May 25, 2008

Letters

Bush's golf game

Dear Editor: To honor the grieving families of our men and women in uniform, George Bush has made the supreme sacrifice of giving up golf. What a humanitarian, a real hero. They should give him the Nobel Peace Prize. Can you believe this guy? What an outrageous, ridiculous man he is. And worst of all, it's just another big fat lie. Bush cites the bombing of the U.N. office in Baghdad on Aug. 19, 2003, as the tipping point (to say nothing of more than 4,000 dead Americans) that made him hang up his clubs, but videotape has surfaced of him still playing golf barely two months later on Oct. 13, 2003.

Bush is a cold, calculating charlatan who has absolutely no qualms (and no conscience) about exploiting the sacrifices of our troops and the suffering of their families with this stupidity about his golf game. That should be the enduring image of George W. Bush; while our troops were dying in the nightmarish, blood-soaked meat-grinder of Iraq, the president was working on his golf-swing on the impeccably manicured greens of the nation's finest golf courses. Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burned. How is this man still in office?

Richard Marracq,

Redwood City



School funding

Dear Editor: As a student at Stanford, I read with interest your article entitled "Local schools still lead" on Thursday. I appreciate that you briefly address the disparities between schools in high- and low-income areas of Palo Alto, but I noted that you neglected to emphasize the importance of school funding in determining school performance.

In my experience, the lack of funding in schools in lower-income neighborhoods contributes more to the students' academic performance than the students' personal backgrounds. Indeed, regardless of the students' backgrounds, schools in low-income areas provided with higher-quality resources and teachers perform as well as schools in affluent areas, according to Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford education professor. A perfect example of the importance of school funding is the high performance you mention of the East Palo Alto Charter School, which is likely due to high funding. We need to focus our attention on lower-performing schools like Ravenswood that are not receiving enough funding.

We can change the low performance of schools like Ravenswood across the country by changing the way we allocate funds to schools. I look forward to reading a follow-up article focusing on how we can better appropriate school funding to help children in lower-income areas.

Sarah Mummah,

Atherton



Minority rule

Dear Editor: I want to have a voice in my city's future. But I want my voice to count, which means I respect majority rule. That's the way our country was founded. What I absolutely don't want in Redwood City is to give a small minority of voters the chance to derail decisions made by the majority.

But that's what's in store with the land use initiative that's been circulating in the past few weeks. A group of outsiders has written something that would change the city charter to establish that very minority veto power in our city. I don't know what the people behind the initiative really want, but it looks to me like they don't think the majority of people in Redwood City would agree with them. So, they went for this minority veto idea because they know it's a lot easier to get just a few thousand people to vote against anything. A majority vote needs to decide.

Heidi Sjolund,

Redwood City



We must fix levees

Dear Editor: I read in the paper a few weeks ago that our levees in San Mateo are not up to date. If a natural disaster were to occur, the whole of Foster City and part of San Mateo would be flooded. I do not understand why reparation plans for these levees are not even in discussion. If or when an earthquake occurs, will another Katrina catastrophe take place in the Bay Area? Seismologists have predicted that a major earthquake will hit the Bay Area by the year 2032. This crucial information, however, is still not enough of an incentive to fix the levees or draw up plans for reconstruction. The phrase "by 2032" means any time before. Maybe a month from now, a year, or a decade from now.

Natural disasters come whether we are prepared or not. At this time, we are not when we should be. A major earthquake can cause an immense amount of damage. If the levees collapsed as a result of incompetence, imagine the chaos in the Bay Area. Foster City, a town with approximately 30,000 residents, would flood. Parts of San Mateo, a city where about 93,000 reside, would also flood. A total of around 123,000 people would be homeless. But how many casualties would there be? Almost 2,000 people lost their lives in the Katrina disaster. They had a population of 223,000 people. With a ratio of about 1:2, will we lose 1,000 of our residents? It is appalling to think about, yet it raises my awareness.

Without the proper preparation, the outcome of such a disaster is unknown. We have already been made aware that the problem exists, yet nothing has been done about it. The levees need to be brought up to date before it is too late.

Leanne Wesson,

Student at College of San Mateo



Political beliefs

Dear Editor: Pundits keep asking why so many people continue to vote for Hillary Clinton when "she doesn't have a chance to win."

People tend to believe what they want to believe. Clinton keeps telling her supporters she's going to win; they want to believe that, so they do. Also, I heard someone say recently, "This isn't a horse race. I'm not trying to vote for the winner. I'm voting for the candidate I believe would be the best president."

Simplistic, you say? Consider that a significant number of people still believe George Bush is doing a good job, we're winning in Iraq and attacking that nation was not a mistake.

And one more thing - passionate people do crazy things. If some people are willing to strap dynamite on their bodies and blow themselves up in marketplaces because of their beliefs, how much easier is it to simply cast a ballot? I can't believe I haven't heard this from any pundits.

Bob Stine,

San Mateo