Letters to the Editor
djmagaro
Published Letters: 44 Editor's Choice: 2
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My Senators...
[Read the article: Your Harry Reid-led Senate in action]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Casey and Specter no longer have "Civil Liberties" as a possible subject line on their web forms.
Weird.
I ended up using "Civil Rights" for Specter and "Clean Government" for Casey.
I don't have high hopes for either of my Senators.
For all of Specter's reputation for being a true independent conservative and believer in small, restrained government, he hasn't done much of anything to stop the President's power-grab and has facilitated it as member and former Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
As for Casey, he voted for the FISA bill last time. Then again, he did vote for cloture on restoring habeas corpus rights - so one might infer that he would have voted in favor of said rights. He also votes YES on all of those oh-so-important Support-the-Troops/English-is-the-Common-Language/Christianity Exists-and-is-Historically-Significant pronouncements that take up so much of the Senate's time these days.
(BTW - if you wonder how your legislators have voted in the past, go to votesmart.org.)
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Some Inventions and Discoveries By Women
[Read the article: Women never would have invented television?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A Non-comprehensive List in Alphabetical Order:
Bra - Mary Phelps Jacob, 1913
Maize Mill - Sybilla Masters, 1715
Dishwasher - Josephine Cochran, 1893
Disposable Diapers - Marion Donovan, 1950
DNA - Rosalind Franklin (with Watson & Crick who kept the credit for themselves), 1953
Frequency-Hopped Spread Spectrum Invention (an unbreakable cryptographic device used in WWII) - Hedy Lamaar (yes, the actress), 1941
Illusion Transmitter (holographic TV) - Valarie Thomas, 1980
Kevlar - Stephanie Kwolek, 1966
Nysatin (the first anti-fungal antibioic) - Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Rachel Fuller Brown, 1957
Paper Bags (including the machines still used today) - Margaret Knight, 1870
Oil Furnace - Amanda Jones, 1880
Pyrotechnic Flare - Martha J. Cotson, 1871
Radium, Polonium, and their medical applications - Marie Curie, 1898
Scotchgard - Patsy Sherman, 1952
Windshield Wiper - Mary Anderson, 1903
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Re: Polonium, Radium
[Read the article: Women never would have invented television?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The amount of work it takes to figure out the process of identifying and isolating something that at the time only existed in theory surely exceeds the effort and understanding required for most inventions.
Furthermore, Curie could have patented a large swath of the equipment and processes she invented to conduct her radiological research but chose not to.
Any other nitpicks?
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Cost
[Read the article: War goes graphic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've read all three volumes for free thanks to my library card.
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Who's He to Run For President?
[Read the article: What will Nader say on "Meet the Press"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What does he think this is - a free county?
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Re: Anonymous 7:34
[Read the article: The troublesome priest]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"As an Englishman teaching in a US public school, I'm shocked how complete that separation is. You can't teach the Crusades, you have to talk in vague terms about 'European tyranny' as the reason for emigration to America, you can't even teach something like Hamlet without ignoring great chunks of the play."
I'm having trouble believing you. In four years of teaching English in a public school, not once did I skirt or skip the religious issue when it presented itself in a text, be it "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar," or even "Antigone" (in the latter two we discussed Ancient Greek and Roman religion so that we could understand the motivations and actions of the characters). Our English literature books had Psalms from the KJV Bible because they are examples of transcendent English language poetry. We covered Milton's "Paradise Lost," Donne's poetry, and Jonathan Swift's essays. The Book of Ruth and Ecclesiastes (both KJV) were on the county's approved reading list. Our American lit. books had religious poems by Anne Bradstreet and sermons by Jonathan Edwards and Cotton Mather.
The world history classes covered the history of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, the conversion of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Crusades, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Inquisition, Henry the VIII, religious persecution in Europe and the Americas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Any time religion featured a prominent role in historical events, it was covered. Such topics are covered in the Maryland state exams and the AP exams.
Not once did a student, parent, or those bogey-men the ACLU or Americans United for the Separation of the Church and State so much as whisper about us not keeping church and state separate. And far from being an exception, my experience (as a former public school teacher and a former public school student) is par-for-the-course in the USA.
The law and legal precedent clearly affirm that religious topics may be discussed in terms of history and religious texts read and taught in terms history and literature. Proselytization is the legal line in the sand which a teacher can not cross. I know all of this not only because of my teaching experience, but because I had to take a class on legal issues in public education when I got my master's degree.
If what you've describe is true (and honestly, I have trouble believing that it is), you are in a bad school with a terrible administration (the two always go hand-in-hand), as well as ineffectual department heads who doesn't understand the legal issues and doesn't back up their professional staff. If this is the case, you need to start teaching the way you want to teach (so long as you don't proselytize) and have your union back your ass up if parents and administrators starting claiming a violation of church and state separation.
BTW - your letter plays right into the hands of the "religious right" who claim that they are persecuted by the public school system. What you describe sounds word-for-word like the misinformation (lies) they disseminate about Church-State Separation in public schools.
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So Much Heat...
[Read the article: Are you going to hell?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...in these letters, by Crom, but no light!
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Save vs. Old Age, Poor Health ... -3
[Read the article: Gary Gygax's final quest]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let us all doff our Helms of Invisibility in a moment of silence.
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Pigoons, Racunks, and Snats...
[Read the article: Should biotech piggy go to market?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh my!
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Vince Foster! Vince Foster! Vince Foster!
[Read the article: The "Rezko" game]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A guy I know is still beating the "Hillary killed Vince Foster" horse, and this is an otherwise intelligent, successful businessman - and he doesn't bring it up as a cynical distractions ... he really believes it. So the problem isn't just with the press but with the people who, for some reason, are willing and able to compartmentalize their critical-thinking abilities.