Home | Opinion
Contra Costa Times letters
Letters from our readers
May 11, 2008
As the Contra Costa County superintendent of schools, it's Joe Ovick's business to know the facts and figures of all of the school district budgets in the county. He clearly warned about financial problems in his commentary in the Times.
A rebuttal, "Ovick is wrong," by Ken Hambrick was not only wrong, but slanted against providing money for schools.
Unfortunately, facts and figures are not as persuasive as emotion. All you have to do is look at what's happening to our schools to know they are in financial trouble.
Are you a teacher who received a pink slip because the school can't afford to keep you? If you are gone, your students will be doubled-up in larger classes.
Are you a parent asked to help pay for some of the activities or classes your child is in? We should all be responsible since we all reap the benefits.
The governor's proposed budget means children will not have the advantages you had. When you were in school, California provided a larger percentage of personal income to education than it does now. Academic excellence cannot be achieved without resources. Ovick was right. What can you do to help?
Alpha Quincy
Lafayette
Quincy is a former teacher, school principal, county board of education member and state curriculum commissioner.
Re-elect Piepho
Thank you for the well-deserved editorial endorsement of Mary Nejedly Piepho for re-election to the county Board of Supervisors.
She is a hard-working, no-nonsense person. She is open-minded and listens carefully, yet is fearless when it is time to make a decision. Her integrity and sense of duty caused her to pass up an opportunity for higher office because she feels there is more work to be done for her constituents in District 3.
With the fiscal crisis facing the county, we badly need her leadership on the Board of Supervisors. Your editorial reminded me of the many reasons I admire Piepho and why she deserves re-election. Thank you again.
Peter Hellmann
Clayton
Tough budget cuts
I feel that the budget cuts in Contra Costa County are huge right now. Budget cuts tend to affect everyone regardless of their income and place in society.
Health benefits are being cut, teachers are being laid off, union workers are losing jobs, education and child services are being put to an end.
The most secure things in our county are being taken away from us and now people are being asked to find a way to live normally.
You cannot provide for your needs without a job. You cannot succeed with poor education. Some people cannot survive without health benefits.
These budget cuts have affected many people and those who choose to stand up and voice their opinion are ignored and treated as though there is no point in attending a council meeting because they have no part in it.
As we all sit back during continuing budget cuts and layoffs, we must realize that we are all in a bad seat. Everyone suffers; everyone is in a vulnerable state.
Devin Kala
Pittsburg
Feds created jobs
Ella Jensen, in her letter titled, "Killing good jobs," wrote nostalgically about Richmond in 1942, when her parents came from Louisiana to work in the shipyards.
She mentioned the Ford plant, Standard Oil and American Radiator, among others, as providing good jobs.
Jensen bemoaned government's role in killing good, private-sector jobs.
I find her letter very ironic because all those good jobs in 1942, not only in Richmond but nationwide, were created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the military-industrial complex.
The shipyards built war ships, the Ford plant built tanks, American Radiator built their radiators and Standard Oil provided petroleum products for them and the war planes, all built for the lend-lease program to Britain, starting before America entered World War II.
So, our government created all those good jobs.
In 1942, I was 12-years-old, living in a small Iowa town. My father's job was to keep all the machinery running in the local overall factory. Farmers needed overalls, even during the Depression.
But we were poor until the factory got government contracts for military uniforms. The Great Depression was over!
Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, "No Ordinary Time," is most enlightening about that era.
Marion A. McIntire
Richmond
Caged hens' misery
In your recent farm animals' article, I was saddened to see one absurdity ("It's not clear whether letting hens stretch their wings would actually improve the birds' lives") and many lies attributed to egg farmer Arnold Riebli.
Your story was about the proposed ballot initiative, which would lessen the intense, lifelong suffering of veal calves, battery-caged hens, and sows.
What was UC Davis professor Joy Mench smoking that caused her to state battery cages keep hens healthier? Hens in intense confinement can't cannibalize one another because their beaks are cut with a hot iron when they're just born!
The feces Riebli said hens don't stand on falls from above and through to the floor many levels below, where those hens who fall into it die. It falls through because the floors are wire. The wire floor is angled so eggs forced from their poor bodies roll into a trough. Also, the hens' feet become crippled over time or attached to that wire.
Intense confinement of sentient beings, such as these, has been likened to an eternal Treblinka. It's a national shame and debases those working among the horrors of these conditions.
This is bad reporting. Get facts at www.upc-online.org.
Cynthia Burke
Richmond
Cutting commentary
The commentary by Roger Moore, "No Intelligence allowed in 'Expelled'" was appalling. The creationist bashing, cutting attitude of the author toward those who question Darwinism, is exactly the same kind of discrimination this documentary sheds light on. Ben Stein rests his case!
I had a career as a scientist and am currently a science educator. I am experiencing discrimination such as this movie presents and know a number of Ph.D. scientists who are as well.
None of us needed a documentary to sucker us into thinking there is academic prejudice. Furthermore, I occasionally enter debates.
I always know I am winning the debate when the opponent begins harshly attacking my character simply because there is nothing left to argue. Moore and others who are criticizing Stein are doing the same.
Stein is accused of using "disgruntled, under-credentialed academics dismissed from lesser colleges" as examples of those being discriminated against.
That is purely nothing more than the opinion of the commentator, no doubt due to his prejudice which speaks loud and clear in his writing.
The continued rhetoric of Stein-bashing could have been replaced with credible examples or evidence of how Stein might have been dishonest. Yet, none is given.
Sarah Walsh
Concord
Copyright 2008
Powered By Zebra Mobile