Today's Letters: Troubled youths could learn a lot by working on a farm
By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published October 27, 2007
Boot camps, established to teach wayward boys discipline, have been closed in Florida due to the death of one of the boys at a camp.
I don't believe discipline can be pushed into a youth. But young people can be coaxed to accept responsibility and acquire discipline even if some regimentation is involved. I believe a better system would be for them to be placed on a working farm with a minimum of regimentation and professional guidance.
For one thing, they will learn where groceries really come from and how hard it is to produce this produce. They will learn that milk comes from a warm animal and not a cold box or plastic bottle. And if they are required to milk that cow, they may become attached to it as they probably will with a horse they can ride and do things with that they can't do with a souped-up car. They will also learn that the animals need to be fed on a routine basis and it is their responsibility to perform this chore.
These youthful residents will be farmers and eat in a kitchen where the food is cooked and smelled, and they'll be so tired at night their bed will be a delight.
Nobody can walk in a field freshly plowed and not feel invigorated.
I'm not an old farmer, but I am older than most reading this and my thinking is based solely on this fact: I have never heard or read of a farmer robbing a bank or a farm kid kicking in a door to steal a six-pack.
Cost? Probably less than if the boy robbed a bank and as a result was sent to jail for the rest of his life. And this doesn't include the cost to the victim or victims of the crime.
Hartley Steeves, Tampa
Misguided help and Make them give backOct. 23, letters
Misconceptions plague thinking on the homeless
These letter writers reflect major misconceptions about what causes homelessness and who becomes homeless. A 2005 report by the Florida Department of Children and Families found that 39 percent of the homeless have jobs and 18 percent work full-time and still cannot afford a place to live. More than a third are children, and 8 percent are over 60 years old. The number of homeless in Florida tripled between 1991 and 2004, much of it in response to rapidly rising costs of housing in the state. This information was collected before the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, and before the real estate boom caused huge increases in housing prices and large-scale evictions due to condo conversions and redevelopment. The discrepancy between wages and rent in Florida has grown enormously in the past few years.
Few people choose to live on the street, especially in a mean place like Florida, where hooligans assault and sometimes kill them.
The woman who complained that she works two jobs and still lives paycheck to paycheck needs to worry that she too could easily fall into this condition. An illness, job loss, fire or other interruption in housing tenure, or many other unforeseen difficulties, could cause homelessness. Many hard-working people believe that they are somehow different from the people who are profiled in stories like the one last week in Lakeland, or the tent city residents of St. Petersburg. If you have a low income, you are vulnerable, regardless of your work ethic or family values.
This problem is mainly about low wages, costly housing and inadequate educational and health care services. Demonizing the victims will not address these underlying causes, but it can distract us from finding real solutions.
Susan Greenbaum, Temple Terrace
NASA withheld startling survey Oct. 23, story
NASA a safety hazard
We, the weary passengers, have patiently (for the most part) tolerated cramped seating, grumpy airline personnel, delayed or unpredictably cancelled flights and being held hostage for countless hours in airplanes awaiting takeoff. But to ask us to accept compromised safety? No way! Enough is enough.
It galls me no end to know that a federal agency funded by our tax dollars has the temerity to order the destruction (purging) of pilot reports indicating that our presumed safety in the sky is actually an accident waiting to happen. What was the purpose of funding a study to create methods of tracking safety trends if there was no will or money to correct the problems?
NASA's rationale for this stance, that it could make the public fearful and would upset air travelers and would hurt airline profits is exactly the screwy reasoning we have come to expect from this agency. If the airlines are worried about their bottom line had the results of the survey been published, how about the cost of lawsuits when an airplane crash occurs and the public discovers that NASA had hidden the concerns of the pilots? As the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi said, "It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge."
I urge the St. Petersburg Times and other news media to continue to follow this story and report on the results of the congressional investigation that is under way. The suppression of this survey was a serious ethical breach on behalf of NASA's administration. We can no longer tolerate being "protected" by our government; it could be hazardous to our safety.
Diana Rao, Tampa
Bullying costs school $4M Oct. 23, story
Bullying is simply criminal
Personality, self-esteem, composure, security, peace of mind, positive attitude, sense of humor, hope, courage - these are all intellectual assets. They have dollar value. They have extrinsic and intrinsic value.
Bullying, intimidation, harassment, assault, ridicule, malicious rumors, name-calling, etc., work at eroding and eventual disintegration and destruction of this valuable inventory of individual capital.
Anyone who initiates, orchestrates or participates in the brutal destruction of such costly and hard-won personal assets should face criminal charges and be required to pay costs to restore the assets stolen or destroyed. The same goes for those in authority who knowingly fail to defend such victims. Mental health care is very costly.
Victims will continue to use their own weapons in a search for justice until our officials, schools and the media "weaponize" the words that accurately articulate such assaults.
"Bullying" is a anachronistic euphemism that minimizes the criminal nature and both the psychological and financial costs resulting from these brutal assaults.
It's a euphemism that has turned what was a history of violence perpetrated by stronger students against weaker ones into a tradition of violence.
Students who have been victims of daily acts of subtle and overt terrorism for so long and without any relief may eventually retaliate with their own acts of terror.
Daniel P. Quinn, St. Petersburg
Stage star Oct. 21, story
Florida Orchestra slighted
Judith Lisi is to be commended for bringing Broadway shows to the Tampa Bay area, and for building a highly lucrative entertainment center in the process.
However, the purpose of a performing arts center is not only to turn a profit, but primarily to promote the arts. This goal has not been achieved.
This season there are no classical music groups on the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's schedule other than Lisi's beloved operas.
There are no solo artists, no chamber groups, no symphony orchestras - other than, of course, the Florida Orchestra. Lisi acknowledged that the treatment of the Florida Orchestra has been a failure. The orchestra, the cultural gem of the area, is constantly struggling in to sustain itself as are many regional orchestras. It receives minimal assistance from Lisi and company. Forced to make way for other, more profitable performances at the center, it frequently must play in the smaller theater, which is inadequate for a symphony orchestra. Two of the concerts this year will not be performed at TBPAC at all, only in St. Petersburg and Clearwater. This orchestra has been in existence longer than Lisi has been here; it also performs services to the community including music in the schools and free concerts in the parks. Lisi insists the Broadway shows must take priority because they pay the bills. Well, maybe in these times of reduced funding for cultural organizations like the Florida Orchestra, it behooves the center to be more generous and creative in sharing some of the bounty from the Broadway program.
Judy Moore, Lutz
A right to health care - and a price Oct. 23, commentary
A half-solution isn't enough
As a universal health care supporter, I feel bad criticizing former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill for going only halfway.
But O'Neill's proposal for "universal catastrophic care" is flawed. Simply put, making people continue to pay for basic health care will lead to perverse results.
For a market to work, costs and benefits must be visible. But the benefits of basic care are often invisible. So, if catastrophic care is "free" (paid through taxes) but basic care isn't, guess what happens? Simple: People skimp on basic care, resulting in higher demand for (much more expensive) catastrophic care.
Our unwillingness to acknowledge this has proved very costly. Today we spend thousands more per person than Canadians with "single payer," yet we receive inferior care.
So the choice is ours: We can keep our market myths or pay taxes for decent, affordable health care. But we cannot do both.
Steve Dubb, Tampa
Thompson: Right-to-die up to family Oct. 23, story
A logical position
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson says "the family should decide" in cases like Terri Schiavo's. Surely the same logic should apply to decisions on an abortion.
J. R. Marr, Largo
Put America back to work
I live about 7 miles from the nearest Home Depot. I bought a set of large garden shears that, when I got home to use, just wouldn't cut anything. I drove the 14-mile round-trip to return them and looked in Lowe's and a hardware store to try to find a pair made in the U.S.A. No luck, so I went home empty-handed.
Let's hope we never go to war with China. I can just see us asking them to ship us more uniforms and equipment for our GIs.
I am fed up with paying premium prices for the imported junk on our store shelves. Let's demand quality products made with pride by Americans. Let's put America back to work! My mother still has and uses a GE toaster she bought in the 1950s. How many toasters have you owned?
Tim Watson, New Port Richey
Holocaust's other victims Oct. 21, story
Diminishing history
A Holocaust "revisionist," unlike a Holocaust denier (the president of Iran, for example), retells history from a different slant that, purposefully or not, diminishes the crime that the Nazis perpetrated upon the Jews.
The Jan Komski artwork shown with Sherri Day's article as a demonstration of Polish victimhood was displayed at the Florida Holocaust Museum. It is unfortunate and gives weight to the assertion in the story by Anthony Cheslock that both the state museum and local school systems have given short shrift to the portrayal of Polish Catholics in the Holocaust.
As someone who has been trained as a museum docent (my only affiliation), I know that we were not trained to speak in terms of numbers - for example, the fact that out of the 5-million non-Jews murdered, over 70 percent were Soviet POWs - as statistics diminish the humanity of each precious life taken in the name of hate.
However, the Holocaust "story" is centered around Jews. Poles were killed by the Nazis - most notably intellectuals, priests, doctors, lawyers, newsmen, basically any "leader" - in order to advance the Nazi attempt to create a slavish subservient class in occupied territory. This is similar to the African experience in the United States, or the Judeo-Christian experience under the Pharoahs. Unlike those experiences, Jews were slated for extermination, under Nazi doctrine and practice, because the Nazis considered them "subhuman" and despoilers of the human species. Extermination meant all Jews; over 1.5-million children were murdered.
The narrative of the Poles during the Nazi regime is closely tied to the Jews' experience. Florida Holocaust Museum docents correctly highlight the many heroes or "upstanders," including many Polish Catholics and Catholic clergy who risked and oftentimes found death in order to save Jews. The museum, in fact, has a separate exhibit that honors them.
However, intertwined in that uplifting history is another history of Poland and the Nazis that is central to the factual understanding of the Holocaust. The historical fact is that more than half of all Jews who were murdered by the Nazis were killed in Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were systematically starved in the centers of Polish cities and towns (for example, the Warsaw Ghetto) while the surrounding Polish citizenry continued their lives, some actually enriching themselves by the Jews' plight. Virtually every Pole witnessed trainloads full of Jews heading east and empty trainloads heading west for the entire time Poland was under Nazi domination. There were crematoria within "smelling distance" of hundreds of thousands of Poles, where the unmistakable stench of burning human flesh was in the air 24/7 for years. Some Polish Catholics helped, and they were heroes that are honored. However, the vast majority of people simply stood by and watched in silent witness to systematic murder.
For this very reason, Elie Wiesel wisely wrote, "The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference." This is the unmistakable, primary lesson that the Holocaust experience teaches us about the human condition. If we deny the Holocaust, or revise it to "Hitler vs. The World" of which Jews were one group among other groups of victims, we will lose this lesson and some of our humanity.
Lou Gerber, Belleair Beach
Republicans on the attack Oct. 22, story
Touting the second tier
Kudos to Jennifer Liberto's fine article on the Republican debate in Orlando. It was a very even-handed treatment of the candidates. I especially appreciated the picture of Mike Huckabee alongside Rudy Giuliani on the front page of the Times. As a Huckabee supporter, I realize you could have chosen any of the "better-known" candidates on the front page. Such coverage of a "second-tier" candidate is rare and refreshing.
Scott J. Mahurin, St. Petersburg
Protesters liken Anderson to Till Oct. 24, story
Comparison misses mark
Although I agree that Martin Anderson, who died at a Florida boot camp, may not have received impartial justice, I am disappointed that his family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, would liken his death to that of Emmett Till.
Emmett was 14 years old, was savagely beaten to death and thrown into the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. All of that was done because of a "slight" to a white woman. The facts of his death should stand alone.
Emmett Till's story is a lesson of evil and brutal racism; Martin Anderson's story is a lesson of a flawed legal system.
John Caton, St. Petersburg
Candidate replies
These are responses from candidates for St. Petersburg City Council who were not recommended by the Times.
District 7
Wengay Newton
I'm Wengay "Newt" Newton and I'm running for St. Petersburg City Council.
I want to be your City Council member so I can be your neighborhood advocate and protect essential health and safety services for you and your loved ones. We also must improve services for our seniors and our youth in all neighborhoods.
As president of the Westminster Heights Neighborhood Association, I helped improve our community to a place where we want to live and raise our children. I want to help all neighborhoods of our great city. That's why other neighborhood associations support me.
I was born and raised in St. Petersburg and attended our city's schools. I married the love of my life, Melissa Newton, 17 years ago. God has blessed us with four beautiful children.
I'm not a politician. But I am my neighbor's keeper.
I want to make sure you receive the essential services you need for your health, safety and well-being. From police protection and paramedic assistance, to putting out dangerous fires, I'll make sure these life-saving services are maintained in your neighborhoods.
That's why the police, firefighters and paramedics have endorsed me for City Council.
These dedicated professionals are not politicians, but public servants who put their lives on the line every day, and they want nothing more than to protect and serve us.
You can elect someone to the City Council who represents the people, not the politicians.
I want to serve you, and only you, the residents of St. Petersburg.
District 3
Bill Dudley
In response to the Times' City Council recommendations, I feel compelled to take a moment to critique the evaluative process of the Times' editorial board. I am the best candidate for District 3. Ed Montanari is a good and decent man, but to say his "leadership" capabilities supersede mine is incredulous. President John F. Kennedy said, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." I have devoted my life to education, that of myself and others. An educator today must be a diplomat, manager, social worker and bureaucrat. There is probably no one better to hold public office than an educator, because educators are problem-solvers who work with limited budgets to achieve mandated goals. How unfortunate that the Times does not value these individuals.
I support many city initiatives, but believe that prudence must rule the day. Albert Whitted Airport is not the only concern for our citizens. A City Council representative should be more diversified. I am a member of the Albert Whitted Airport Preservation Society, volunteer in the community through the Exchange Club and graduated from the Chamber of Commerce's Focus St. Pete Leadership Program. I am also committed to working with neighborhoods, but unlike my opponent, I don't just "talk the talk." I am a member of the Council of Neighborhood Associations, serving as a mentor the past two years, and am currently president of my homeowners' association.
My resume speaks for itself (www.dudley4stpete.com); if elected, I will use my life's experience to serve the people of this city.