A call to arms for school support
This is not only a call for arms but also a plea for support for our local schools. Legislators may publish budgets or scenarios full of numbers, but what does that mean for your children? Our community must know what is at stake.
As a teacher I can tell you that these cutbacks are going to have a detrimental effect on all children in our community. Schools in our community are looking at losing at least two teachers, with middle schools losing as many as seven. The majority of these cuts will affect teacher assistants. Teacher assistants play a vital role in the classroom. They do not just cut out construction paper or decorate bulletin boards. Their title really needs to be instructional assistants. If it werenít for these people, your children would not be reading in kindergarten or excelling in math.
This is where you as community leaders and parents come in. I challenge you to step into a classroom and see how school really works. I challenge you to contact legislators and convey your concerns. I challenge you to have a voice for our children, who are entrusting us with their future. If we arenít going to stand up for them who will?
I challenge you to fight for the teachers who make a lasting impression on your children. We are pleading for your help and support. Can you really rest your head on your pillow knowing that your childís education is at stake?
ó Breanne Dietz
Salisbury
The trail of radicalism
The Weather Underground (aka ěthe Weathermenî) was a radical group co-founded by Bill Ayers in the 1960s. Selected members studied Marxism and urban warfare under KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine in Havana.
Kicking off the ěDays of Rageî at their Flint, Mich., ěWar Councilî rally in 1969, leader Bernadine Dohrn praised Charles Manson and his disciples for the brutal murders of actress Sharon Tate and others. Setting off bombs at the Pentagon, the Capitol, NYC police headquarters and other sites, the Weathermen issued a ěDeclaration of a state of warî against the United States. They broke Timothy Leary out of prison. Planning to overthrow the government, they envisioned a Marxist regime. When the bombs proved deadly (1970), Dohrn and Ayres fled; but in 1980 turned themselves in. The two married in 1981 and became university professors (Obama visited them in their home while strategizing his campaign for the Illinois state Senate).
In 1985, former Weathermen Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans were apprehended with 740 pounds of explosives. Charged with conspiracy, harboring a fugitive, and involvement in the deadly Brinks robbery (1981), they received lengthy prison terms.
Also serving long terms in U.S. prisons were sixteen violent Puerto Rican Nationalists (members of FALN and Los Macheteros) for robbery, explosives possession, and seditious conspiracy. The FBI had tied them to 130 bombings, multiple armed robberies, six deaths and hundreds of injuries.
Sadly, between 1999 and 2001, Rosenberg, Evans, and all 16 nationalists were granted early release by President Clinton, thanks to the efforts of President Clintonís deputy attorney general, Eric Holder.
Eric Holder is now attorney general, appointed by President Obama. When an immigration law was passed in Arizona, Holder announced that the Justice Department would file charges against Arizona (for racial profiling). Yet Mr. Holder had never read the Arizona law; instead, he based his decision on hearsay. Incompetent? Perhaps, but to the unrepentant (and still radical) Ayres and Dohrn, the progressive dream lives on.
ó Steve Pender
Rockwell