On April 6, as my boyfriend was reading aloud the details of the new Fox reality TV show, The Swan, I was silently reading Nicholas Kristof's column about Abakr Aboud, the little boy in Chad who wanders the desert in search of sticks (International labor standards won't help Third World children, but this will).
I wondered how many viewers Fox would garner with a show about this little boy? Forget about therapists, coaches, trainers, dentists and cosmetic surgeons. Let's provide Abakr with healthy meals, a bed, a visit to a doctor, vaccinations, a roof and the opportunity to experience the joys of childhood.
In my opinion, this would be the ultimate in reality programming. I would appreciate the chance to observe a life being truly transformed.
-- Vickie L. Audette, Treasure Island
School busing took its toll, too
Re: Victims of school choice, letter, April 6.
The gentleman who complained about school choice, because his daughters cannot attend their neighborhood school, has little to complain about. The distance between Palm Harbor University High School and Dunedin High is about 6 miles. My family lives in South St. Petersburg. My older brothers went to Osceola High School. The closest school to our house is Gibbs High School. That is a difference of 13 miles! And that was before school choice.
I didn't attend a neighborhood school, or even a close school, until I attended the C.A.T. magnet at Lakewood High School. The closest school I attended before Lakewood was Tyrone Elementary and that was 6 miles away. I was bused more than 6 miles from the time I was in kindergarten until I was in 8th grade. And this man has the nerve to say that his children are "victims." He has no idea what a victim is.
-- Jayson James, St. Petersburg
Truth and sacrifice
My 14-year-old grandson recently interviewed me for a school assignment. A question he asked was what was the difference between what it is like now and what it was like when I was his age. I told him that when I was his age the country was in the midst of World War II. I explained how the whole country was involved and how food, gas and other things were rationed.
His remark was, "That's terrible!" He felt the government was out of line to make us go without the things we wanted and thought we needed. I explained those things were necessary for the war effort. I am not sure he understood.
At his age, 14, I was engaged in teaching town children how to manage the victory gardens a farmer had loaned land for so the town families could grow some of their food. At 15, I took a train from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Richmond, Va., to stay with my brother's wife while he was serving in the Navy in the Atlantic. She worked in a war plant, and I changed my birth certificate from 1929 to 1928 so I could help the war effort, too. Sundays were spent with the family having soldiers and sailors for dinner and listening to their fears and the courage of those young men who were off to war. Many did not come back alive.
The day the war was over, the plant was deserted. Everyone celebrated downtown. My sister, a mess sergeant in the Air Force, was stationed in Dover, Del. She asked me to visit her and travel home with her as she was being discharged. In Dover, I saw planes loaded with wounded and dead soldiers arriving from Europe. One plane after another landing, unloading, refueling and taking off again to bring more of our wounded and dead from the war zones.
I write this because I read in the St. Petersburg Times recently about the outrage because the newspaper dared to print pictures of those killed in Iraq. I wonder what people think war is. Our fellow Americans are being killed and maimed by this war. Are we supposed to ignore what war is? We have an obligation to those who are dying. I question if most of us have any idea what's going on or want to know what price is being paid. I realize these pictures were not of our fighters, but because our government is blocking newsmen from getting the stories is that any reason for us to keep our eyes shut and our ears covered. Shouldn't we be suffering a little along with those who are there in our place? My grandson should know what the cost is. He is a few years from the age of soldiers who are there. There is no glamor in war.
I say stop and take time to treat with compassion those who are paying the ultimate price. It's war, folks. It's not pretty but it is the truth and that is what real newspapers are all about. Not to make us feel good, but to tell the truth.
-- Vivian Quantz, St. Petersburg
Very little has changed
Fifteen years ago, on Feb. 6, 1989, you published a letter I wrote, U.S. a nation with potential for disaster. This is what it said:
"Are we better off than we were eight years ago when President Reagan took office? Perhaps many of us are, but I see a nation with the potential for disaster.
"A massive federal deficit; a mushrooming drug epidemic; deterioration of nuclear plants and the problem of nuclear waste; pollution of the environment; poisoning of waters; destruction of wetlands; a deplorable balance of payments; the impending crisis of Third World debt; a failed educational system, particularly in the inner cities; a widening rift between the "haves' and the "have-nots'; severe unemployment among many segments of our society; the suffering of the homeless, the abused, the victims of crime, bigotry and intolerance; a lack of affordable housing; degeneration of our roads and bridges; urban and suburban roads approaching gridlock; an erosion of ethics among public and private officials; skyrocketing costs of medical and dental services; the "fruits' of deregulation: escalating phone bills, lower standards of airline safety, etc., scandals in government procurement.
"This is but a partial list. President Reagan refuses to accept the blame for these problems, but they did start or escalate on his "watch.' President Bush is naive if he thinks state and local governments, the private sector or 1,000 points of light will solve these problems, without a substantial financial contribution by the federal government."
Fifteen years later, very little has changed. We still have a massive federal deficit, a failed educational system, a widening rift between the "haves" and "have-nots," and severe unemployment among many segments of our society. In addition to these problems, we have a war costing billions of dollars plus the lives of many of our youth, as well as escalating hatred by many countries around the world. Isn't it time to find solutions to these problems?
-- Sol Helfand, New Port Richey
A biased view of heart treatments
Re: Quick fixes for heart may not be best medicine, April 4.
It is unfortunate that your article failed to give a truly balanced view of the benefits of cardiac catheterization and modern invasive approaches to heart disease. As a practicing cardiologist for 25 years, I have witnessed tremendous progress in heart surgery, catheter-based treatments for blocked arteries and noninvasive and preventive therapies alike. In fact, the patient example, Maria Rizzi, seemed by the description of her heart problem to be an ideal candidate for coronary artery stenting as the treatment of choice for her angina. Unfortunately, the article never let the reader conclude if she benefited by the therapy in terms of pain relief.
Herein lies the crux of the matter. Heart surgery, balloon angioplasty and, moreover, intracoronary artery stenting (invasive approaches to relieving blocked arteries) offer more relief of angina and return to a more active lifestyle than noninvasive or medical therapy in most patients. Repeated studies in multivessel coronary artery disease, in fact, have shown much better times on treadmill stress tests following heart surgery than medical therapy. In patients who have blockages of all three arteries over the heart, or the main artery, or are female and have diabetes, we have known for a long time that open-heart surgery improves survival. This is not a small number of patients. In other subsets of patients, the benefits have to do more with improved lifestyle, return to work and exercise capacity than survival or decreased incidence of heart attacks.
As the article points out, most heart attacks and incidents of sudden cardiac death occur as a result of an "unstable" blockage of less than 60 percent. These patients generally are not candidates for invasive treatment. Thus, to point out that "... U.S. heart attack patients undergo angioplasty and bypass seven times more often than patients in Canada and Sweden. But their death rates are virtually identical" raises the question of which patients have a more complete recovery and return to normal lifestyle after a heart attack.
Likewise, the article says that "... bypass prolongs life only for the most critically ill patients" without quoting a source for these comments or relevant studies or statistics. The number who benefit in survival alone is likely in the hundreds of thousands. Similarly, to say that "... drugs often provide the same benefit (of pain relief) at less cost and risk" is unsubstantiated and flies in the face of results from repeated large-scale clinical patient trials.
It is a shame that such a biased point of view was given to the readership of the St. Petersburg Times, and a chance was lost to objectively educate the public as a result.
-- David M. Mokotoff, M.D., St. Petersburg founder, Bay Area Heart Center, Gulfport
A crowded trough
Re: A high-voltage retirement, April 3.
Your editorial is on target, but it didn't go back far enough. In the Times Business section of your March 20, 2002, edition, Robert Trigaux mentions Dick Korpan and his lavish retirement package. He also was carrying on a tradition! In the same column, Trigaux mentions Korpan's predecessor, Jack Critchfield. Here's the paragraph:
"Critchfield soon retired, receiving $644,009 a year for the rest of his life. Though he worked for the company only 15 years, Critchfield was credited with 35 years of service, which sharply increased the size of his pension. When he dies, his younger wife, Mary, will receive $489,104 annually for the rest of her life."
So, Bill Cavanaugh is at least the third CEO "pig at the trough" at Florida Progress! Remember this the next time they request another rate increase!
-- Gerry Lembke, St. Petersburg
Juries should understand their power
Re: From painkillers to prison, editorial, April 5.
It could not possibly be with a clear and sober mind that a jury would convict a suffering man for nothing more than trying to ease his pain unless the jury was simply unaware of its right to nullify the law in certain circumstances. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution or in any Supreme Court decision requires jurors to take an oath to follow the law as the judge explains it or, for that matter, authorizes the judge to "instruct" the jury at all.
Judges provide their interpretation of the law, but jurors may do their own thinking. Understanding the context in which an illegal act was committed is essential to deciding whether a defendant acted rightly or wrongly. Strict application of the law may produce a guilty verdict, but what about justice? If jurors agree that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused did act as charged, then context becomes everything in reaching a verdict each juror can live with.
When a jury believes justice requires it, the jury can refuse to apply the law. Jurors even have the power to consider whether a law itself is wrong and can refuse to apply any law that violates their conscience. And when the state brings multiple charges against a defendant, as it often does so that the jury assumes that the defendant must be guilty of something, a vote of "not guilty" can be submitted on all counts.
-- Ted Mazzarese, Largo
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