Letters for Sunday, June 2, 2019

Hygiene center would serve homeless well

I would like to suggest that the county convert the old Department of Water building into a hygiene center for people who are homeless.

Hygiene centers offer bathrooms, hot showers, washing machines and outreach services to homeless individuals. People who use these centers may also be given toiletries, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, deodorant, razors, clothing, etc.

A hygiene center would offer a safe place for homeless individuals to access these services with dignity. All people should be treated with kindness and respect.

Eric Larsen, Lihue

Time to rethink education 

Education, which was once a pathway for the privileged, has evolved to become the highways for the masses. So that is why there are educational snarls and congestion in the system, as well as confusion and anxieties in the system, in spite of the noble intents and purposes of providing an extensive educational experience to a population demanding learning experiences that should be effective and efficient.

Might there be a need for major paradigm shifts in the teaching-learning compartmentalization of spoon-feeding memorization of facts and figures to focusing on the development of individual skills, interests, talents and abilities through a myriad of varied formats and approaches that would be interesting, intriguing, and stimulating for both teachers and students engaged in such pursuits?

Jose Bulatao Jr., retired teacher, Kekaha

Protesters likely use cell phones, too

I was amused when I read your article, “Group Protest 5G, doesn’t want it on Kauai” (TGI May 16). People protesting about the dangers of cell phones is history repeating itself.

In the late 1990s, or there about, Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital (SMMH) was approached by a telephone company on the prospects of placing a cell tower on the property. In exchange, the company would pay rent for the use of the property. Remember now in the late 1990s many people did not have cellphones.

When a public hearing was held the community was in an uproar. They complained that the cell tower was too close to Kapaa Elementary School and the radiation would affect their children. In short, the public outcry stopped the building of the cell tower on SMMH. This resulted in the loss of revenue as well as having areas of poor cell phone coverage.

Today, I would like to know how many of those protesters are now addicted to their cell phones and are unable to live without the phone. By now, their children of the 1990s are adults. How many of them have cell phones and are tethered to their cell phones as part of the essential life line?

Next, how many of their children’s children, who are probably of elementary school age, are dependent on cell phones as a form of entertainment and social media communication? Finally, how many of these cell phone users would be inconvenienced and upset because they have poor cell phone reception from dead spots that a cell tower is not covering?

We now live in the immediate-information age, and we are a society that demands improving technology. When 5G technology does reach us, I bet many of those protesters will embrace the technology after they see how much their cell phones’ performance has improved.

Placido D. Valenciano, Lihue