_______________MY HAWAIIAN HONEYMOON BY CINTRA WILSON (08/25/98)
	As a native Hawaiian living in California, I am constantly trying to clarify many things about the culture both present and past, and especially the ancient ways of our ancestors. There were many things that Cintra wrote that not only I found appalling, but many others have as well. First of all, the Creole language that is spoken today in Hawaii, commonly known as pidgin, is not a "consonant-lazy" surf-pidgin. Surfers did not create pidgin, nor is it consonant-lazy. Pidgin, like many Creole and pidgin languages, results when a group of people who speak different languages are put together and are forced to create a common medium of speech in which normally the dominant language (English in this case) is simplified in order to compensate for the grammatical rules of all of these speakers' languages. Some people who don't have a particular phoneme in their native language might substitute or even not pronounce certain consonants or vowels, resulting in what Cintra described as "consonant-lazy" speech. Many people who come to Hawaii do not like poi, which is made from the taro plant (colocasia esculenta). It is an acquired taste. Having Cintra write such phrases as "how can anybody eat this shit" only reinforces such prejudices among many local people in Hawaii against mainlanders and other haole (Caucasian) people around the world. In any culture, people will always find something that might not be to their taste due to the culture they were brought up in. Just because it is different does not qualify it to have an equivalence of excreta. What was highly offensive to me was her description of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I personally did not care for his music or him, but I certainly do not write such negative inaccuracies of people in articles for others to read. -- Kalani Mondoy Cintra Wilson's trashy article is, at its best, full of stinking crap! Particularly, her mean-spirited attacks concerning Hawaii's beloved Israel Kamakawiwo'ole is loathsome. "Bruddah Iz" was loved by people worldwide not only because of his beautiful voice and immense musical talent, but also because of his malama (caring) for others, his pono (righteousness) and aloha aina (love of land). If the power of humankind was measured in deeds of kindness and caring, Bruddah Iz would have ruled the universe. Wilson's bad-mouthing of Iz's physical stature, belittling of his musical talent and vile remarks about Iz's sex life reflect unintelligent and uninformed reporting on her part. In addition, Wilson's prepubescent rantings, inability to appreciate what is most important in life and higher-than-thou attitude shows how far the stick is that is stuck up her ass. Wilson's affront to the memory of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, fans of Bruddah Iz's music and the Hawaiian people will not easily be forgotten and will never be forgiven. -- D. Pumehana Aina Boy, was I glad to see Cintra's byline on your front page this morning. Congratulations, girl! And welcome back! We missed you an awful lot. Thanks, too, for an evocative reminder of the spell of Hawaii. I was on Maui last year when Iz died, driving through the pali listening to NPR's eulogy. It sounds like sheer newage (yes, that does rhyme with "sewage"), but I swear the grief of the bereaved Hawaiians was palpable in the heavy air. Maybe he wasn't the greatest songwriter, but he had a remarkably sweet, tender voice, full of aloha (no matter if it was Christianized: Love is love). -- Amy Tompkins Baton Rouge, La. I was appalled to read Cintra Wilson's harsh, negative comments about Polynesian culture and Hawaiian music in her article. Not only does she expose her prejudices and ignorance of Hawaii and its people, but she engages in a nasty personalized attack against the deceased Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole, the beloved singer of Hawaiian music, and his family. If only Ms. Wilson had the loving nature and the sensitivity of the gentle Iz. But then if she had his kind of soul, she would have been incapable of writing her hostile, anal commentary. If only Wilson had spent time reading about the proud heritage of the Hawaiians, about Queen Liliuokalani, about the struggles of the Polynesian peoples, instead of burying her head in the 19th century Russian novel "Anna Karenina," boasting she read it end to end during her honeymoon in Kauai. If only -- there are so many "if onlys" I can think of. It's too bad Wilson was incapable of opening herself to the peoples of Hawaii, their culture and their music. Maybe Rockaway Beach would have been a better choice for the honeymoon of Ms. Cintra Wilson and her spouse. -- Jo Ann Sterling Chicago I am so glad to see an article again by Cintra Wilson posted on your site. I really appreciate her vivid imagery, brutal honesty and humor. I hope that you can persuade her to resume writing regularly for you, now that she's got the "marriage deal" out of the way. -- Bill Kyker I am the Hawaiian Culture Guide at the Mining Company. Cintra Wilson's article "My Hawaiian Honeymoon" is perhaps the most distasteful article I have read about Hawaii in years. Clearly, she learned nothing on her stay in Hawaii about the people and culture of Hawaii. While I find most of what she wrote to be in bad taste, her comments about Israel Kamakawiwo'ole are in exceptionally bad taste and totally inaccurate. Moreover, to comment on her sick visions of the relationship between the late Iz and his wife is disgusting. If Cintra is trying to be funny, she has failed. She is insulting and offensive to the people of Hawaii and all who love Hawaii. -- John Fischer Granted that Cintra Wilson has the right to speak her mind. Please just don't inflict us with her narrow-minded, inaccurate, racist and xenophobic perspective. That she may not have understood and appreciated a music and a culture that is foreign to her as a mainland haole may be understandable, especially since it seems she is limited in her life experiences. -- D. Wong San Francisco Just read Cintra Wilson's piece on her Kauai honeymoon. I'm a writer, too, and also lived in Kauai. I'm no prude but I've found that writers who use words like "shit" and "fuck" in their stories are simply too lazy to write anything better. Salon readers deserve better. -- June D. Bell
_______________WHY KIDS DON'T NEED COMPUTERS BY ANDREW LEONARD (08/26/98)
	After reading Andrew Leonard's review of Jane Healy's book "Failure to Connect," there seems to be a severe disconnect between Healy's claims and what Leonard draws from the book. He is pleased that he now has an excuse to watch "The Simpsons" with his 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Healy actually says that computers are bad if they are simply substituting one kind of mindless "tuning out for another." In other words, if Leonard really wants to feel that he's doing the "right thing" by his daughter, perhaps he should take her for a nature walk, or do Play-Doh sculpture with her, rather than using her to provide an excuse for him to watch his favorite TV show. It's too bad, because if Leonard actually sat down with an educational CD-ROM, he might find out that they have one very clear advantage over television: They don't have commercials. Whatever the evil, mind-numbing effects computers might be having on my unsuspecting children, it thankfully doesn't lead them to clamor for Tickle Me Elmo, Barbie or breakfast cereals. -- Laurel Halbany Just wanted to let you know that I loved the article on why kids don't need computers. I'm the poster child (or was, I'm much better now) for defunct personality development stemming from far too many "interactive" hours. I still remember the Sierra Online slogan "Who needs friends? You've got Sierra games! Go play with yourself," with a certain gritting of teeth. While I do believe the human connectivity offered by the Internet is certainly better than the early '90s single-player-only games, there is no way to keep the Net "safe" for developing kids -- doing so makes it painfully (in a torturously Barney-esqe way) unsafe for the rest of us. So keep kids playing with real Legos, real soccer balls, real pens, books, cards and friends. They're kids, so they don't have to put up with the Blue Screen of Death. -- Jason Miller As a soon-to-be father, the idea of kids and computers has been on my mind. I write software for a living, so it is natural that there will be plenty of computers in the house. Thanks for writing a review of this book, I can't wait to read it. It should answer questions and hopefully dispel doubts I have, which are very similar to yours. If my child isn't "wired" out of the womb, what will be the outcome? -- Josh Lucas
_______________KENNETH STARR, PORN LEGEND! BY GARY KAMIYA (08/25/98)
	I loved it! How utterly true! Ken Starr is the GOP's new version of Phil Gramm (remember his porn film venture?), except cloaked in self-righteousness -- and the hypocrites at the New York Times and "Newsleak" are his chief enablers. I can state with truth that the National Enquirer has done a better, more balanced form of coverage than any of the "elite" media. They knew that Whitewater was bullshit (or at least not sexy), so they didn't cover it. Just check out this week's Enquirer issue with Hillary and Monica on the cover. They actually like Clinton better now that he's confessed -- and don't hesitate to spill the beans on Ken Starr's own lies about sex and women. (Seems Starr was such a loser as a teen that he had at least one imaginary girlfriend -- and he was the subject of much ribbing when his deception was discovered.) The NE makes the point that part of the anti-Clinton hatred of Starr and his lapdog pundits (such as the 65-year-old Sam Donaldson, desperately trying to look under 50 with his Hair From Venus) is the hatred of sexual losers (or "gamma males" in the sexual lottery, to use biological terms) for a clear sexual winner (or "alpha male"): Bill Clinton. Pictures of the younger Clinton show an Adonis, a Redford with a thick brunet mane and a heart-melting smile. If he hadn't gone into politics, he could have been an actor (and a better one than Reagan, whose myriad presidential lies were so transparently rotten we just gave up keeping track after a while) or a preacher or a male model. Reminds me of the old joke: "Democrats openly read banned books in public. Republicans form censorship committees and read them behind closed doors as a group." -- Tamara Baker St. Paul, Minn. SALON | Aug. 31, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| AGING HORMONES BY MOLLIE DICKENSON

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