Extending “the real spirit of Christmas”
Yes, we do “believe in giving more together with Post-News Season to Share.” Thanks for giving us the opportunity to donate a meaningful gift in the name of someone special. It’s so much more effective and gratifying than giving unwanted, unneeded and often unused gifts. After years of the latter, last year we received a card from relatives in Cape Cod advising us that they had pledged, in our name, a Christmas food basket for a needy local family through the St. Vincent de Paul Society. With the Post-News Season to Share program’s help, we did the same for them this year and they have already received the gift card noting the donation made in their name. What a splendid and loving way to extend the real spirit of Christmas.
Anne Calkins, Centennial
Reforming Denver’s North High School
Re: “North shake-up underway,” Dec. 21 news story.
On behalf of students, parents and involved community members at Denver’s North High School, we’d like to thank Superintendent Michael Bennet and Denver Public Schools for taking bold steps to improve North.
Four years ago, North students and parents came together at Padres and Jovenes Unidos to improve the quality of education. After three years of enduring a reform process that saw only incremental improvements in CSAP scores, North parents and students realized that saving their school would require an immediate, drastic change to give all North students the college-preparatory education they need to succeed. Thus, on Aug. 20, uniting with parents, students, community leaders and elected officials, the Coalition to Save North High School called for the complete redesign of the school.
We were impressed with the district’s response to create a community visioning process for determining success at North. In total, more than 600 parents and community members attended 20 meetings and hundreds of conversations about what they wanted to see at North and throughout Northwest Denver schools as a whole. Superintendent Bennet has taken that community-created vision into account with his decision to redesign North High School. Now, all students will have a college-preparatory education at an excellent school.
Thank you, Superintendent Bennet, for taking this important step for the future of North.
Julieta Quinonez, Youth Organizer, Padres Unidos, Denver
Kristin Sharp, Director of Parent Organizing, Jovenes Unidos, Denver
Requiring non-believers to take oath on Bible
I must take serious issue with letter-writer Lois Ryan Fitch’s last paragraph about those in swearing in ceremonies being required to use, as she calls it, “the Holy Bible” (Dec. 25 Open Forum).
Requiring a non believer to swear on that book is a contradiction in terms of freedom of – and from – religion.
First of all, the minor flap about Rep. elect Keith Ellison using the Koran to affirm his allegiance to the office in question ought to be his choice, being his holy book and no less holy to him than Fitch’s Bible is to her.
If it came to a ceremony requiring me to swear upon the Bible, I myself would find it abhorrent to succumb to the hypocrisy called upon for one who fails to see how the Bible qualifies as being holy. An ancient historical sociological account and a good one in many ways, yes, but that “holy” part sticks in my craw as being totally man made and highly exaggerated. I’d rather swear on a book by Americans Mark Twain, Ernie Pyle, Col. Robert Ingersoll, or a compendium of Burma Shave signs, for that matter.
As a Marine Corps veteran of World War II, however, I’d feel totally honest and patriotic swearing allegiance with one hand on a copy of our constitution without involving any of this synthetic religious rigamarole.
Tom Johnson, Lakewood
What to do about Iraq
Re: “Bush plans larger military to battle global terrorism,” Dec. 20 news story.
American soldiers are dying while our president and other politicians seem to be in a quandary about what to do next in Iraq. There is a simple solution to the problem of how the U.S. can withdraw from Iraq honorably or remain in Iraq with dignity and empowerment. I propose America ask the Iraqi citizens to vote:
1. Whether they want the U.S. to withdraw our troops from Iraq.
2. When they want the U.S. to withdraw.
Now is the time to question the people of Iraq and find out if they are willing to take responsibility for their own country.
If they vote for the U.S. troops to leave, we get out honorably. If they vote for the U.S. to stay, then our role in Iraq can be renegotiated.
Deborah E. Brooks, Englewood
…
President Bush seems to only slowly be learning. He now admits that we’re not winning in Iraq, but still thinks we’re not losing. He talks about the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq rather than bringing them home, as the American public wants. We tried the additional-troop idea in Baghdad this summer, and even the Pentagon admits that it didn’t work. If it didn’t work this past summer, why would it work now?
There are policies which would allow us to have no more concern about potential civil unrest in the Middle East than the civil unrest which currently exists in central Africa. They could start with a meaningful carbon tax on coal, oil and natural gas and continue with the elimination of subsidies for nonrenewable energy. Think how much closer we would be to bettering the world if we were spending $2 billion a week on finding renewable-energy solutions, education and health care rather than on the war in Iraq.
Don Thompson, Alamosa
…
U.S. Gen. John Abizaid is retiring and Gen. George Casey wants to do so. I find it interesting that the generals are able to retire at will while our soldiers and Marines have to return over and over for additional stints. Until the ordinary soldier is able to “retire at will,” President Bush should order the generals to stay until the mission is completed.
Carol Ryan, Steamboat Springs
Federal vs. state funding for local projects
Re: “‘Earmarks’ for ’07 projects erased; GOP-controlled Congress adjourns without passing most budget bills, hitting Colo. hard,” Dec. 26 news story.
Rather than wail about Colorado being “hit hard” by the federal government not passing spending bills, taxpayers should be cheering – and reconsidering the proper role of the federal government in the life of a state.
Why should a Coloradan assume that the federal government, rather than Colorado taxpayers, should be funding Colorado water infrastructure, much less local hospitals or parks? Why should taxpayers in Michigan be paying for new buildings at Colorado colleges, and why should Coloradans be paying for improvements in Michigan? It has become, as it must, a wrestling match between states to try to squeeze the most out of the system at the expense of taxpayers in all other states.
Federal earmarks are as unjust within a state as between states. Why should taxpayers in Boulder be funding recreation in Pueblo, particularly without any debate in the state legislature, where Colorado spending priorities are probably better understood than in D.C.? Of the millions of dollars in earmarks not passed in the closing of the last Congress, only the National Renewable Energy Lab deserves federal money. Beyond that, it is good news for taxpayers that, at least temporarily, we will be spared from paying for so much pork-barrel waste. The goal now is not to get those earmarks passed but realizing that they should never have existed to begin with.
Ross Kaminsky, Nederland
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