To the Point
Isn’t it ironic that the man who would impose democracy on a reluctant Middle East has vetoed a stem-cell research bill reportedly supported by 72 percent of the American people?
Stuart C. Rogers, Highlands Ranch
If we could somehow harness all the hot air coming from our senators and representatives about true immigration reform and the “need” for a guest-worker program, we would not have to worry about the price of gas for a long long time.
Johnnie G. Wren, Kiowa
In his July 16 column, John Andrews writes, “We should debate our differences like grownups.” Would that apply to the attempted putsch at the end of the 2003 Colorado legislative session?
W.F. Meiklejohn, Olney Springs
Easing traffic in the Colorado mountains
Re: “Tackling I-70 congestion,” July 16 Perspective article.
Thank you for Jo Ann Sorenson and Albert Melcher’s article. They correctly size up the problems of the Interstate 70 mountain corridor and the Colorado Department of Transportation’s inadequate response as to how to remedy them.
Time and time again, CDOT’s only solution to our crowded highways is to put down more roadway. This automobile-centered response is steadily becoming less appropriate as fuel costs grow, the atmosphere warms, construction becomes more expensive and potentially destructive to our fragile mountain environment.
The public needs an alternative besides tax- or toll-supported highways, which, though important, cannot be expanded endlessly. CDOT only needs to look as far as T-REX as an example of how highway and rail can work together to provide mobility on a transportation corridor.
Passenger rail technology which may be used for the I-70 mountain corridor is currently available, and CDOT officials should be giving it serious consideration.
Jon Esty, President, Colorado Rail Passenger Association, Denver
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Where do people get the idea that increasing access to the mountains via taxpayer-funded solutions is a good thing? Many of us on the Western Slope have watched in horror as the congestion, pollution and road rage of the Front Range have been forced upon the high country. From our point of view, 20,000 cars per day is already too much. How about this instead: Let’s ask the Federal Highway Administration to blow up the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnels. That’s a sustainable solution that Western Colorado could live with.
Jerry Strahan, Craig
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Albert Melcher’s assessment of the solutions to congestion on Interstate 70 west (build high-speed rail) reflects the type of judgment shown on his assessment of the solution of the problems of I-70 east (re-route the highway through Elyria and add 2 miles daily to hundreds of thousands of east-west commutes.) High-speed rail is expensive, requires at least 75 feet of additional right of way through the corridor, requires heavy public subsidy for what are largely well-to-do recreational users, and has never resolved the operations and capital issues associated with dead-heading empty rolling stock back and forth on 100-mile one-way trips up 5,000 feet of elevation.
The solution to the I-70 west problem lies in the (cringe) Greyhound bus that, yes, would take an average of 30-40 cars off the road per bus. The tarmac is already there, the buses could be utilized as RTD-subsidized circulators during the weekends, and rarely have to dead-head.
The problem to overcome is the skier “sportsman” mentality which has made the race back and forth down I-70 a reflection of the downslope competition at the resorts. This is nothing a good ad agency couldn’t overcome with a $2 million budget and a few belly dancers.
Tom Anthony, Denver
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We know that whether lanes are added to Interstate 70, or light rail is used, it would take years to complete. My suggestion is that a very large parking lot be built on the west side of the Denver metro area and use buses, preferably natural gas, to go up I-70 as far west as Vail. I think that the ski areas should pick up a part of the tab, as the article states that ski areas cause 60 percent of the traffic.
I also think the ski areas should provide transportation from I-70 to their respective areas. Winter Park should also be included in providing bus service. I-70 between Denver and Vail should also become a tollway, with a pass system to avoid more traffic congestion.
John Wessling, Windsor
U.S. Voting Rights Act
Rep. Tom Tancredo’s vote against the Voting Rights Act is an attack on citizen rights and ultimately dishonors the memory of most early Americans. In the 1880’s, my ancesters immigrated to the U.S. They started farms, raised families, attended church, paid taxes, served in the military and worked hard to build their communities. When they passed away, some left with a low level of English fluency but a high level of commitment and understanding of their responsibilities as U.S. citizens. Fellow Americans didn’t try to make them feel like second-class citizens based on their English ability.
Our country still has people who are not fluent in English but are committed American citizens. Tancredo voted against the act because it has a provision requiring bilingual ballots in many districts. Why would he object to providing extra clarity to American voters? I believe we all have felt confused at one time or another when reading voter initiatives and propositions. What if it were in a second language? Sadly enough, I believe Tancredo would like to keep certain groups of Americans out of the process all together.
One of our responsibilities as citizens is to perform civic duties. This includes voting. It is disgraceful for Tancredo to oppose legislation that encourages voter participation. Instead of striving to disenfranchise voters, he should work to broaden the level of civic participation, bring people into the process and support them.
Thor Kjeseth, Denver
Middle School flight
Re: “Middle schools see halls empty,” July 16 news story.
I was not surprised to read that Denver middle schools are losing students. The jump from elementary to middle school is huge. Some students are ready for this change at 11, and some students do not make this move well as seventh- or eighth-graders. I think that eighth-grade students in small K-8 schools will be ill-prepared for the move to a large Denver high school and may choose to attend smaller private high schools, thus dropping the enrollment again in Denver schools.
As the parent of an incoming Denver middle schooler, I can understand why this choice is difficult for many parents. For me, the biggest issues are elective choices and CSAP scores. Many Denver middle schools have lost their talented elective teachers and creative classes because their students did not perform well on the CSAP. These students are now required to take math and literacy classes instead of art, music or physical education, resulting in low elective enrollment and the loss of elective teachers and classes. As elective choices drop, I think more parents who can afford a choice will continue to choose to leave Denver Public Schools for schools that can offer more options for their students.
Nina Barber, Denver
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As a Denver Public Schools sixth-grade teacher, I read your front-page article regarding declining enrollment in our middle schools with interest. The sixth-grade year is a pivotal transition for children. Sound instructional practices, high teacher expectations, lowered class size, and, most importantly, strong parent expectations must work together at all levels to increase student achievement.
Having taught in both the lowest-performing school and the highest-performing school in DPS, my teaching practices and expectations remain the same in both environments. The difference in the student achievement scores between both schools correlates directly with the expectations of individual parents and the different class sizes.
Karen Ray, a mother The Post wrote about, holds high expectations for her children; they will probably do well in any school environment where teacher expectations are high and instructional practices are strongly implemented. Regarding her visitations in DPS, schools are not Wal-Marts where door greeters compete for buyers. Strong programs and strong teachers are all the “wooing” that Ray or any parent should need. Both Merrill and Hamilton middle schools provide strong teachers and strong instructional programs. It is up to Ray to do the rest of the “selling” at home.
Kathy Degi, Denver
Parolees’ right to vote
Re: “Allowing parolees to vote would help rebuild lives,” July 16 Perspective article.
Neema Trivedi and Jenny Rose Flanagan propose to allow convicted felons who are on parole to have the privilege of voting. The act of voting is a privilege, not a right. This privilege requires that people have the good judgement to understand and know the issues which need to be addressed and the beliefs and positions of candidates running for office.
The fact that a person has made some bad decisions as relates to choices for their own life seems to indicate that their decision-making ability has much to be desired. Thus, such people should have privileges revoked and lost forever. Respect is not a by-product of returning privileges. Let convicted felons prove themselves by becoming good citizens, obeying laws and gaining self-respect by their own performance. Giving people something for nothing destroys the human personality.
Alfred L. Kreps, La Junta
“Pornopolis” articles
Re: “Pornopolis,” July 9 and 16 Style series.
Your recent “Pornopolis” series creates the misguided impression that pornography is normal and OK. It may be increasingly normal, but it is not OK. Even so-called “soft porn” cankers those who view it and has no positive value for society. All pornography is base, crude and degrading.
You describe how some seek fulfillment in pornography but ignore the many who follow their natural urges to find only emptiness. You ignore its impact on addiction, mental health, criminal behavior and spirituality. As viewers’ sensitivity decreases, they must seek increasingly graphic depictions to satisfy their impulses. At worst, some act out what they see, ruining relationships and harming others. But too many are first enticed by images and acts commonly considered too “soft” to be harmful.
It may be that Pornopolis is all around us. Similarly, violence, dishonesty and disloyalty are also becoming the norm. But normalcy does not make these things right.
Benjamin McMurray, Denver
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Three recent negative responses to The Post’s series on porn are woefully misplaced (“Post’s series on porn,” July 16 Open Forum). All the first two complainants did, essentially, was offer the verbal equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum, rather than any intelligent or coherent reasoning.
Referring to the excellent and insightful series as “filth,” as letter-writer Kathy Cain did, advances no intelligent discussion at any level. It merely resorts to theatrics and histrionics. Castigating The Post for “titillating the public to sell newspapers” (Carol Cash letter) is even more egregious in many ways, since it dismisses the educational foundation for the article, and conflates imagined motive for a dispassionate porn series with objective analyses. Thus, she is guilty of attacking the messenger.
The last complainant, Douglas Groothius, is indignant that “no philosopher or theologian or religious leader” was consulted. My question is: Why? It’s a total stretch that these are religious or moral issues, though it’s true they may be public health issues. If so, let’s deal with them at the objective level of public health (but not before all the incontrovertible evidence has been published to show this) and leave out the ethereal realm of entities that occupy no physical space and subsist in no one’s mind but a theologian’s.
The Post, despite the pathetic yelps from the morally righteous, deserves praise for casting a desperately needed objective eye of on a major cultural and societal phenomenon. Whether this phenomenon is ultimately one of benefit or ill can only be answered by free and open inquiry.
Phil Stahl, Colorado Springs
Teen driving laws
Re: “Reducing teen driving deaths,” July 16 editorial.
In Sunday’s Perspective section of the paper there was once again an editorial on reducing teen driving deaths. While I applaud the steps Colorado has taken to reduce teen driving deaths with phased-in privileges, there is one aspect that I never see addressed on this topic. How are our teenagers learning to speed and drive carelessly? They are simply driving the same way the vast majority of adults do.
Even though I drive the posted speed limits or slightly above, on a daily basis I am cursed at, tailgated, gestured at and rudely passed by adults who know better. It’s not my fault that you are late; start earlier next time. It is not your right to go as fast as you can and to try to push the cars ahead of you to do the same.
If the adults in our teenager’s lives will slow down, maybe our teens will too. Perhaps that could save an even greater number of teenagers from death in the fast lane.
Debbie Blew, Denver
Home appraisal fraud
Re: “On false foundations; Inflated, bogus appraisals burn homebuyers and sap lenders’ profits,” July 16 news story.
The central cause of fradulent appraisals rests in the fact that appraisers are hired and paid by lenders. Lenders have a special interest in seeng that the loan succeeds. Often, thousands of dollars in points and fees and in repeat business are at stake from real estate brokers who also have a vested interest in the deal succeeding, in the form of their commisions.
A $300,000 home sale can generate more than $25,000 in fees and commissions. If the appraiser is not a “team player” and comes in with a low appraised value, two things often happen.
First, the lender can, with disdain, throw out the low appraisal and never use that appraiser’s services again.
Second, the lender can then troll the appraiser market and land an appraiser who will be the “team player” and hit the sales price. This fraudulent appraiser will be rewarded with more work.
This, sadly, is the anatomy of many loan appraisals processed today. Good, honest appraisers are penalized and lose work while dishonest ones are rewarded and thriving. The appraisal business is no longer the neutral, third-party profession it was 20-25 years ago. Today, it is often a highly competitive, profit-centered, advocacy business.
Roger Turk, Colorado Springs
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