Manual High School
Re: “Manual’s slow death,” May 7 news story.
I have been following with sadness the demise of Manual High School. My sons graduated from Manual in 1996. From the time they were in elementary school, they wanted to attend Manual because of its reputation as a “cool” school. As parents, we had also received a lot of positive information about Manual.
Manual was certainly not a perfect high school in ’96. What it did offer, among many benefits, however, was a life lesson in diversity. From the moment you walked in the door of Manual, you knew you were in a special place. The students were poor, wealthy, disabled, gifted, black, white, brown and everything in between, yet they all sat next to each other in class and in the Thunder Dome and, for the most part, were friends on some level. The Bolts bumper sticker was a source of pride.
In 1996, in preparation for the end of busing, numerous members of the school community pleaded with the “powers that were” not to redistrict in a manner which would destroy Manual’s diversity. Alternative districting ideas were presented and ignored. These ideas would have maintained the neighborhood school, but would have included a broader demographic. I wonder if a simple change in the boundaries would have made a huge difference in the outcome for Manual. Hopefully the Bolts will rise again.
Jan Netting, Denver
Academic tenure
Re: “Tenure is about more than academic freedom,” May 7 Perspective article.
Tenure, holding on for life, largely free of checks and balances, is the essence of the tyranny of democracy. Democracy is winner-take-all. Losers have no rights not granted by the majority. It is why our founders established a constitutional republic, and explicitly rejected democracy.
There is no time limit but death, retirement or incapacity to the tyranny of individual faculty members; and no time limits at all to the enduring policies adopted by self-perpetuating faculties.
This tyranny accounts for the fact that 80 percent to 90 percent of university faculties vote Democratic. Thus, as Professor Gabriel Kaplan implies, all who teach, work and study on campus are obliged to promote the governing faculty manifestos as cover and to chill all signs of variance in fear of justifiably suspected swift and certain punishments. Each watches the other. And notes are taken. Tenured faculties are the worst kind of tyranny: self-perpetuating.
Kaplan’s defense admits that “senior faculty do choose whom to award tenure,” but also that “no successful deliberative body should be able to determine its own membership.” Depriving tenured faculty of self-selection should return freedom to our clearly unbalanced faculties and campuses.
Raymond J. Rostan, Parker
Preparing for bird flu
Re: “Sobering news on bird flu,” May 7 editorial.
Once again, the Bush administration is excusing its failures,and once again, The Denver Post is right there to soft-peddle it. “Everybody” will be in charge of a bird flu outbreak, you parrot, which is of course post-Katrina speak for “nobody will be in charge.”
The breakdowns in the Federal Emergency Management Agency last year were not the result of a blameless, inscrutable “broken system,” as The Post and congressional Republicans want us to believe.
The failures, past and future, of the Bush administration all boil down to its willingness to ignore data at variance with its desires; to appoint politically connected cronies rather than qualified administrators to leadership positions; and to forgo planning for the future as boring or “too hard.”
There is nothing “too hard” about a bird-flu outbreak for the top minds and leaders of this country. The problem is that they are not in charge, and have no audience with those who are.
John Kelly, Lafayette
Access for drilling
Re: “Western driller’s gifts scrutinized,” May 7 news story.
The link between Williams Cos.’ political contributions and its increased access to federal lands is all the more disturbing when you consider the negligible amount of energy Williams has produced in return.
Between 1982 and 2004, Interior Department records show that the federal government gave Williams access to drill on 575,244 acres of federal land – more than twice the size of Rocky Mountain National Park. Yet from 1989 to 2003, Williams produced the equivalent of 17 minutes of U.S. oil consumption and 11 hours of natural gas consumption.
Williams’ record is hardly unusual. Across the West, the federal government opened up 229 million acres of land for drilling between 1982 and 2004 – an area greater than the size of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico combined. Yet between 1989 and 2003, companies produced from this land just 53 days’ worth of U.S. oil consumption and 221 days’ worth of natural gas.
Instead of giving Williams and other companies greater access to treasured places such as the Roan Plateau, we ought to focus on increasing energy efficiency, developing renewable energy and, as Denver has done, investing in mass transit.
Dusty Horwitt, Washington, D.C.
The writer is an analyst for the Environmental Working Group.
The fate of the penny
Re: “The penny’s value is spent,” May 7 editorial.
Have you considered the impact on sales taxes of your misguided suggestion to “put the old one-cent coin out to pasture”?
If you would be happy to see the penny turn into a museum piece, just think how ecstatic Colorado and the state’s municipalities would be. They’d see huge automatic increases in the sales tax without having to ask the voters for approval.
As a resident of Denver, I am subject to a 7.6 percent sales tax, which includes the state, city and special district levies. Instead of, for example, paying 6 cents on an 82-cent purchase, I’m sure that, with no pennies, the tax would be rounded off to the next nickel, or 10 cents. Pardon my cynicism, but you can be darned certain the taxing entities would not lower the levy to accommodate the fact that there were no pennies. So that principle of “rounding off upward” would hold true on virtually every purchase. What a sneaky way to get a sales tax bonanza!
The price of making a penny may have increased for the Treasury, but there are cheaper alternatives to abolishing the coin. Let’s be patient.
Jim Grisenti, Denver
Gay marriage and the Bible
Re: “Let’s put more of the Bible on ballot,” May 9 Ed Quillen column.
Ed Quillen writes: “If the right-thinkers insist on promoting biblical standards, they shouldn’t be allowed to stop at one verse in Leviticus. Let’s put it all on the ballot.” This in regard to at least one, and perhaps as many as four, marriage-related items facing Colorado voters in the not-so-distant future.
In his piece, he seems to imply that King David had same-sex tendencies or relations, and that the patriarch Abraham’s utilization of a surrogate mother and King Solomon’s love of “strange women” were “biblical standards.”
The Bible doesn’t always clarify certain actions as being right or wrong, good or bad.
King David aside, Quillen doesn’t bother noting the downside to Abraham’s action – i.e., two half-brother nations that hate each other – or what God felt about Solomon taking as wives women who, as forewarned, would turn his heart away from Him.
Before Quillen goes about referencing select portions of scripture to make a point and conclude by saying, “Let’s put it all on the ballot,” perhaps he ought to consider all of the Bible and try not to take things out of context. Otherwise, any credibility he may have as a writer promoting the anti-God, out-of-context idea of “separation of church and state” is pretty much out the window.
Dan Vaisanen, Highlands Ranch
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Thank you for having the courage to print Ed Quillen’s column. Too few have acknowledged the hypocrisy of picking and choosing verses from the Bible to suit a particular position. It seems that if one wants to discriminate, justification can always be found.
Rae Curtiss, Westminster
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I just had to write in to say what a great letter J.D. Moyers sent in (May 10 Open Forum) regarding the Colorado Domestic Partnership Benefits and Responsibilities Act. The only problem is, I think the biblical verse quoted in the letter can be used in favor of the act. He quoted, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” As far as I can see, nowhere in that verse does it state that marriage must only be between a man and a woman. In fact, it specifically states that marriage be held in honor among “all.” The word “all” would seem to include homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. Lastly, the verse tells us that it is up to God to judge the “sexually immoral and adventurous.” So unless a person can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he or she is God, they should keep their judgments to themselves.
Paul Ruzicka, Aurora
John Andrews column on May 1 immigration rallies
Re: “Another decade, same old debates,”
Last Sunday’s column by former Colorado Senate President John Andrews was so full of hot air that when I cut it out, it flew off my hands and disappeared into the stratosphere. Leaning on sleepy rhetoric, he implied that the so-called “illegals” are busy nursing at the state’s udder. The former state senator or any member of the Defend Colorado Now movement could endow their arguments with some gravitas if they would explain to us what state benefits other than the federally mandated emergency health care and K-12 education for their children that the “illegals” are presently receiving. They could also explain to us when in more than 100 years of existence our state has allowed special services for “illegals,” and they could also educate us by citing what present state statutes allow services to “illegals.” Of course they can’t, because they know the answers, which renders their November ballot initiative as unnecessary, divisive and mean-spirited.
Delio D. Tamayo, Aurora
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It is hardly coincidental that John Andrews associated May Day with the utopianism of Marx, Mao and Castro in the immigration debate. I thought the organizers might have chosen May 1 to demonstrate for immigrant rights because President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed it Law and Loyalty Day. The Roman Catholic Church also recognizes it as Saint Joseph the Worker Day. Or maybe the organizers chose this day because there is an immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate that will be decided by the end of May. Only the co-chair of Defend Colorado Now could bring such an association with May 1 to the debate.
John Andrews could have recognized the American socialist utopian Edward Bellamy, whose ideas were used by his cousin, Francis Bellamy, to write the original Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge was meant to express the American tradition of equality, liberty and justice for all. However, Andrews had to use un-American utopians to express his fears.
Eldon Van Der Wege, Denver
TO THE POINT
A TV news motto is: “If it bleeds, it leads.” A print version exploring scandal or intrigue could boast: “If it smells, it sells.”
John L. Davis, Denver
So there won’t be a $100 gasoline rebate from Congress after all? Oh, darn; for a while there, we were all ready to vote straight Republican tickets this November, just for a couple tankfuls of gas, right? Not!
Pete Klammer, Wheat Ridge
The Associated Press tells us that during the World Cup tournament in Germany, the official U.S. team bus – the only one of 32 participating nations – will not bear a national flag for security reasons. So this is what the quest for empire has brought to our beautiful nation!
Jim Muhm, Englewood
Gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman’s aide Dick Leggitt has said his admitted lies to a Denver Post reporter were an attempt to “spin” the truth. Either he doesn’t know the difference between lies and spin or he’s lying again.
Mike Thomas, Pueblo
In the ’50s, the Soviets and Americans had several contests, including a one-on-one 100-meter dash, which the American won. Pravda reported that the Soviet finished second, while the American finished next to last. That was spin.
John Kenneth Doherty, Golden
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