It sure looks like the University of Hawaii Athletics Department is doing very well, considering the budget it is expected to work with against programs with significantly greater resources.

The Ching Field upgrade was done in time for the 2021 football season and the softball facility also was upgraded. The Rainbow Wahine basketball team advanced to the NCAA tournament after winning the Big West conference title. Last year’s men’s volleyball team won the national championship and are doing extremely well again this year. New baseball head coach Rich Hill brings an enthusiastic winning attitude to the program.

I applaud all the accomplishments by the UH student-athletes and coaches. UH Athletics Director David Matlin deserves a lot of credit for maneuvering through COVID-19 restrictions and keeping the program competitive. Matlin’s critics like Dave Reardon apparently can’t stand seeing so much success for UH athletics. Glad he doesn’t listen to them.

Judd Ota

Aiea

Celebrate hard work, talent of female athletes

Wow. With supporters like sports columnist Sjarif Goldstein, the incomparable University of Hawaii women’s basketball team doesn’t need to worry about enemies (“It takes all kinds to bust a bracket,” Star-Advertiser, March 14).

In the shadow of the epochal 50th anniversary of Title IX (mandating female gender equity in sports), championed by our own pioneer U.S. Rep. Patsy T. Mink, Goldstein’s column ran adjacent to the story by Jason Kaneshiro celebrating the Big West’s champions’ news of advancing to the Texas tournament (“It’s a date,” Star-Advertiser, March 14).

Perhaps Goldstein might consider reading his colleague’s work.

After dozens of column inches on gaming and tournament pools, Goldstein’s final small paragraph mentioned the Rainbow Wahine in the NCAA tournament. He urges fans — “on the men’s days off,” thank you very much — to run a women’s pool “for small money.”

How about a crack and informed female sports commentator who understands and appreciates the talent and hard work and spirit of female athletes? They, and all other women, are tired of serving as canvases for fantasies of otherness and tokenness.

Imua, Rainbow Wahine.

Nancie Caraway

Manoa

Romney wrong to apply ‘treason’ to Gabbard

Recently, U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah accused former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of stating “treasonous lies” and promoting Russian propaganda for discussing the potential dangers of biolabs in Ukraine.

She did not assert, as the Russians did, that the U.S. was funding bioweapons, but rather expressed concerns about their being released in the Russia/Ukraine war (this after two years of a global pandemic).

For Romney to make the accusation against Gabbard, who served honorably as a U.S. Army officer in Iraq, while he avoided military service in Vietnam as a Mormon missionary in Paris, is disgraceful. It also shows his ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, which defines “treason” as waging war against the United States or providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

Mark Saxon

Kahului

World suffers because Putin lacks imagination

The world is suffering because, after years of being in power, the best world Russian President Vladimir Putin can imagine is the Soviet system of his youth. The Soviet system was terrible. No one liked it. It was stupid, cruel, corrupt and inefficient. It didn’t last more than 69 years because it was awful.

Yet, after years of power, Putin can’t imagine anything better. Putin is probably one of the few people who want to turn the clock back to the Soviet system.

Putin is recreating the seizure of Stalingrad, only this time the Russians are playing the role of the Germans. When Putin calls the Ukrainians Nazis, he has it backwards. It is the Ukraine that looks like Russia and Stalingrad.

There is only one fool who could call Putin “smart” and “savvy.” In a meeting in Helsinki, that fool believed Putin was telling the truth when he denied interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Last month, Putin denied that he was going to attack Ukraine. I suppose that Donald Trump believed him then, too.

Robert Woliver

Kaneohe

HART’s land dispute inadequately explained

Sunday’s article, “Shorter route could avert a Kakaako land dispute” (Star-Advertiser, March 20), glosses over significant several issues.

Who has been supervising how an astonishing $23.28 million was spent on legal fees for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s condemnation action? Has HART taken into account that the Howard Hughes Corp. will be entitled to its legal fees, likely in a comparable amount, if HART abandons the suit? Has HART considered that almost $50 million in legal fees could simply be wasted if the action is abandoned?

The comment that Hughes “could ask for anything they wanted for the land” revealed an utter lack of insight into how condemnation actions work. The actual valuation likely will be decided by a jury, as in most civil actions where what one side “could ask for” is not determinative.

Why does your reporter not do some minimal investigation to inform us what HART’s experts or others say the land is actually worth? Not every article needs to be Pulitzer-worthy, but the Star-Advertiser can do better on a Sunday article.

John Keiser

Makiki

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