To Cox and Akaka
To Cox and Akaka
Larry Cox (Tribune-Herald, Your Views): If the county had not issued an impending storm warning, and Ignacio decided to veer smack into your house and property and devastated everything you owned, would you still be singing the same song, “Ignacio, where art thou?”
Moanike‘ala Akaka: True, the Hawaiians have been here in Hawaii for the past 1,000 years, and the haoles have been here for only about the past 200 years. They came, they saw, they conquered. They seized a lot of land, traditions and culture, but don’t you believe they also gave back a lot, in the form of a new culture, a better-organized society, a higher standard of living?
If the haoles hadn’t come to Hawaii at all, what would Hawaii be like today, and where might we all be — the Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Portuguese, et al?!
T. Ono
Hilo
RIP, kitchen table
Farewell, family kitchen table. When Congress reconvenes, it will consider the re-authorization of the Child Nutrition and WIC Act, which includes the Summer Food Services Program.
More than 3.2 million children were provided a free breakfast and lunch during the summer of 2013. Another 21 million children ate a subsidized breakfast and lunch during school year 2014-15.
Beware! These programs are producing consequences for generations of children who, year-round, eat — from a tray — the majority of their meals — off a plastic tray — that were provided for them at a school or institution.
Millions of children grow up believing their meals will be prepared away from home in a commercial kitchen, and then served to them in a cafeteria or feeding center.
These kids are not benefiting from seeing their mother or father in the family kitchen preparing meals, which they could eat together around the kitchen table, where family cohesion is formed and where important values and beliefs are taught and reinforced.
America’s feeding centers are replacing the once-traditional family kitchen table. Cafeteria servers have become America’s new moms and dads.
Regrettably, this contributes substantially to the demise of the American family as we once knew it.
Richard Dinges
Hilo