How vulnerable we are! New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, energy secretary during the Clinton administration, said last week's blackout underscored the need for Congress to require national standards for the reliability of the electric power system. Why this has not been formally addressed by the powers in office now, or during the previous administration, is a question that demands an answer.
How vulnerable we are is now a certainty, and action must be undertaken to protect our nation from this weakness. If this scenario was not yet on the terrorists' list of possible actions, you may rest assured that it now will be.
The loss of electric power is vital to many important systems providing us with daily, mundane needs as well as many emergency needs: elevators, automatic doors, water pumps, emergency medical equipment, etc. The magnitude of the problem cannot be denied, and the ease with which a metropolis may become paralyzed must no longer be ignored. If it is recognized that the existing system is overtaxed and undermanned, and that the current transmission lines are deemed inadequate, why has this problem not been approached? Our government spends billions of dollars on out-of-country projects. Isn't it time to look after our own needs?
After power is restored, we must not remain complacent about the shortcomings that are readily acknowledged by those supervising the system. Being aware and doing nothing to compensate is tantamount to criminality. Congress should follow Gov. Bill Richardson's lead and get us on our own two feet by providing a system that is not only independent of others, but also a reliable one.
-- Orfeo Trombetta, Seminole
Power and overpopulation
Re: What caused this mess? Aug. 15.
Causes of the power failure in the Northeast can be found in the words: modernization, overpopulation, global warming, big business and government.
Modernization: We have one of the most modern societies in the world today, which translates into the buying and using of modern appliances and gadgets which consume energy, mostly electricity.
Overpopulation: The 2002 Census Bureau estimates our population at 288,368,698. The U.S. projected growth for the year 2025 is a whopping 393,883,000 people. Overpopulation results in more and more people using energy for our modern devices. Congress seems to have no interest in controlling the growth of our population.
Global warming: Warming of the earth is the result of the overpopulation's use of products, including automobiles, that consume much of the energy produced by polluting industries.
Big business: The politics of governments, especially ours, are influenced by fat-cat big businesses which through their lobbyists, control government action or inaction. The electrical power grid lacked action for modernization.
Government: Our government failed to control the design of the electrical power grid throughout the country, but rather left it to the power companies. Congress seems to have no interest in controlling the growth of our population. Nearly every threat to our quality of life is due to one chief cause: mass immigration.
-- C.J. Bjornberg, Clearwater
The president's an impediment
On Aug. 14, as reported on BuzzFlash.com and elsewhere, the president stated that we have time to examine the grid and determine whether or not it needs to be modernized. "I happen to think it does and have said so all along."
In June of 2001 Democratic Rep. Sam Farr of California added an amendment to the appropriations bill to provide $350-million worth of loans to energy companies to modernize the nation's power grid. The White House lobbied against the amendment and the GOP controlled House voted it down three separate times, first in the Appropriations Committee then in the House Rules Committee and finally on the floor of the house.
As we all know, our president wouldn't lie. He must have just forgotten.
-- Neil A. Hilmer, Weeki Wachee
New York shows its class
I was shocked, initially, when my daughter decided to do her Master's thesis at Columbia in New York City. I was more shocked to hear that she and her father were one hour south of New York City in a rental truck when the power went off! I knew this move was disastrous - but I had a lot to learn.
I have been in constant contact with my daughter and husband, via cell phone, and I am truly astounded at the warmth and welcome they have witnessed, and received, during this trying time. No one is fighting for food, there is no road rage over dead traffic lights and people of that city are out trying to help the less fortunate cope with this disaster. People on the street are not shouting blame - they'll save that for the politicians - and most of the conversations seem to revolve around thankfulness for the electricity that New Yorkers share most of the time.
Take heed, Iraq: America, and especially our most international city, New York, shows compassion, intelligence and true class, during challenging times. Thanks, New York, for welcoming my daughter into a truly great town.
-- Nancy Hart, Clearwater
No corporal punishment in schools
Re: Support for smack on bottom, Aug. 13.
I hate to break it to Hillsborough School Board member Jennifer Faliero, but most of the children who misbehave to the point of needing the sheriff to intervene get beaten regularly at home by parents and guardians who have poor parenting skills. These parents are not going to care if their children get paddled at school and are not going to change the way they respond to their children's behavior.
I was paddled in the seventh grade for having called a boy who was sexually harassing me a mild curse word. The boy was not penalized, but I was told I did not respond in a "lady-like" way. All I learned from that was that the people in charge are not always the most qualified.
If the schools can't teach children ways to respond to problems without resorting to violence, who will? This is one parent who believes that corporal punishment should not be administered in our public schools.
-- Susan Hopper, Tampa
It's better to work with children
Re: Support for smack on bottom.
It is far easier to hit a child than to do the more difficult work of making a conceptual change in how we educate our children. As long as we have classrooms based on fear as the motivator for achievement and acceptable behavior, and as long as we have the goal of "Leave no child behind," and its less spoken of but real twin, "Let no child get too far ahead," we maintain environments in which children fail - and some of them respond to that by "cursing and screaming after he had been thrown out of class," as Melanie Ave's story described a recent situation.
In schools I developed and ran beginning in 1970 in Florida, we used trust and a respect for children's desire to learn, and looked first to what changes we needed to make in the environment if a child was having problems. As a result, we had no problem children, even in those who came because they had failed elsewhere. Instead, we had high achievers. But our purpose was different. That is what we really wanted, and so we worked with children, not against them, to achieve that.
-- Brooks Mitchell, Tampa
Understanding the Bible
Re: Contradictions abound, letter, Aug. 14.
The letter writer's view that the Bible is full of errors is apparently not shared by thousands of well-educated Christians. Perhaps she ought to wonder why. Her use of Scripture indicates that she herself is not well-informed.
Many Old Testament laws were intended to be temporary. They served a limited purpose while Israel existed in the land as a theocracy. Dietary laws are on that list. Some precepts were modified when Israel entered the Promised Land. Others were modified or eliminated entirely in New Testament times. Teaching about homosexuality, by the way, is consistent from the first to the last books of the Bible (Genesis 19; Romans 1:18-28; Jude 1:7). Perhaps the letter writer would benefit by joining one of the in-depth Bible-study classes offered throughout the area.
-- Karen Y. Davis, Clearwater
Don't distort church practice
Re: Gay marriage is old hat, letter, Aug. 14.
The assertion that "gay marriage is old hat," is based on a limited and prejudiced interpretation of the facts, and distorts the practice and teaching of the Orthodox Church by implying that the early church's services were designed to bless same-sex marriages.
The writings of John Boswell on this issue have been shown to be based on shoddy scholarship. The assertion that animals of different sorts might have practiced something like homosexual acts is hardly an argument in support of human behavior, or the dignity of marriage.
The most mistaken assertion is that "marriages" between persons of the same sex took place both in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. What is mistakenly characterized as marriage is in fact a service for the making of brothers or sisters, known originally in Greek as "Adelphopoieia." This was a wide-spread custom from primitive cultures to ancient Greeks and Romans, and practiced widely in the Near East. The practice created family relationships, in a way that people of many different situations in life selected people with whom they and their families could become related. The service referred to in the letter in Jacques Goar's Prayer Book is precisely known as "On the Making of Spiritual Brothers." It is true that the prayers in this service commemorated Saints Sergius and Bacchus, but a spiritual relationship between saints is not logically translated into an argument for same-sex marriage.
The church often has adopted practices from the cultures in which it finds itself, and sanctified them through its prayers. It is also possible for some people to hijack a custom of making another person a spiritual relative, and mistakenly interpreting it as a same-sex marriage. But that doesn't make it so. It would not be possible for the Orthodox or Roman Catholic churches to bless a relationship which from biblical times, through history in church rules and the teaching of church fathers and mothers, was called sinful.
It is not unreasonable to assume that some persons misused the practice to create a same-sex homosexual union, but as soon as this began to happen, the church prohibited its clergy from conducting the service any more. Goar's book referred to by the letter writer, in its 1730 second edition notes in a footnote that the practice had been abolished. Honesty demands that the truth be affirmed.
-- Rev. Stanley S. Harakas, Th.D., D.D., Spring Hill
It was in God's hands
I don't know anything about Mel Gibson's movie The Passion, so I'm not able to comment on it. What I don't understand is all the hate and blame for the Jewish people for Christ's crucifixion. Doesn't anyone understand this was God's decision? The Jews are God's chosen people and, after all, Jesus was Jewish. His sole purpose was to shed his blood, on the cross, to save all of us from "death" and to enjoy eternal life with the one true God. Jesus knew this was his purpose. He could have asked God to stop it or God could have done so at any time. So it was God, not the Jews who had Christ crucified. And I thank God for it.
-- Dolores Rosener, Dunedin
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