MOTHER'S DAY

A GIFT OF PEACE OF MIND FROM AN INMATE SON

My mother's love has always been pure and without condition. She has spent a lifetime of of unselfish concern, and her forgiveness has never been an issue.

Throughout my formative years, my mother always kept a watchful eye and an open ear on guard for any harm that might befall my siblings and me.

Whether it be a chill from a cold damp breeze, a stray barking dog or a stranger in the neighborhood, my mother always kept us safe.

Sadly, the only harm that my mother could not protect me from has been the harm that has befallen me of my own design.

On this Mother's Day, I can give my mother a very special gift. I can give her the peace of mind knowing that I am safe from myself behind bars.

I often pray to make my mother as proud of me as I am of her. To do this, I must remain clean and sober. With this accomplished, every day for me and for her will be a very special Mother's Day.

AMBULANCES

NOISE, SAFETY WOES CAN BE FIXED WITH A STATION

Five to 10 times daily, ambulances responding to calls in Waikiki wake us at all hours of the night and all throughout the day. Any peace we might enjoy is shattered. Tens of thousands of residents live adjacent to Kalakaua Avenue and surrounding neighborhoods who must endure this invasion into our limited peaceful existence.

Ambulances begin from Young Street, a good mile or more from their destination. During rush hours they are caught in the same traffic as the rest of us, which delays their arrival by precious minutes while their sirens are blaring even when at a full stop in unmoving traffic. These sirens can be so loud, people's hearing over time can be affected; psychological damage can cause uncontrollable rage which could lead to much worse. A majority are going to the same place: Waikiki.

Why isn't there an ambulance stationed in and dispatched from Waikiki? It would seem all that would be needed is a parking space.

Think of the person having a heart attack, nearly drowned or in a serious accident lying on the ground for interminable minutes. Should a death or long- term injury result from these known delays, lawyers might make the connection and the city might find itself in court trying to defend its indefensible decision to station ambulances miles away from nearly every call's destination.

Put an ambulance in Waikiki; it can reach its needed location in seconds instead of minutes and eliminate these rackets.

DALAI LAMA

THIS LEADER PREACHES PEACE, NOT RELIGION

What Ed Enos in his May 10 letter to the editor fails to recognize is that the Dalai Lama is the leader of Chinese Communist-occupied Tibet and its in-exile population. The Dalai Lama's "spiritual word" is completely void of any reference to God. Buddhism is a non-deist philosophy and not a religion per se.

There is no recognition of a supreme being; no worshiping of God at all, unless one considers living one's life in a compassionate manner, recognizing a shared oneness with all humans, and respecting all sentient beings, a form of worship.

School children were bused to hear a man speak of practicing compassion on an individual level as a path to world peace. They were not asked to pray or worship, nor were they told to believe in a savior so they could attain eternal reward. God was not mentioned during His Holiness' teaching.

Perhaps our world would be quite different if we applied more effort to correct the inequities ourselves instead of spending time on our knees asking someone to do it for us.

DRUG TESTING

BE INFORMED BEFORE CLAIMING VIOLATION

I read with amazement at how many people are ignorant about the process of random drug testing. Some people write about how showing their private parts is an intrusion of their privacy.

People, get over it. Random drug testing is not the same as military drug testing. I was a drug-testing coordinator, and the process doesn't have anything to do with looking at your parts. People are asked to provide a sample, and they can close the toilet room door while providing the sample.

The only requirement is that the sample meet the body temperature in the bottle.

Please, those people out there that think that they have to be observed are naive. People need to do research before they start complaining about privacy.

MEDIA CREATED 'MORAL PANIC' OVER THE ISSUE

In 1972, Stanley Cohen described a moral panic as "a condition, episode, person or groups of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; sometimes the panics passes over and is forgotten; at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such changes as those in legal and social policy."

Does this sound at all familiar to how The Advertiser and other local media helped produce the latest moral panic? Was drug testing on the radar screen before your headlines and lead story(s)? Your attempt to "get past rhetoric of drug-test program" in a recent editorial speaks volumes to the multiple roles of the media in moving public school teachers to having to vote for drug testing.

You say: "So the time for posturing has passed, giving way to the need for thoughtful design to begin" and "it's up to the HSTA leadership to get past that."

I can't help but question your (the media in its many forms) complicit relationship in all of this. When I read or heard about one of the drug busts one afternoon on the radio, I knew the next morning that a 4- to 6-inch headline would rule the morning Advertiser.

My prediction was spot on, and I used that headline to talk to teachers that I work with about how the media creates moral panic to sell papers — for as the saying goes, "If it bleeds, it leads."

LEGISLATURE

BOTCHED BILL A SIGN OF INCOMPETENT OFFICIALS

Isn't it about time that we start electing legislators who have a command of the English language? This latest fiasco (with the copper bill) is just one example, in the past few years, where the Legislature has botched legislation, making laws unenforceable. The residents of Hawai'i should be embarrassed to be represented by such incompetent representatives to our state government.

ACT 221

EVERYONE BENEFITS FROM LOCAL INVESTMENTS

In response to the question posed in Sunday's Advertiser — ("Who benefited from Act 221") — Everyone in the state!

As an attorney who has represented many Act 221 clients, I have seen companies come here because of Act 221, and others started by locals because they had Act 221 investments. One of my clients, a large movie production company, has done four Act 221 deals and raised $18 million. As a result it will spend more than $40 million making films in Hawai'i.

Everyone in the state benefits from the economic activity of these companies. Those who criticize the law see it as a loss of tax revenues because they don't understand the basic economic principle of the "multiplier effect."

When an employee of one of these companies gets paid, he or she buys from stores and goes out to eat, and when the stores and restaurants have more business they hire more employees. And these effects reverberate throughout the economy, culminating in greater tax revenues.

It is time we did what other states have done to expand their economies: Give tax credits and do so without enormous public criticism of the taxpayers making use of them.