• Vicious dogs don’t belong in public places • OK with cockfighting as a cultural practice • GMO reasoning is flawed • Who has your medical records? Vicious dogs don’t belong in public places Mahalo for the articles you have
• Vicious dogs don’t belong in public places • OK with cockfighting as a cultural practice • GMO reasoning is flawed • Who has your medical records?
Vicious dogs don’t belong in public places
Mahalo for the articles you have written about the many fighting dog attacks on Kauai.
This has been an ongoing problem not just here, but around the globe. Many countries have done the math and simply banned these dogs due to the fact that they were bred to fight other dogs (hence the name pit bull, to fight in a pit like a bull).
My Hawaiian neighbor told me recently that these dogs would get worked up before fights with the handlers throwing in a small dog to bring out the adrenaline in the fighting dogs.
If our seven-pound dog was a threat to these pit bulls, well, anything alive is in danger.
No one said that there are not well-behaved pit bulls. I have been around many. What is being brought to the table is that a large, 90-pound dog that has a 10-inch jaw designed to lock down and shake its victim can do much more damage than a small animal and requires more training and social skills.
In response to Greg Strickland (Forum, June 16) that his leashed dog has been approached by loose dogs and his dog has defended himself in a devastating manner, and that the owners complained about your vicious dog: Most people don’t bring dogs to public places that are trained to kill other animals. It matters if you know your dog is vicious, it does not belong in public. Fighting dogs should not be around in public place, they are trained killers.
Anthony Parisii
Kilauea
OK with cockfighting as a cultural practice
Regarding the front page article in the June 12 edition of The Garden Island: Please understand, I am not in favor of chicken fights.
But here is the thing: When people move to a place, we each bring our own culture. We should all respect each other, and each other’s ways.
It especially behooves the people who move into an established neighborhood to respect the ways of the people who have already lived there for years.
No, I am not crazy about chicken fights. Roosters, however, will willingly fight each other without any encouragement from humans. It’s what they do.
Please consider this: It is perfectly legal for Muhammad Ali to get his brains bashed into mush by another human being. And many people on the Mainland pay big bucks for the privilege of watching that happen.
It is considered a sport, and not only is it fine with most raised in the American culture, it’s even televised, bet on, talked about, etc. The point is that it’s perfectly legal.
It’s American culture.
It seems to me that while it is legal for humans to cripple and maim each other, it is a little silly to get all worked up about chickens.
In the same way that people moving to Latin countries should accept bullfights, people moving to Kauai should accept chickens — and the established culture which includes chicken fights.
No, I personally don’t like chicken fights or other blood sports either, but I do believe in respecting others, respecting other cultures and keeping our priorities straight.
Mary Mulhall
Kapaa
GMO reasoning is flawed
James Kimo Rosen’s comparison of inter-species genetic modification (GMO) to natural in-species marijuana cross-breeding in his June 10 letter to the editor (“GMOs = Great Meal Offering”) is disingenuous and puppets the propaganda of big GMO companies.
He also used the straw man logical fallacy to argue against something that anti-GMO people are not saying.
Yes, there has been some good from GMOs. Yes, some people are alive today because of GMOs. Nobody has said all GMOs are poison, 100 percent of GMOs are deadly.
What we talk about is the horrendously corrupt business practices of Monsanto and Syngenta, the lack of transparency, the illegal experimentation that has cost human lives (easy to find the many fines and lawsuits lost, including many on Kauai).
If GMO companies safely and thoroughly tested their creations, if they kept their experiments contained so they don’t corrupt other farms (see GMO wheat in the news), if they didn’t bribe politicians and FDA staff to avoid accountability and full testing requirements, then we’d be fine.
Chuck Lasker
Kalaheo
Who has your medical records?
This letter is a public service announcement for the people of Kauai. Everyone should request and get a full copy of your medical records including your doctor’s notes. Check every box on the request including for “continuing health care.”
What happened to me is not unusual, I found out, although it is incredibly bizarre. Find out what your doctors are putting in your permanent patient records.
In January 2013 after having a simple outpatient procedure in radiology that caused severe complications, I requested a full copy of my medical records from both Wilcox Hospital and Kauai Medical Clinic. I asked for all doctor and clinic notes because my family doctor had left the island quite suddenly and unexpectedly in August 2012.
Imagine my amazement when I found that I had:
1. Been diagnosed with a chronic disease that I never had;
2. Received the wrong treatment for what I actually did have because of that diagnosis;
3. Other people’s health issues written in my personal medical record and
4. I received copies of other patients’ records!
These records include blood work, drug testing, pregnancy testing, and personal data including addresses and phone numbers. I alerted the hospital immediately but, unfortunately, it took weeks to get back to me and by that time, I had already shown the original discs to a number of clinical people Mainland doctors.
So be informed and get your records. You may be surprised as well as alarmed and shocked!
Marcia Favaloro
Kapaa
