Letter to the Editor – 9/11/13
Foolish spending
I read with interest the article proclaiming $150,000 of Hawaii state taxpayers’ money was appropriated for fashion and trade shows while police officers are underpaid, there are state furloughs, our roads are in disrepair, and public school teachers pay for their own supplies.
Hawaii already has a program in place called Hawaii Fashion Week, which has been promoting local clothing designers for four years – all done without taxpayers’ money and during the same time that the rest of the world celebrates fashion weeks. From Sao Paulo to New York City to Milan, Hawaii Fashion Week has been supporting and spreading aloha at the same time in a worldwide initiative. They never asked the state to fund it, and yet have the full support of local designers from island to island.
For four years, Hawaii Fashion Week has been producing well-attended fashion shows and events where locals can sell their designs. Showcasers have seen increased awareness of their brands, allowing their companies to expand sales to the Mainland. Last year a beautiful show in Waikiki at the Royal Grove drew a huge crowd and received rave reviews from the press.
For the cost of a fancy one-page ad in a magazine, three sewing machines could have been purchased and given to a team in Waipahu who are sewing on their lanai and making deliveries by car. How exactly is this allocated money being used to help struggling local designers? We should all demand full transparency.
Keola Akame
Honolulu
Angelic encounter
Regarding the letters about ghosts from MidWeek readers in Don Chapman’s column: This story doesn’t deal with ghosts, but it does involve the spirit realm.
In 2001, our granddaughter was about 3 years old when she drowned for a few seconds at a pool party in Ewa Beach. I was miles away in Kapahulu when I had a strange feeling and an urge to call our son. Telling me to hold on, he threw his cellphone on the poolside.
As he lifted his daughter, I witnessed her speaking in tongues – the dictionary defines it as “incomprehensible speech typically uttered during religious ecstasy.” Her voice was high pitched and rattling on without pausing. Breathing deeply, she turned to her father: “The Lord fell upon me.”
A young child speaking in a biblical fashion? She later described to me how three very white, pretty angels were flapping their wings around her, that the voice of Jesus said not to jump again, and that He would later give her a pair of goggles! She eventually learned to swim at the Mililani YMCA and is currently a student at Kamehameha Schools.
Gloria Virgeniza Valera
Waipio Gentry
