PROPOSED POLICY A SAD REFLECTION

The Hawai'i state Board of Education is considering changes to Chapter 19 that will drastically impact students' rights to privacy and free expression, bring in drug-sniffing dogs and permit random locker and personal searches of students, without the requirement of reasonable suspicion.

There are many bad outcomes that can be expected from indoctrinating our youth to accept personal space violation from figures of authority. We are setting policy that asks students to surrender their dignity on demand.

School should be a safe place where a standard of self-respect and respect for others is role-modeled. Unreasonable searches of students' bodies and property undermines our country's core civic values.

Asking a student to allow this type of personal violation leaves them vulnerable to sexual abuse and other transgressions. All of our institutions have weak links through the individuals that take advantage of their positional power. This proposed change is ripe with opportunity to shame and humiliate or sexually violate students that are on the wrong end of a power struggle or personal dynamic. It is foolish policy to open the door to this type of problem.

Felicia Cowden | Kilauea, Kaua'i

HEALTHCARE

U.S. SHOULD ADOPT SINGLE PAYER POLICY

Is there anything more important than health? Especially now, with people jetting from one country to another, in a few days a virus can infect almost anyone, no matter where they live.

We would be a lot safer if everyone in the U.S. had good, affordable healthcare. About 50 million don't; they are denied this basic human right. Millions more are underinsured. I want every person in the U.S., especially the person next to me in the market, movie, church, plane or beach, to get the healthcare they need, when they need it. It just makes sense.

Especially now, when so many in Hawai'i and around the country are struggling to survive financially, let us join together so that our current financial troubles aren't dwarfed by a future pandemic, made inevitable due to the lack of affordable healthcare in the U.S.

There are many struggles going on in our country right now. One of the most important is the fight for a single payer healthcare system. Everybody in, nobody out.

Denise Snyder | Honolulu

PROSTATE CANCER

ENCOURAGE LOVED ONES TO BE SCREENED

Men are known to take better care of their cars than they do of their own body. The Hawaii Prostate Cancer Coalition, a nonprofit organization, encourages the loved ones of Hawai'i fathers to give their man the gift of health for Father's Day. Schedule an appointment for him to have a physical exam during June. As part of his examination, each man should discuss with his physician early detection tests, PSA and DRE, for prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in men. Many men diagnosed with prostate cancer have a low aggressive form of the disease that will not be the cause of their death. Treatment options now include careful surveillance of their prostate cancer with lifestyle and dietary enhancements to help control cancer progression, as well as surgery, radiation, and other therapies. 

Others are diagnosed with the form of prostate cancer that is a killer of men. These aggressive prostate cancers do not cause any signs or symptoms; early detection testing is the only way to discover this form of prostate cancer while it can still be cured. During this year, 130 men in Hawai'i will die from prostate cancer.

Call the Hawaii Prostate Cancer Coalition's free hot line, 487-3296, or 877-626-4722 to speak with a caring, experienced, knowledgeable prostate cancer survivor.

David B. Derris, D.D.S. | Director, Hawaii Prostate Cancer Coalition

NATATORIUM

SUCH VENUES KEY FOR PRESERVING HISTORY

Whenever I spend time with my grandfather as I recently have, I get energized that we need to remind people and especially our youth of what he and others of his generation have done for our country. He fought in three wars, was a sergeant major in the Marine Corps (stationed at Kane'ohe) and has the strength, positive attitude and honor that are traits that built our country.

Places like the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial serve as a way to hold onto history by honoring our commitments to remember those who serve and those who've fallen. We dishonor those like him and forget their efforts and sacrifices if we can't keep some history for people to see and share. Future generations would be well served to not take for granted the freedoms that were hard fought by generations before them.

The Natatorium is one such venue to preserve history. Please get involved in preserving it.

Brian Thomas | Makawao, Maui