Foreign doctors
Re: “Foreign docs fill gaps,” May 14 news story.
I was appalled to read of the plight of Dr. Saeid Ahmadpour in last Sunday’s Denver Post.
How is it that a physician, living and working in one of our most medically underserved areas, in our country legally on a visa, is subject to possible deportation following incorrect advice from our own immigration service while thousands of foreign nationals with no documentation march on our state Capitol demanding the rights of United States citizens and are subject to nothing?
Cathlynn Groh, Denver
Denver Public Schools
Re: “Ground shifting for DPS,” May 7 Susan Barnes-Gelt column.
Susan Barnes-Gelt, in yet another apologia for DPS’sthe Denver Public Schools’ campaign to consolidate “little red schoolhouse(s)” into centralized test score factories, unwittingly highlights the reason why DPS is such an abysmal failure. Like DPS, Barnes-Gelt has forgotten who education’s customers are.
Schools exist to help children learn what their parents and they feel is worth learning. DPS doesn’t do so, as indicated by its dramatic 13 percent enrollment drop in just four years and the estimated 15 to 28 percent of Denver school-aged children who eschew DPS schools. The fate of every public school district is in the hands of parents and students, not the “empty-nesters, business executives, seniors, single yuppies, (and) creative hipsters” to whom Barnes-Gelt and the DPS board pander.
The three-quarters of Denver households which are childless may well “decide what kind of city we want to be.” But only parents and students will “determine what the public school system that serves us must look like.”
Manual High School’s closure is not due to what Barnes-Gelt insultingly calls “the failure of nearly an entire student body.” It is due to the failure of nearly an entire public schooling establishment. If you don’t give customers what they want, they will go elsewhere even to the streets instead of school.
David Hakala, Denver
Muslim relations
Re: “A talk with The Rev,” May 14 Colorado Voices column.
I enjoyed Taj Ashaheed’s column regarding “The Rev,” as he calls himhis Baptist minister grandfather. It was a unique and informative way of looking at what Muslims have to endure as a result of Sept. 11 and other events that are still occurring today.
But I do have some questions for Ashaheed or any other Muslim who would care to respond.
First, if, as Ashaheed claims, his religion forbids acts of violence such as suicide bombings, why are so many Muslims engaged in this activity? We don’t see Baptists, for example, blowing themselves up along with everyone in sight.
Second, if these actions are so abhorrent to his religion, why don’t the clergy in this religion denounce these acts, especially those in the Mideast, where it is all happening?
Finally, if there are literally millions of Muslims around the world who share his same philosophy, why aren’t they decrying all this violence?
When I get satisfactory answers to these questions, perhaps I can be a little more sympathetic to the Muslims’ “plight.”
P.D. Hoskins, Gunnison
Colorado Voices
Re: “Post’s new Voices,” May 7 Open Forum.
Letter-writer Michael Long last week writes a criticism ofcriticized the featuremakeup of the new “Colorado Voices” panel. I want to defend all those who volunteered to weed out the wheat from the chaff by reading 384 x 2 samples400 submissions, each person supplied tow with two columns.
When Sue O’Brien (we lost her to cancer) began this feature, she did a great service for beginning and hopeful writers. I was lucky enough to be chosen two years in a row. Now Michael Long suggests that there was no consideration of the geographics of the state. This is a new and very odd sort of inclusive or “affirmative action” point of view. Perhaps there were no entries from the areas he thinks should be included.
The purpose is to choose the best writing, no matter where it came from or who wrote it. As for me, I didn’t try out for a number of years because I was new to Colorado and didn’t know what a “Colorado voice” was. It often takes years for any writer to develop his own voice, no matter where he resides. I thought at first that it meant that one had to write about Colorado and I thought that to be very insular and a bit provincial. As a newcomer, the invitation left me out, so I delayed trying out. I had lived all over the world. Finally, I took a chance and hit it on the first try.The fan letters I got certainly made my year fruitful. I never wrote anything about Colorado and I was still invited to try for a second round. This is a wonderful opportunity to become part of your new home.
There may be many newcomers who refrain, as if there were a “Strangers Stay Out” sign. Distrust of strangers is a part of early Western culture. Read “The Ox-Bow Incident” and the works of Zane Grey and Brett Hart. That was the old West. We are now in the new West, and it’s a fine way for a person to find out if he has a future hope or it could be that he becomes what is known asa wannabe. Geography has nothing to do with it. Out of 400 entries, you may be a diamond in the rough.
Fritz Kriesler was one of the greatest violinists in the world. He tried to attend every recital he was invited to. He said, “If some children hit the wrong note of off-key, applaud them anyway because they are trying.” He remembered his own young efforts.Good luck, class of 2006-07. I shall read every one of you!
Marjorie Bruce, Colorado Springs
The future of the Democratic Party
Re: “No time to be vindictive,” May 14 Gail Schoettler column.
It isn’t “vindictive” to hold criminals responsible for their crimes. I believe the word is “justice.” The Bush syndicate has so flagrantly violated the laws, treaties and customs regulating domestic and international relations as to have compromised the fundamental notion of civilization that right should have primacy over might.
I don’t believe the U.S. can expect to be taken seriously as “a nation of laws, not of men,” if the Bush thugs are not brought to justice and the extreme damage they have caused acknowledged and remedied, with explicit reaffirmation of laws and treaties broken.
Bruce McNaughton, Denver
Next generation’s voices
Editor’s note: These letters were written by students in Kate Butcher’s English Language Learners class at Glenwood Springs Middle School.
Hello, my name is Marco Vargas. My family came here to work and I came here to study because there’s more technology in this great country. My feelings about immigration are a bit sad and a bit mad because we, the Latinos, came here to work and not to steal your jobs or anything like that. We want to be respected and treated the same. We are all equal. A solution will be to let all the illegal people have papers. We just want to help our families from our home countries.
Marco Vargas
…
Hey, my name is Luis Nerete; I’m 13 years old. I’m 75 percent Mexican and 25 percent black. My family and I came here so my brothers and I learn English. I feel bad for the immigrant people and I think they shouldn’t protest because that’s not going to solve anything. The immigrant people should show that they are only workers. They show that by working more. I think that if God wants to solve this problem, it will be solved. Thank you for listening to me.
Luis Negrete
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Hi, I’m Efrain Gonzales Juarez. I moved to the USA in 2002. We moved here to work for money and study English.
I think that the immigration isn’t fair because as illegal as the Mexicans are, so are the Americans. The real Americans are the Indians.
I think we should stop being racist to each other and start working as a group. I’m not saying that the Americans are the only racist ones, because the Mexicans are too. That’s why I hope the Mexicans and the Americans should come together.
Efrain Gonzales
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Hi, my name is Mayra Muro. I’m in seventh grade. My family and I moved here because we were in Mexico and I wanted to come to the United States because I didn’t like Mexico. My mom called my cousin that lives right here and she told my mom that we could come live with her.
I think that the American government is not just, because they don’t want to give papers to the Mexicans. Why? I don’t know. I feel really sad because all those people are working to have a better life and some people don’t want them in the United States. The Mexicans are sad and mad because they want papers to get better jobs.
My solution is that the government should give people papers.
Mayra Muro
…
Hi, my name is Cristal Aguirre and I’m in seventh grade and I speak two languages (English and Spanish). I think all the people come to this country to have a better future. In my case, we came to this country to have an education and to have a better future.
I feel sad and mad about what’s going on with immigration. It’s not fair that a lot of people are dying trying to come to this country. It’s unfair that all the American people can go to our countries and we can’t come to theirs. Another thing that I think is unfair is when the police get Latin people and send them to Mexico or to the place where they were born. I think that is unfair because they had passed really hard things to get here. We come to this country with a dream and with the hope to have a better future.
I have a lot of questions and I think the solution to the problem is to be treated equal and that the president gives us papers. I know it will take lots of years to get them but I think it will be better. We can all do it together and we could help make a difference in this country. We can have peace and we can be better each day.
Cristal Aguirre
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Hello, my name is Miguel Angeles. In my class we were talking about immigration. I think that all of the people that don’t have papers should have papers. My family and I came here to work and I came to school so I can learn.
The government should leave us alone. When Americans go to Mexico, we are nice and respect them. They don’t respect us, do they? In conclusion, I think we should all be respectful to each other. Thank you.
Miguel Angeles
Drilling the Roan Plateau
Re: “Politics and policy collide on the Roan,” May 14 editorial.
The Post implies a sinister connection between recent political contributions by the Williams Cos. and its desire for the Bureau of Land Management “to let it drill on the [Roan] plateau’s highly visible top.” Indeed, The Post issues a call for an investigation by the inspector general. However, both its “news” article and editorial on the issue avoid mentioning several salient facts.
The push to open the Roan to leasing came from Congress in 1997, when it transferred management of the plateau from the Department of Energy to Interior for the express purpose “of issuing leases for petroleum and natural gas exploration, development and production.” Any decision by the BLM to close off leasing of the Roan would be in direct violation of its statutory mandate that “beginning on the date of enactment … or as soon thereafter as practicable, the Secretary of the Interior shall enter into leases … .”
Therefore, The Post’s declaration that the BLM “should have [been] required … to protect the scenic area” due to its “wilderness characteristics” is legally untenable. Moreover, the notion that a plateau which overlooks Interstate 70 traffic, supports substantial cattle grazing, has producing gas wells on private lands, and more than 150 miles of existing roads qualifies as pristine wilderness is absurd.
Roan leases will be sold by competitive bid at public auction, so Williams has no assurance that it will even obtain access once the plateau is opened for environmentally responsible development. There are many industry players looking to enter Colorado’s Piceance Basin, and the Roan offers a unique opportunity to bid on some 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the middle one of the nation’s hottest gas plays.
That’s enough gas, by the way, to supply heat and hot water to every house in Colorado for the next quarter-century.
Ken Wonstolen, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Colorado Oil & Gas Association
…
I get a kick out of the key words you used in this editorial – “dramatic uplift, pristine landscapes and wildlife habitat, wilderness characteristics, scenic area,” and, “Williams and other energy companies already are bulldozing roads to the Roan’s top.” All definitely words designed to inflame environmentally conscious and concerned Colorado citizens. But these words mostly do not accurately describe the area and what is going on. They are the words of someone with an agenda that is unfriendly to oil and gas production no matter if it kills us.
Truth be told, the Roan Cliffs area has been explored and mined for more than a century. First came explorers and trappers, then hunters for the railroads, then gold and silver miners, later coal and uranium people and many others. Ranchers, loggers and farmers all had their share; some still do. There have been roads to the top of the plateau for decades, mostly just little trails and tracks. There are major trails for cattle and sheep herds up there.
It’s not the pristine wilderness The Post is indicating, and you do your readers an injustice writing such things that read like it is.
Joe Doremire, Bakersfield, Calif.
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