College golf tourney a taxpayer rip-off
February and we have the John Burns College golf tournament, the biggest rip-off for the taxpayers of Kaua‘i.
I assumed that the colleges paid an entry fee, but I was told that is not true.
My understanding is that the colleges pay no entry fee, and that the county pays the green fees for all the players, the cart rentals for the coaches and family.
Let us not forget the additional labor cost for the grounds staff to get the course in shape, the extra cost for the county workers to erect the tent for the players and the loss of revenue from the locals and visitors for these four days of prime golf.
Why not charge an entry fee of $1,000 to each college to cover the cost of the green fees and cart rentals as opposed to the taxpayers of Kaua‘i footing the bill? Surely these college programs could afford an entry fee to come to Kaua‘i in February.
Peter Tran, Kilauea
Social media reminds us of our troubled society
Look no further than social media to see the continued downfall of our values in society.
Why question the negative actions carried out by our youth of today when we as adults, can’t even lead by example?
Today was yet another day that I was filled with disgust as I read the comments below a news story that appeared on my social media feed.
Unlike many of the news stories that report negative happenings in the world, this one was supposed to share one of positivity, and I was glad to see such a positive story, so I clicked on the story with happiness in my heart until I started to read the comments posted below.
The heartfelt story was practically torn to pieces by being met with comment after comment of negative judgment and criticism, even going as far as to make degrading statements that wouldn’t make any sense had these commentators taken the time to read the whole news story.
It takes only a few minutes on social media to see all the hate and bullying that we put out there in the world. Then we have the audacity to sit back and be baffled by the rage and wrongdoings of our youth when it is clear that we as adults can’t even set a positive example for them. Although social media has its pros, it is really a disgrace that we often use it to bring each other down.
Kathy Chamlal, Lihue
Good news about COVID-19
When I submitted a warning letter here a month ago, the COVID-19 virus was growing very rapidly, yet the media and the stock market did not seem very concerned. Now, the media and the stock market are in panic mode. At the same time, there is some recent good news to share.
The average time to death has been reported to be 14 days, so I will consider current cases to be those less than 14 days old. The first good news is that the total number of current cases has been declining. Based on WHO (World Health Organization) reports, the world total current cases on Feb. 13 would be 39,179. On Feb. 27, the total current cases would be 35,297.
These totals are mostly from China. But what about other countries? There were 20 countries which reported COVID-19 cases as of Jan. 31. Consider how these countries’ current cases have changed from Feb. 13 to Feb. 27. Six now have no current cases. Four have a declining number of current cases. Six are holding steady. Only four are growing.
One of these four is the U.S. The U.S. reports 60 cumulative cases, but 57 of these were contracted overseas and two were from spouses who traveled overseas. Only one case in the U.S. was acquired from the community. So the virus has not been growing in the U.S. either.
Another of the four is Japan, who has had moderate growth, which my friends in Japan tell me is mainly from the large number of Chinese tourists, which has now been curtailed.
Only two countries out of the 20 have had rapid growth, South Korea and Italy. Iran has also had rapid growth. It started later so it was not on the list of 20.
Keep in mind that these three rapid-growth countries and Japan all experience colder winter weather. The weather is now warming. The flu season is winding down.
The COVID-19 virus is dangerous. We should be careful. However, I think the current level of fear in the media and the stock market is too high. There is good news to consider.
Mark Beeksma, Koloa
Gee, Mark, since you know so much about the coronavirus (NOT!), maybe you should dust off your resume and apply for a job in the Science Denier-in-Chief’s administration. Your nation needs you!
Mahalo for the info Mark, let’s not forget too that the U.S. suffers 25,000 to 35,000 flu deaths per year and they give us no statistics on ages of victims, health or disease condition at time of becoming ill, whether or not they had a flu shot, and whether they were under the care of a doctor or in hospital, which would be a poor reflection on the medical business and not a good recommendation for medical care.
25,000 to 35,000 flu deaths in America alone, makes the Corona Virus worldwide not that big Of a problem…yet…!
May we add that that just getting the flu, while not fun, is Standard Operating World Procedure every winter.
Who gets the flu is dependent on the Health or strength of the individual.
Health strength is predictable as is the optimal capacity of each person’s immune system. But that is a longer comment requiring more than a Sunday morning brief.
Briefly you cannot “tax” your immune system all week, month, year long with antigen ingestion and not expect an exhausted immune system to fail when the flu comes around.
Education leads to prevention of succumbing to the flu.
The word PHYSICIAN means teacher, but most are too busy writing prescriptions for those failed immune systems to teach how to maintain and restore health naturally.
It’s a dilemma. Maybe we should have elementary school teachers be the physicians and teach Health in depth.
Thank-you to Ms. Chamlal for expressing the concern that so many of us have about the heightened level of disdain and name-calling evident in social media commentary. Freedom of speech is a right but it is not an absolute. As adults we still have a responsibility to demonstrate civility and decency to our children and one another.
The generally abysmal state of numeracy across all lines in the US and world leads to needless panic. People just don’t understand the difference between absolute and relative numbers and the probability of an event occurring.
For instance with the Corona Virus, the number of cases in the world is closer to 88352 (I think Mark’s figures are incorrect). The world population is 7.7 billion. So let’s put the virus issue in it’s proper perspective:
883520(cases)/7,700,000,000(population) = 0.00114743% the current infection rate.
Redoing this calculation with the number of actual deaths from the disease further reduces the probability that any given individual will be infected and die. (3001 deaths/7,700,000,000 = 0.00003897%
That is an infinitesimally small rate and therefor the probability of any individual contracting the virus and dying is virtually zero.
Don’t panic and cause yourself needless anxiety.
RG DeSoto
correction current infection number is 88,352…not 883,520
RGD
RG, I think your number was the cumulative worldwide number. As I wrote in my letter, my numbers were the current numbers, that is, the cases that are new in the past 14 days. My point was that the number of people currently at risk was dropping. This number peaked around 55,000 people. It is currently around 20,000 people, but it has been rising again the past few days.
The news has gotten somewhat worse since my letter, but my point that the stock market had dropped too much was probably good investment advice at the time, since it has recovered since then.
Yeah Mark the media is hyping it up but it’s still a genuine pandemic with a 3.5% death rate. It hasn’t really had time to infect the US but it definitely will. Furthermore countries like Japan have taken aggressive steps like closing all public schools in the country. We’re not doing anything like this and our leaders are downplaying the seriousness. Seriously.
Uncle Aina, I mostly agree with you. But, keep in mind that Japan is much smaller than the U.S. and they closed their schools when there number passed around 200. Also we are 50 sovereign states. Washington State can close their school system if they want to. Maybe they should. Washington state is controlled by Democrats, so we can see if the party makes any difference. Normally, Democrats want to expose their own cities to as many dangers as possible (“sanctuary” cities).
Amen Peter Tran, totally agree.
Kathy, comment reprinted from “brun resign” publishing.
There is “no finding a way to deal with the situation”. There is such a vast amount of incorrect overview of this incident. Social media accounts that know the truth are, like TGI unable to get published comments. Social media shows a picture of Z and the caption says “you can only post what i want you to say” Otherwise, much of it, unless we speak in code, gets dismissed. Most of the in-the-know warriors are no longer on social media or TV media. We are actively by rule of law determining the measures necessary, in gatherings undakavalava, just like COK/state. Do not worry, we are not going anywhere, but maybe those higher ups than Atta Brun will start singing sweet nothings because 98% of them have not yet been exposed, as in the “guilty stolen kealoha mailbox, power couple”.
Aloha Kathy……you say it’s clear the “WE” adults can’t even set a good example for our youths… Speak for yourself and friends. I think majority of parents do care so don’t group all parents with your statements. Many of us have worked our okoles off for our children to be successful. Remember Old school thinking and a little history growing up with the morals and values left to me by my family was probably the best I could ever offer my now adult children who are highly successful because of it. Steve Martin Wailua
Good question. Why are my tax dollars being spent to subsidize a golf tournament instead of fixing the roads? How did this happen and who is responsible?