Letters for Friday, February 26, 2021

(Dis)respect for kupuna

While Governor Ige and Mayor Kawakami deserve some credit for keeping the coronavirus case low, some of their authoritarian actions have caused hardships for kupuna who are unable to comply with the requirements for online registration for vaccinations or travel requirements.

I have never had or wanted a so-called smartphone, but acquired one at significant expense after I was held up at the Lihu‘e Airport returning from a medically-necessary trip to Straub even though I had paper copies of both vaccinations and a negative test.

I hope that our politicians, who are younger and probably have a IT staff to manage their “techie” needs, would please consider the needs of the senior citizens, who have great difficulty mastering the new, mandatory systems.

Harold Nelson (76), Kapa‘a

Bias in reporting

On Friday (Feb. 19), The Garden Island ran an opinion price from the Los Angeles Times on the proposed $15-an-hour, federal-wage proposal. Now, I am not commenting directly on that issue, per say. I believe that this is a regional issue, and there are so many economic factors involved that a broad-brush approach is difficult.

What I did find interesting was the way the proposal was presented in the article. While the writer did allude to the proposal leading “some businesses to pare their payrolls,” they were quick to cite the specifics of the recent CBO study on the matter, including that it would lift 900,000 people out of poverty, which is a good thing. But what was glaring was what they didn’t cite — 1.4 million job losses and $54 billion in economic losses that was included in the study! If the media (ALL media on every side) would stop injecting their own bias into their reporting, report all the facts and let US, the readers, make our own decision, we would all be better for the experience.

Journalism is dead! It has been replaced with op-eds full of half-truths that are cherry-picked to fit a specific side’s opinion. It is time the media came to grips with the fact that we are all intelligent adults able to form our own opinions without their help!

Barry Dittler, Wailua
Source: The Garden Island