News

Principal should have known plagiarism is a serious thing

Re: "Sunscreen" speech rings familiar, June 3.

Letters to the Editor
Published June 7, 2005

---

I cannot begin to describe how disgusted I felt when I read this story. It is impossible for me to fathom how anyone can get through college and not understand what plagiarism is, and how seriously it is taken.

Springstead High School principal Susan Duval's excuses clearly indicate her lack of understanding what plagiarism means. Anyone can commit plagiarism. It is not limited to students' graded work. Plus, articles on the Internet have authors, too. Just because she found it on the Internet doesn't mean that no one wrote it. How does she think it got there?

Finally, it is distressing that on such an auspicious occasion a Hernando County school principal cannot find her own words to address the students who have been under her guidance.

-- Melissa Russell, St. Petersburg

Setting a bad example

Re: "Suncreen" speech rings familiar.

If principal Susan Duval bases all her conduct on whether or not she will be officially graded on it, she is setting a poor example for young people everywhere. First, she lifts a speech off the Internet and represents it as her own without attribution to any source. Then, when she is confronted about her behavior, she sees no analogy between it and that of a student who commits plagiarism.

It's just another sad example of adults failing to take responsibility for their actions, made all the sadder by the position of influence she holds with our youth.

-- Rebecca L. Connelly, St. Petersburg

A rare show of rational discourse

Re: Fearful of change, the Europeans just say no, by David Brooks; Let's get over it already, by Charles Krauthammer; and The military we don't see, by Frank Schaeffer, June 3.

-- May wonders never cease! The Times actually had three columnists out of four honestly depicting opinions that offer rational discourse.

In case you might not know: Your readership is deeply divided. There are days I want to cancel my subscription, I am so offended by articles from the Associated Press, with just parts of a story - never the truth, the whole truth; from the New York Times, which you so slavishly and consistently reprint; and from the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe . All are slanted to brainwash readers to their political viewpoints. Journalists, I have been told, are to report the news, not make the news.

When a headline causes me to question its validity, I immediatedly look to see its source before reading it. I know immediately, as many of us do, that we'd better qualify the content and check with others to determine if we are being misled. Fortunately, the days when our only sources were the daily newspaper are over.

-- Shirley Mellecker, New Port Richey

A fair and balanced effort

Re: June 3 columns.

As a liberal myself, I am always amused when readers accuse the Times' of pushing its liberal views. On mornings when the opinion pages feature the ridiculous views of Charles Krauthammer or David Brooks, I wonder if the Times isn't trying too hard to be "fair and balanced."

Fair is one thing, but publishing Krauthammer's opinion on how justified the Bush team is for keeping prisoners at Guantanamo Bay goes too far. A recent article by Paul Craig Roberts tells that in response to our military offering money for captured al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, warlords there simply rounded up a bunch of Arab looking males and "sold them to the Americans as captured fighters." Does anyone really know if any of the prisoners at Gitmo have ever posed a threat to Americans of any kind?

Brooks thinks that the Europeans have much to learn from us that could help their economies. The only thing they could learn from us is to shake off their aversion to burying themselves in debt. Most Europeans would never think to max out their credit cards and pay them off with equity cash outs on their homes.

At least you balanced things out by including some sanity from Molly Ivins. She pointed out how Bush strives to protect life and oppose abortion. That is only natural. It's right there, among other teachings like turning the other cheek, not bearing false witness, loving those who hate you and not being advocates of the rich.

Thankfully the Times has the courage to show us what being "fair and balanced" really looks like!

-- Bob Wood, Clearwater

Lawmaker's twisted scheme

Re: Forecast for a fee, June 1.

This editorial clearly illustrates that special interests have too much influence on our representatives. Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has come up with a mindless scheme to benefit a company that is a major contributor to his election campaigns.

I will be blunt: Our representatives are clearly being bought off. I don't mean this in a euphemistic way. I mean that they are literally for sale to the highest bidder.

The National Weather Service is a federally funded entity. I pay tax dollars to fund its operation. Why would anyone think that giving information to a private company to then be sold by the private company to the public is in the best interest of the public? It is not in the best interest of the public. It is only in the best interest of Rep. Santorum's campaign backers.

-- Nikolaus Rolfe, St. Petersburg

Focus on role of the adults

Re: What to do if 7-year-old boy killed half sister? June 2.

My question is: Why were the boy's father and father's girlfriend outside the house while this appalling crime was committed? Why was a 7-year-old left alone in a house near a 7-month-old infant? He says part of the reason he struck the baby so often and so hard was that he was annoyed by her crying. And he had resented the attention given her in his presence.

Didn't the adults outside hear the crying? Didn't they feel the need to come into the house to tend to the baby? In other words, why weren't they supervising the young children in their care? The story barely mentions them. Yet they are the people about whom the law should be thinking.

-- Abigail Ann Martin, Brandon

With chemicals we trust

Re: The essence of trust? It's chemical, study says, June 2.

Now that researchers have discovered that the hormone oxytocin is capable of stimulating people to irrationally trust others, I'm sure we can all look forward to some persuasive aromatherapy in public places in the near future. While I'm not sure I'd mind having my anxiety alleviated at the dentist by virtue of my unwavering trust in her skill, I'm not sure I'd appreciate paroxysms of blind faith while in a new car showroom, window shopping, or at a political rally. (And it will only be a matter of time before a new designer men's cologne, "Trust," appears at fragrance counters everywhere ...)

In the meantime, I'm eagerly awaiting the discovery of a substance to stimulate skepticism.

-- Leslie Black, Clearwater

[Last modified June 7, 2005, 08:39:05]