Van Dyke was skilled litigator

In speaking of the untimely passing of Professor Jon Van Dyke, many have eloquently recounted Jon’s accomplishments as a beloved and superbly talented law professor and mentor, and I fully share in those thoughts ("Venerable law professor stood for rights, respect," Star-Advertiser, Dec. 1). However, it is often overlooked that Jon was also an accomplished litigator who championed the rights of many less fortunate in our community in major cases that have shaped the law of Hawaii for generations to come.

I was the presiding judge in many of those cases. And while I had the distinct privilege of being a colleague and friend of Jon’s for all of the nearly 34 years I have been a member of the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law’s adjunct faculty, those who have practiced before me know well that friendship gets you nowhere in my court. Jon prevailed in those cases based upon the facts, his presentation of the law, and his excellent advocacy.

Jon Van Dyke was a true gentleman, an officer of our federal court in the very best sense of that commission, and a cherished friend. His loss to all of us is profound and painful but his legacy lives on in his thousands of students, and the law he helped shape for the better.

David Alan Ezra
United States District Judge, District of Hawaii

Keep moving out homeless

Let’s keep the momentum to rid Honolulu of the homeless. The sweeps for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference and the rules against storing personal effects in public places represent a good start. Homeless people are a nuisance, a blight and a risk to public health and order. We deserve better.

I do sympathize with the plight of the truly disadvantaged and unfortunate. However, people are not equal in so many ways. That is reality. Let us not drag down the majority just to support minorities.

Robert Foster
Honolulu

Child frightened by Marine noise

I’ve read several letters on the excessive noise that the jets and helicopters make at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe. Some of the authors say "it’s the sound of freedom." That’s easy to say if you don’t have small children or live close enough to be jolted out of bed in the middle of the night. We are more than three miles away and at times it’s really loud. Shakes the house and rattles the windows. All we ask is that the military respects the neighborhoods they are affecting and limit the training to normal hours, but they don’t.

We want the pilots to have all the training they need, and are big supporters of our troops, but it’s not easy telling your 5-year-old daughter, who is screaming in terror in the middle of the night because she thinks the house is going to fall down, that it’s "the sound of freedom."

Erich Wida
Kaneohe Bay

Can Hirono beat Lingle?

Efforts to fill the seat about to be vacated by Sen. Daniel K. Akaka appear to be actively under way. It is certainly interesting that the candidates seeking to fill this seat are the same ones who ran for governor not so long ago. Mazie Hirono and Ed Case faced each other in the Democratic primary, in which Hirono prevailed over Case. Then, Linda Lingle scored an easy victory over Hirono to become a two-term governor of Hawaii.

An election postmortem showed that Hirono was no match for Lingle’s superior debating skills. There was recognition at the time that Case would have vanquished Lingle in the debates had he been the party’s nominee.

With Hirono once again the clear recipient of the party’s imprimatur for the right to hold public office, it is highly probable that the foregoing scenario might repeat itself. Is this what the Democratic Party wants?

Al Braidwood
Manoa Valley

Illustration inaccurate

I must object to the grisly illustration of a health care person apparently preparing a syringe for the lethal injection of an aged person ("Difficult death decisions," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Nov. 30). This has never been practiced in the United States, and never will be.

What Compassion & Choices is advocating is that, in very carefully screened cases and at the patient’s request, a lethal dose of oral medication be provided to the patient. He or she can then rest comfortably, knowing that if life becomes unbearable, he or she can end it at a time and place of his or her choosing. In the states where physician-assisted suicide is specifically legal by law, the majority of patients who obtain the medication never use it. Simply having it available provides them comfort and peace. Nobody is advocating active euthanasia.

Arthur Sprague, M.D.
Honolulu