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•Ultrasounds and autism

• How old is ‘old enough?’

• Health coverage or rent

Ultrasounds and autism

I would like some opinions about the possible connection to all the ultrasounds that pregnant mothers get now (and over the last 20 years) and autism. I can’t understand why this subject is not being addressed.

I am a minister and marry quite a few pregnant brides, just this week one of my brides told me that she had eight of the super ultrasounds that show every detail of the baby, and she is only seven months pregnant.

Sonic waves traveling through the mother’s fluid and bouncing off a developing baby? They have done many tests that prove these same sonic waves totally upset whales and dolphins, what happens to babies?

If you look at the symptoms of autism, shutting themselves off from the world, wouldn’t you if you had been bombarded by sonic waves from six weeks in the womb?

Christine Kube, Kalaheo

How old is ‘old enough?’

How old is old enough for military recruiters to approach students? High school? Junior High? How about ten weeks into kindergarten?

Last week at dinner my 5-year-old son announced blithely, “soldiers came to school today.” He then added, “They only kill bad people. They don’t kill good people.”

My wife and I looked at each other incredulously.

He repeated himself and then I remembered — it was “Career Day” at school. He had mentioned a bus driver too, but it was the soldier who stuck out in his mind. When my wife asked if the soldier was cool, he nodded “yes.”

The soldier had given my son a gift — a six-inch plastic ruler with big bold red letters reading ARMY NATIONAL GUARD next to a waving American flag and below that www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com.

So, now we know the answer to the above question.

Kindergarteners still learning their ABCs are targets for early conditioning by the U.S. military in Hawai‘i’s schools. Never mind our schools have just cut almost 10 percent of classroom time, bringing Hawai‘i’s instructional days to dead last in the nation. Furloughs or not, time was found for the National Guard to give a pitch (and a gift) to wide-eyed 5-year-olds.

Fortunately (for the military), the economic collapse has been a boon for military recruiters as education and job-hungry young people flock to a place they know will offer what many other employers cannot — a job with benefits.

And with Department of Defense projections indicating that the baseline Pentagon budget will grow over the next decade by $133.1 billion, or 25 percent (even before war funding), it appears likely there will be plenty need for more soldiers in 2022 when my son and his classmates turn 18.

After raising my concerns about military personnel pitching to my 5-year-old on career day to the school’s principal, I was told the soldiers (who were dressed in uniform) were there to focus on “all the good things they do.” To be sure, in times of natural disaster, the National Guard can do a tremendous amount of good.

But in what must certainly have been a first encounter for my son and his classmates, the take away message was “they kill people. But only the bad ones.”

Whether you find this episode utterly disturbing or perfectly normal, each of us needs to ask ourselves, in an era when our government spends trillions of dollars supporting war yet can’t even fund our schools at a minimum national standard, what kind of society and future are we building for our children?

Jon Letman, Lihu’e

Health coverage or rent

Recent commentary on the public option in health care reform prompts me to pitch in. I’m a bit put off by the “we’re happy with what we have” response. That’s the point — you have it, and many others don’t, and could not have it without government intervention.

While our state’s predominant insurer actually lost money in the first quarter of 2009, the CEO was paid over $1 million in salary, another executive $900,000 and a third over $600,000. People have a hard time reconciling those factors.

Tort reform is needed, but not the answer. When you have a hospital charging patients a cost comparable to two prime rib dinners for a self-administered aspirin, then it’s time to consider reform in other areas.

There seems to be a dominant sentiment that people who don’t have health insurance either (1) don’t want it, (2) just don’t want to pay for it, or (3) are too ignorant to see the importance of it.

How arrogant — if one is self-employed, or has to work two or more part-time jobs of less than 20 hours per week each just to live, and the premium for self-provided health coverage would equal their rent, what do you think is going to get paid first?

We need a public option because the private sector cannot/will not meet the need, and will not change its approach without being literally forced.

Elaine Albertson, Waimea