Reading breeds success

If you were to count all the books in the homes of the students of a class, and then compare the number of books with how well the student was doing in that class, I bet you would find a high degree of correlation.

We have two cultures ongoing in this country – one respects books and learning, and the other considers them irrelevant with getting on in life. How can a kid whose sole source of reading material is the back of cereal boxes compete with a kid whose house is full of books? Until we can close that divide, we’re not going to solve our problems. Prettier campuses are nice and may help a few kids, but they won’t eradicate the problem.

It’s so much easier to state a problem than find an answer, in all fields.

Ann Echegoyen

Spokane

In “Prescription for disappointment” (Letters, Sept. 18), Heather Wallace says she is a “mother of teenage daughters,” disagrees with a pharmacist making choices based on their beliefs, and believes women are “prepared to take accountability for their bodies when they obtain these medicines listed – birth control, contraceptive (both ovulation prevention methods) and emergency contraception (fertilized ovum/zygote removal). I wonder at her stance, as she seems to equate prevention of cause with removal of effect.

Where is the outrage over not taking accountability before emergency contraception is required? Why does it seem that societies become upset when someone enforces a rule whereby people are held answerable for the consequences of their actions, but then turn around and offer tissue-thin prevention options? This is rather at odds.

Further, if she has a problem with someone functioning in life within the scope of their values, she needs to look in the mirror because her outrage is a direct product of her beliefs by which she lives her life.

Personally, I would rather be able to live my life under the “freedom of religion” right from the Constitution, but that’s just me.

Clifford Phillips

Spokane