Viewpoints For September 27, 2005
Last updated Monday, September 26, 2005 9:25 PM CDT in Opinion
The Morning News
Schoolbook Battle Hides Bigger Issue
The citizens of the State of Arkansas, and the citizens of Fayetteville, particularly, should now be asking themselves, "What is the connection between State Senator Jim Holt and Laurie Taylor, the Fayetteville Public School District patron charging that the Fayetteville High School Library contains books that have 'pornographic' content?"
The answer is: the upcoming Arkansas Governor's election, and the Senator's attempt to get State Attorney General Mike Beebe to make a statement supporting the circulation of the books in question. Beebe rather easily deflected this ham-handed foray back to the proper authorities, but that will not stop a grassroots, direct mail and talk radio campaign against such an "amoral" refusal to be drawn in.
The "promotion of the homosexual lifestyle" (whatever that means) is a wedge issue, now being used since we have just about worn out abortion, school prayer, gay marriage, and since Creation Science is a pretty hard sell. Wedge issues exist, not because the party campaigning about them expect to succeed in changing their legal status, but as a device to get otherwise politically unmotivated voters to come to the polls.
At the Fayetteville School Board's public discussion session Taylor said, "I had no idea this would be this controversial." Of course it is controversial, and the issue and the place of battle have been carefully chosen to maximize that controversy. Fayetteville is the home of the state university system's flagship campus, is one of the most reliably liberal islands in a generally conservative state and a very conservative region, and the city is not known as "the Athens of the Ozarks" solely because of academic enlightenment, but also because it is tolerant of the presence of its gay citizens.
Frank Thomas, in "What's the Matter with Kansas?" addresses the role of wedge issues in building popular support for the conservative political takeover of the Midwest, once a reliably populist voting bloc. He begins his book: "In the backlash imagination, America is always in a state of quasi-civil war: on one side are the unpretentious millions of authentic Americans, on the other stand the bookish, all-powerful liberals who run the country, but are contemptuous of the tastes and beliefs of the people who inhabit it."
While promising a more moral society, the conservative revolution in motion since the Regan years has in actuality delivered an economic time-warp -- they have basically attempted to repeal the 20th Century, to turn back the clock to those good ol' pre-progressive business-friendly days that never existed.
In those good ol' days, anyone with enough money or status or influence could pick on and exploit any less-powerful group of people at will. Might Made Right. To take this fight to the gay community (the last "safe" persecutable population) and then to take it to the most vulnerable among them, the minor children in the middle school through high school student bodies who may be struggling with questions of their sexual identity, is morally reprehensible.
The more immediate question is "What Should the Fayetteville School Board Do?" the answer is, "Nothing." Spit out the bait, and the hook that it conceals for this political fishing expedition. There is a perfectly adequate policy on book challenges in place, and the Board should just use it. Follow your own policy. Process the actually challenged material, and I think the review committees will find, as they did in the case of the three challenged Middle School sex-ed books, that the material was carefully and professionally chosen, and that the appropriate action was "No Action" -- the books belonged where they were placed.
Cynthia Christie Peven
Fayetteville
Hearings Provide No Real Answers
If the confirmation hearings are going to continue to be such a farce, what exactly is the point? I could not care less what his favorite films are, or how skilled he is at using baseball as an analogy for how he might rule in the Supreme Court.
Are we ever going to know what he really stands for? Don't Americans deserve to know? I think so. I'd like John Roberts' records to be turned over. I'd like for him to actually have to answer a d... question instead of deflecting nearly every question presented to him. In so many regards, our future and our children's future will rest in the mind of a few individuals with the power to make change for good or ill. I would like to know what Roberts has in mind.
Margot Moulton
Fayetteville
Gas Prices Are Puzzling
Could someone please tell me why we could buy gas in Joplin, Mo., on Sunday for $2.30 a gallon and then come to the Arkansas border and pay $2.51 a gallon at the Missouri stations? Is it because they are taking advantage of the Bella Vista people?
Dee Kincade
Bella Vista
Bush Provided No Leadership
It doesn't take a brain surgeon the figure out where the missing resources were that would have supported early action in the Katrina disaster. There is plenty of blame to go around but look at some facts.
Nearly every federal government agency has had its budget reduced to support the Iraq war. In the case of FEMA their budget was reduced about 40 percent just this year with a corresponding reduction in personnel. This is after reductions in funding over the past several years. Until the current administration came along FEMA was probably the most effective agency of the government. Of course politicizing the appointment of top executive positions in FEMA didn't help matters and incompetent leadership was bound to effect the outcome.
Where was the National Guard and Reserve forces to react quickly in the Katrina effort? Where were they? Many of them are in Iraq fighting a no-win war we should never have been involved in.
And then there is the failure at the top to recognize and react to the crisis. Some people seem to be frozen in time when a disaster strikes. They seem to be unable to act decisively and take control when the chips are down. Our president's slow acknowledgment of this disaster reminds me of when he was first told of 9/11 and was slow to react. Compare his lack of response to that of the Mayor of New York on 9/11. The mayor exhibited real leadership from the start.
And now, weeks later, five visits to the Gulf Coast with collar unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up, trying to recover "politically" just doesn't cut it. I hope that this forced enthusiasm carries over to actually help the people and the rebuilding process in the gulf.
It is easy to be the top executive when things are going well. The true test of real leadership is how quickly the problem is recognized and action is taken to address a disaster such as 9/11 and Katrina.
Jay Soule
Bella Vista
Delayed Response Increased Dangers
Terry Evers' letter blaming the Democrats for failure to respond to the recent disaster in New Orleans made about as much sense as a 3 year old screaming because it was fed late. The governor's office and New Orleans mayor's office requested federal assistance the day before Katrina's landfall. Help took five days to arrive.
There are very profound reasons why the federal government should have responded much sooner than they did. A number one reason is that New Orleans is a major center for infectious diseases research and biowarfare research performed under federal contracts and federal control. 500 infected monkeys used in infectious disease research were housed at Tulane University in outdoor barbed-wire pens (Louisiana's News Banner, Dec. 14, 2004). Thus far Center for Disease Control has reported no known cases of viral spread. But the sad news is some bio research centers in the storm's path were undisclosed. So far, we don't really know how many engineered biowarfare diseases may have escaped. There was little preparedness to deal with it. There was a very late and possibly disastrous response to it.
If federally sponsored biowarfare diseases make their way to Northwest Arkansas I hope Evers retains the good health to rise up and blame Democrats.
A second major reason the federal government should have been more involved is that the New Orleans area housed many lethal chemical stockpiles which are controlled first and foremost by federal regulation.
The environmental disaster posed by flooding stockpiles of lethal chemicals has hopefully been avoided. But the issue is still pending because many chemicals can cause damage for years after they are spilled as they seep into basements and ground water.
One more reason the feds should have responded much faster is that New Orleans is a major pipeline center for oil. Our oil supplies are already crippled due to the national disgrace called the Iraq War.
There are valid reasons the Federal Emergency Management Agency should have retained its high cabinet-level status instead of Bush burying it below several layers of bureaucracy in Homeland Security Department. Bush's neo-cons had plans to reduce FEMA from an agency to a mere office with a small staff. Let's see if those plans hold.
Keep in mind upon taking office the Bush cabal cut half the funds the previous administration had allocated for shoring up the New Orleans levees. Now they tell us they allocated $300 million more than requested (in 2004) which is still a substantial reduction from the amounts originally budgeted in 1999.
It seems I forgot to mention that an early federal response (which was requested the day before Katrina struck) could have saved lives, injuries and many sick folks. However, Barbara Bush put that issue in perspective when she remarked those people are just "the underprivileged and are better off" now that they no longer have their neighborhoods, possessions and families. Maybe they can eat cake too.
Be careful with your spins, distortions and half-truths because God doesn't just keep an eye on those with whom you disagree.
Larry Woodall
Springdale
Parents Must Be Responsible
Our schools have again come under the magnifying glass. Some parents like Laurie Taylor believe the school should remove books that would not be printed in her perfect world. As parents we should all take an interest in what our kids are learning in school, and we should have a process for monitoring and altering its content. But if we restrict what our kids are exposed to until it is only what fits in our perfect world, we are failing our children.
The school is not taking away your fundamental right to parent your children they are prompting you to step up to it. It is our job to prepare them for the real world not our perfect one.
Do you have so little influence over your kids that you need to carefully filter everything for them? Are you teaching them nothing of the real world or how to deal with what they will find there? You will better serve your kids by asking the school what they are choosing to read. If you find books there that are a problem, find out why your child has an interest in it. Perhaps they have questions that you should be helping them find answers to. I am sure there will be books in the library or at a friends house that I won't agree with. When I find out about my kids reading it not only will my children understand why I don't like it, I will find out why they do. I call that parenting.
William Hellyer
Springdale
Party Differences Are Really Simple
Just read the first sentence of a letter to the Opinion Page on Sept. 22 and it started "Liberal Democrats." It's time to tell the real truth how Democrats and Republicans differ.
The Democrats want the Bill of Rights and the Constitution to apply to everyone so everyone is treated with equal respect and enjoy the freedoms guaranteed to them like everyone else. Regardless of who or what you are. In the end we are all tax paying Americans.
Republicans don't understand this. Republicans want the Constitution and Bill of Rights only for the people they agree with. Kind of a "master race theme."
Stanley Miller
Rogers
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