ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor
NCLB Goes Against Laws of Statistics
I JUST READ the Journal article providing dire warnings that “most schools fail” because they aren’t meeting the standards set by the Republicans’ fiendishly clever No Child Left Behind Act. Have you really not figured it out or is this just sensationalistic journalism?
For one thing, the statute should be called the “Repeal the Laws of Statistics Act.” Every year, no matter how well a school does, it has to do better next year or it “fails.” If 100 percent of Sandia High students meet the goals for 2007, then Sandia will “fail” every year after that, even if they do exactly as well each year because they aren’t “improving.” How do you improve from 100 percent?
The act has 37 measures and if a school misses even one measure, it “fails.” Think about that. A school meets 36 goals, misses one, for an overall percentage of 97.3 percent. That’s an “A” in most grading scales, but under No Child Left Behind the school “fails!” …
Every year, as more and more schools inevitably “fail” to meet the act’s ridiculous criteria, gullible newspapers like the Journal will tell all their readers “your schools are failing!” Seen as a recruitment strategy for convincing voters to distrust the school system generally and the teachers’ union specifically, the act finally makes a little bit of sense. Cynical, vicious, Karl Rovian sense, that is.
Enough of this and maybe the voters will eventually be more receptive to spending their tax dollars to subsidize expensive private schools for the rich. Oh, I’m sorry, the Republican label is “school vouchers”— what was I thinking. …
MIKE DANIELS
Albuquerque
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/587798opinion08-21-07.htm

ABQjournal Opinion: Speak Up!
OUR SECRETARY of education has the same old solution to failing schools— deny there is a problem, dumb down the grading, blame the messenger. Another failing grade for the high paid educational bureaucrats.— J.L.P.
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/speak/587799opinion08-21-07.htm

ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor
Abortion Is Worse Than Dogfighting

…
So now we’re having a catatonic fit because people fight dogs? You gotta be kidding? Wanna know why were getting our fannies handed to us in Iraq and everywhere else for that matter? Wanna know why everyone on earth hates us. Because we put dogs, minnows and owls ahead of people. You shoot an owl in New Mexico and you’ll spend many moons in the local hoosegow. You murder a baby and you get another cruise to the Bahamas.
…
JAY TURNER
Albuquerque

http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/586070opinion08-14-07.htm

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Dems Put Us Back On Path to Defeat

SEN. HARRY REID, with the approval of his fellow Democrats, is this century’s Benedict Arnold and Neville Chamberlain, all in one. Arnold was a traitor who decided the Revolutionary War was lost and gave war plans to the British; Chamberlain told the world that “peace in (his) lifetime” was the result of the deal he made with Adolf Hitler.

Both of these men led others down a foolish path of defeat that led to great suffering, the path of today’s Democratic Party. History teaches us that both Arnold and Chamberlain were wrong. Today we have Reid, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, all joining the cut-and-run, don’t-offend-our-enemies crowd— just like Chamberlain. The unknown is whether the Democratic leaders are just naive fools or Benedict Arnolds. …

PHILIP HOWELL
Albuquerque

Thanks for the history lesson, Philip. You must be the new Paul Revere. But, according to your lesson, al Qaida is the equivalent of the British Empire and Nazi Germany — in strength, in numbers, in fire power. Funny, I thought they were originally a few dozen loonies with box cutters. Granted, thanks to our ineptitude, we have more enemies than ever, though some still live in caves and ride donkey carts. Don’t let fear rule America. mjh

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

War Protest Greatly Exaggerated

THE ANTI-WAR demonstration turned out roughly one-fourth of one percent of the local population, and yet it somehow merited a huge photo in the Sunday paper. This was not a spontaneous demonstration, but a fully coordinated nationwide effort, linking to other poorly-attended protests— as the AP put it “thousands” protested. Thousands? You get bigger turn-outs at a yard sale. The American people don’t want to abandon our troops, or face the bloodbath that would result if we pulled out in a chaotic, Vietnam-style retreat.

BURKE NELSON
Albuquerque

Before the war-without-end, countless people took to the streets across the nation and around the world. Here in Albuquerque, they were attacked and gassed and threatened with worse by Darren White, campaign coordinator for Duhbya. Opponents of the war were shouted down by red-faced patriots bent on any act of revenge for 9/11, no matter how irrelevant or ill-conceived.

Years later, the red-faced patriots are still questioning the loyalty of Americans who opposed the war from the beginning and those who have just finally had enough of the pointless war that has created far more trouble than it solved.

Imagine that parallel universe, where sense prevailed, and we never invaded Iraq. Imagine peace. mjh

From Three Years Ago —
03/20/2003: War Protests in New Mexico

About 600 demonstrators protested the war near the campus of the University of New Mexico at 6pm, Thursday, 3/20/03 (the first day of Spring). Eventually, riot police used tear gas and “chemical agents” to “calm” the crowd. There was very interesting TV footage of children under 10 fleeing to nearby restaurants, eyes streaming tears. One bystander was hit between the eyes by a tear gas canister and taken to the hospital. 17 protesters were arrested, some for throwing the tear gas canisters back at the cops. Police advise those planning other protest not let “bad apples” make problems; “we will not tolerate them taking over the streets.”

Have you noticed how cops now all look like soldiers? The uniforms and, especially, the machine guns?

Peaceful protesters are camped outside the gates to Kirtland Air Force Base. It’s raining & 47 degrees at 11pm.

In Santa Fe, protesters surrounded the Roundhouse, the State Capitol building. Some 60 high schoolers walked out of school to join protests and were suspended for 2 days for “open defiance and willful disobedience.” No one was arrested. mjh

Remember what Sally Meyer said after the ‘riot’? What Mayor Marty did? Or what one-among-many of our fellow citizens wrote about protesters? Read on:

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