Letters To The Editor
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Education becoming political football
Sometimes when you lose, you win. According to a so-called think tank, the Fordham Foundation, Washington state receives a failing grade in education. Coincidentally, the governors Bush lead the two states that receive A grades (Texas, George; Florida, Jeb). These grades contrast with others issued three years ago by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Washington did poorly there as well, scoring stars for a mere three out of 12 “quality markers.” Texas and Florida scored worse, each meeting the standard for only one marker.
The Fordham Foundation dismisses the recommendations of the NCTAF as “conventional wisdom,” despite the NCTAF call for fundamental change in education. Both organizations favor teacher expertise in subject matter, accountability of schools, demonstrated performance and redesign of hiring processes.
Where they differ is in the professionalization of teachers. The NCTAF seeks to strengthen professional standards. The Fordham Foundation seeks to undermine colleges of education, reduce public regulation of schools and abolish job security for teachers. Instead, it advocates charter schools and market-driven teacher pay.
The Fordham Foundation’s report is another in a long series of damning indictments from well-funded right-wing think tanks that should be called propaganda mills. These foundations seek to set the terms of national debate with subsidized books that they market aggressively and distribute to policy makers. These tracts use clever buzzwords that play well on talk shows and in newspaper headlines. But, their facile generalizations are a poor substitute for the solid analysis that could spawn genuine reform. James Stripes Deer Park
Gore exploiting mines policy
Re: “Turn mining fees into parks” (Nov. 15).
Combating suburban sprawl and setting aside more park land certainly is a laudable goal. I’m sure most of the populace would be in favor of it. But, as far as using hardrock mining fees to finance such efforts, Al Gore is not averse to demagoguery.
First, there are good reasons why government royalties on hardrock mining are not part of our present mining law. In comparison to the coal, oil and gas, and logging industries from which royalties are collected, finding and developing metal ore deposits is far less predictable with far more investment risk. If one looks at the bottom lines of most domestic hardrock mining companies, it’s hardly a pretty picture. In reality, they are now more service organizations than highly profitable businesses. Gore’s proposed royalty would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many of them.
Secondly, over the past seven years, Gore’s allies in the Department of Interior and other agencies have enacted regulations which make it impossible to explore for and develop mineral deposits on federal land. On top of this, there are ever-increasing land withdrawals, leaving very little land to explore. As a result, most mining companies have moved their exploration efforts out of the United States. This means that as domestic ore deposits become depleted, they’ll be replaced by foreign imports. So, Gore’s royalties will really amount to little or nothing.
Gore, of course, knows all of this. Such is the way of contemporary politics. M.A. Kaufman Spokane
Policy makers should consider …
Questions never answered:
Why are taxpayers threatened and scolded like selfish children when requesting that some of their money be returned when the state has a huge surplus?
Why are public employees and agencies so often considered before hard-working taxpayers in the private sector for increased funding, wages, perks and job security?
Why does the government continue to grow in numbers and costs much faster than the population increase and inflation?
Why must we pay the highest peacetime taxes ever during the greatest of economic times?
Why aren’t funds reallocated from one overfunded agency (i.e. STA) to areas of need (street repair)?
Why isn’t it publicly acknowledged that it’s historically proven that as excessive taxation is reduced, individual and government revenues increase?
Why are so many people in positions of influence ignorant of basic economics?
Some answers: Power, control, special interest influence, bureaucratic mismanagement and intellectual unreality.
This is not intended to denigrate or demean the many dedicated and tireless public employees. This is directed at some of the tax and management policies and procedures. Dave Hamer Spokane
Action taken against wrong people
Although I share the opinion of the Jesuit colleges about The School of Americas, I wonder how a demonstration outside or inside a U.S. Army post will change the minds of our civilian leadership in Washington D.C.
Anyone who has served in the U.S. Armed Forces knows that the military establishment takes orders from our elected civilian leadership. I suggest the Jesuit Colleges protest our elected officals instead of being arrested for trespassing on a military reservation.
Just ask Paddy Inman, a Mount Spokane High School teacher who was arrested at Fort Benning and spent time in jail for trespassing. Was it worth the effort by targeting the wrong people?
This action is a great example for his students to follow by breaking the law. Teachers should lead by example and stay within the boundaries of the law. How can a teacher who has been arrested and spends time in jail be a good influence on young people? How can the Mead School District justify hiring a teacher who is a political activist and breaks the law?
I suggest the Jesuit Colleges and Inman take their concerns to Washington, D.C., where policy decisions are made. Dannie A. Burton SFC (retired) Mead
Responsibility is the individual’s
Re: School of the Americas protest.
Questions to ponder in causal relationships:
Is a film school responsible for the actions of the graduate who produces kiddie porn?
Is a medical school responsible for the actions of the grad who turns to abortions or euthanasia?
Is a law school responsible for the actions of the money grubbing shyster?
Is a seminary responsible for the actions of the pedophile priest?
Is a police academy responsible for the actions of the violent cop?
Is a truck driving school responsible for the actions of a drunk, high or exhausted driver?
Is an engineering/chemistry school responsible for the actions of the mad bomber?
Is an MIS department responsible for the actions of the virus-making hacker?
Was a business school responsible for the actions of Michael Milken?
Was Oxford responsible for Bill Clinton’s moral turpitude?
Were the Marines responsible for the actions of Lee Harvey Oswald?
Were the Army drill sergeants responsible for No-Gun-Ri or My-Lai?
Is the School of the Americas really responsible for the actions of its graduates?
That an actor or action may be unethical does not necessarily make the teacher or subject unethical.
If the teacher (or school) is to be held responsible for the actions of the student, God help us all. Bryan Potratz Spokane
PEOPLE AND SOCIETY
Censors missed punchline
I was happily watching one of my favorite comedies on TNT recently, “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” Surely not a classic, but one of the funniest spoofs I’ve had the privilege of watching. Where they sing the title song, “Men In Tights.” I was happily singing along when I realized I was singing alone for a word or two. Thinking perhaps my cable was acting up, I ignored it and continued singing. It happened again, however, and so I began to wonder why.
The two words in question were neither vulgar nor discriminatory, not drug-related or sex-related. I’ve heard various words censored in music I listen to, where it is understandable. The two words were “sissies” and “pansies.” The only explanation I could come up with in my mind was that the television station was overly concerned with offending the gay community, and the only way I could defend this line of thought was the actions that were choreographed for the dance.
I felt cheated and annoyed that a television station can arbitrarily change the emotive meanings of words we have never used to insult anyone who is homosexual.
There is something wrong when censoring a movie consists of bleeping out possible offensive words, and ignoring the content. If anything, the men were offending women, because girls wear tights, and their actions were “feminine.”
There needs to be some kind of standard by which executives can define what needs censoring, and what is best left humorous. Genevieve K. Green Cheney
Contraceptive pill our downfall
Widespread introduction of the contraceptive pill to society in the late 1960s brought with it the promise of removal of natural barriers, i.e. undesired pregnancy, to recreational sex.
With natural barriers removed it is not surprising that the incidences of historically infrequent societal dysfunction exploded: promiscuity, premarital and extramarital sex. These in turn have led to epidemics of venereal disease/AIDS, illegitimate births, abortions and child abuse, broken and single families.
The resulting breakdown of the family structure has evolved into troubled schools, drug abuse, unemployment and crime. The government, wealthy foundations and family planning organizations, aided by sympathetic liberal voices in the news and entertainment industries, works to ensure continuance of these societal woes by anti-life judicial tyranny and the delivery of tax-funded contraceptives and abortions.
In the current contraceptive culture, the primacy of selfless love of God and family, the prioritized concepts of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness have been replaced by the priorities of sex, power and money, even at the cost of other human lives. This downward trend has evolved into partial-birth abortions, the resulting growing open market sale of healthy unborn baby parts, the transfer of national security to even more barbaric regimes like China.
Even the pro-life movement will never succeed while there is silence on contraceptive use and its linkage to these societal problems and the abortion holocaust. The pill has been truly Satan’s smart bomb on society’s building block: the family. Mike D. Carpenter Spokane
Children not objects to be used
As parents, we must recognize our children as deserving of our utmost respect. A child is not a possession to be used for our self-serving needs. An adult must not use a child to compensate for their inability to be assertive, for their being weak and ineffectual, when they are unable to take their share of power in the real world or in adult relationships. A child cannot bear an adult’s pain, cannot be expected to provide physical or sexual comfort.
One day the child becomes a threat and is capable of exposing the adult’s dirty secret, and the adult may decide to kill it.
God rest Valiree Jackson’s soul in peace and also those gone before her. Lois Watts Spokane
OTHER TOPICS
Nurses not the service to cut
Re: “Health district nurses question overhead costs” (Nov. 14).
For 15 years, I have worked in Spokane in the human services field, primarily with families experiencing child abuse and neglect issues, and with people with disabilities. I have seen firsthand the devastation caused by the continuing and absurd cuts to programs that serve families, especially the most vulnerable women and children.
Most of these families are the poorest and most isolated. The contact they have with public health nurses often is the only link they have to the social services that do exist. Public health nurses provide the early intervention that can prevent serious health and developmental problems which, if addressed later, would be more expensive or impossible to treat. They provide family intervention which prevents child abuse and neglect or minimizes its impact.
In a year that has had several cases of highly publicized child deaths, the proposal to cut of vital role that these nurses provide is abominable. As administrators argue over the cost of these front line workers, they must ask themselves how much the lives of children are worth and how they will explain away the dead babies and children which will surely result when the safety net public health nurse home visits provide our community is shredded by their “cost-cutting” decisions. Renee A. Hintz Spokane
Russian request hypocritical
The Nov. 11 World in Brief section contains an article entitled, “Russia asks billions for Nazi-era slavery.” Specifically, Russia is requesting $5,400 compensation for each of 450,000 to 500,000 Russians forced to work for Nazi Germany during World War II.
Russia waited until three days before Japan surrendered to declare war on that country. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers surrendered to the Russian military and were interned. Many died during their captivity, and those who survived were not released until the 1950s. Should they not receive compensation for their forced labor?
During the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish treasury was shipped to Russia, where it disappeared. Should Spain not be compensated?
The entire Polish Army officer corps surrendered to Russia in 1939. The Russian government sent about 10,000 of these men to the Kaytn Forest, where they were executed and buried in mass graves. The remaining 40,000 to 50,000 were loaded onto barges, which were sunk in the Baltic. Should Russia not compensate Poland, or at least punish those who committed this atrocity?
Communist Russia was arguably responsible for more human misery than any other government in history. That Russia should now demand this compensation is the height of hypocrisy and should not be taken seriously by any other country, Germany included. George A. Bratina Spokane