer at a "Jobs for the Homeless" workshop organized by the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program at Chaminade University of Honolulu.

My first view of the participants was that they seemed like regular people, and I could not understand why they were homeless and did not have a job. Throughout the workshop, we did various activities to draw out the natural talents and skills of the participants, went through a mock interview session and then created resumes.

This was when I began to hear why the participants were in their current state. Some of the individuals who attended the workshop just had one significant situation, such as a sudden loss of a job or an abusive relationship that they were fleeing, that put them in that predicament.

By the end of the day, the workshop helped me put names and faces to the homeless epidemic we are currently facing and it gave me a new respect for homeless individuals. It was great to see them taking the initiative to help themselves, and they now had a better shot at getting a job. Most important of all, I had learned for myself, as someone once said, that the homeless do not always want a handout; they just want a hand up.

IRAQ

PROBLEMS, OUTCOME BEYOND U.S. CONTROL

Have you noticed that not a single Iraqi served on the so-called "Iraq Study Group" that is recommending to the president a solution for the disaster in that poor country?

Does the U.S. government really think it controls the outcome of the mess it created? It destroyed the Iraqi government, economy and infrastructure and the little puppet regime it created cannot even control Baghdad, let alone the militias that really rule in Iraq today.

Iraq never had any weapons of mass destruction or ties to al-Qaeda before the U.S. invaded, and even now, 90 percent of the so-called "insurgents" are Iraqis, not foreign fighters. It's very possible that Iraq will become another Iran, or else break up into several parts, or both.

Our troops should not be asked to continue risking their lives invading other people's private homes looking for enemies (and thus making more of them). It's a situation that the U.S. never did control, and its outcome will be decided by others, not Americans.

MARATHON

COMMUNITY CAN DO WITHOUT EXTRA NOISE

It was an unpleasant wake-up call Sunday morning at 5 a.m. with 21 canons blowing into the air and striking a silent morning. Do we really need the military forces to start a marathon? Are we a militarized state?

Mayor Mufi Hannemann could simply wave a checkered flag from a platform.

Every year we are getting the same abuse. There is enough noise pollution with unnecessary paramedic and police sirens, modified mufflers and barking dogs; we really don't need more violations of the city code. Perhaps the City Council already knows that police officers don't consider noise pollution a violation worth spending time on anyway.

NIU VALLEY

NEW SCHOOL WOULD BRING TRAFFIC, NOISE

It is unfortunate that the truth did not come out at the public hearing on the Waldorf School's plans to build a high school at its Niu Valley campus ("School's plans to expand draw ire," Dec. 9).

Waldorf started out as a small school in Niu Valley. Its first building was completed in 1962 and it began with about 30 students in two grades. The Niu Valley campus now has 254 students from pre-school to eighth grade. It is big business and no longer a small neighborhood school. Fewer than 10 students live in the valley; the others come from other parts of the island.

The school's application to the city has a number of distortions. For example, it includes the statement: "The existing and proposed buildings are residential in character." It takes a lot of chutzpah to characterize the existing office, classrooms, auditorium and the proposed two-story high school as "residential in character." Are other statements made by the school reliable?

At the hearing, the school said it had tried to find land elsewhere but was not successful. Is that really true?

Perhaps the school wants to move the high school because the Niu Valley land is donated and the school does not pay any lease rent. The high school is on leased land in Kahala, and the school wants to avoid paying any rent there. The move would be at the expense of its Niu Valley neighbors, who will experience more traffic, more on-street parking, more noise and other disturbances.

RULING

KAMEHAMEHA DECISION SENDS WRONG MESSAGE

With the recent ruling regarding Kamehameha Schools, I have to wonder: What's next? With Kamehameha's "preference" for Hawaiian children, I wonder how popular a Samoan-only school would be? How about a Tongan-only school? Maybe we could have an Anglo-only school. Oh, wait, that's right. Those are considered racist and illegal. So I guess the message is that unless your skin is white, you have the right to be prejudiced and have schools that accept only "your kind."

RAIL

SYSTEM AN INVESTMENT IN THE ENVIRONMENT

While advocates of roads use fear-mongering, trying to convince us once again that alternatives are just bad, we the people of Hawai'i should wake up to their deceit.

As we evolve as a culture, it's time to stop, look at the gooey, oily mess that we've learned to accept as our means of transportation, realize that we're choking ourselves out of existence with noxious emissions, understand how we're polluting our precious water with petroleum and heavy metal detritus found flowing into the water after each rain and look at the amount of priceless land we sacrifice to roads and parking lots already.

The future of oil obviously has an end in sight as well. As we approach this end, prices for the mucky stuff are going to climb rapidly.

If we choose to invest in that future, we will be saddling ourselves with huge expenses not being discussed in the current dialogue.

Doesn't it just make plain sense to start planning for a future that reduces these problems now. Perhaps rail isn't a solitary answer, but it is part of a future of a cleaner, more beautiful Hawai'i that embraces smart alternatives.