Sunday, June 29, 2008
Behind every graduate there was a teacher or two
EDITOR:
At this time of year there’s excellent coverage of our recent graduates, including high school, college, graduate and medical schools. I realized something was missing when I read your article Monday that featured the need for graduating engineers and the different professions that are lacking qualified graduates. The article focused on the shortage of teachers to prepare our students for their chosen careers. Yes! The unsung heroes in short supply are our teachers and their dedication to the future of our national workforce.
It really hit home when I had the experience of moving my wife Jackie and fellow teacher Karen Parsons from their teaching home of the past 35 years, Lynn Kirk School in Austintown. You see, Jackie and Karen retired after serving some 1,600 elementary students between them. There was no fanfare, no plaques, no letters of commendation, just three pick-up truck loads of educational materials bought and paid for by these dedicated teachers, who spent their adult lives seeing to the needs of children they served. I know they will be missed.
We never really appreciate the investment teachers make and the huge impact they have on our children. Jackie invested her own money and a lot of her personal time to see to it that her students received the best she could provide. She sometimes came home frustrated over little things like why a parent would sacrifice the Weekly Reader for their child — for the cost of a pack of cigarettes. Or why so many parents never bothered to show up for a conference, and had no idea who was teaching their child.
Maybe each of us should take the time to stop and remember the impact teachers have, and appreciate them for the job they do. Life’s lessons started with a teacher. Thank you Jackie, Karen and all those who dedicate their lives to the noble profession.
Teachers do make a difference, and it’s reflected in all the graduates we are so proud of that were featured in The Vindicator.
JOHN BURGAN
Boardman
Age should have no bearing on McCain’s fitness for office
EDITOR:
As this election approaches, I am tired of the media and the Democrats stating that John McCain is too old to be president of the United States. Perhaps they need to rethink this statement. With the recent loss of news commentator Tim Russert at the young age of 58, our society needs to realize that age has no bearing on the capabilities of John McCain. It also reminds us that when the time comes, it doesn’t matter what one’s age is. I would like to know how the Democrats can predict the future of someone’s health. I was also under the impression that experience comes with age.
Furthermore, I am tired of John McCain being linked to President Bush. What about Barack Obama being linked to ex-president Carter, who was one of our worst presidents?
GERT LEVY
Youngstown
The price of conscience
EDITOR:
Edwin Lewinson is currently incarcerated at Elkton Federal Corrections Institute serving a 90-day sentence for civil disobedience. Ed is doing time because of his participation in a protest of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), popularly and formerly known as the School of the Americas (SOA). Each November for the last 18 years an annual prayer vigil and protest at the SOA/WHINSEC in Fort Benning, Ga., has drawn as many as 25,000 people, including concerned Christians, Jews, Muslims and persons of conscience from all faiths and walks of life.
Ed Lewinson “crossed the line” onto Fort Benning’s property in order to draw attention to murders, assassinations, torture and massacres, including the massacre of over 700 mostly women and children in the village of El Mozote, El Salvador, by graduates of WHINSEC. There are over 2,000 documented cases in Latin America of these brutal atrocities committed by WHINSEC graduates (soldiers from Central American countries trained right here in America) against church groups, union members and other civilian populations.
Several pieces of legislation have been crafted by our congressional representatives over the last several years in attempts to investigate and close down WHINSEC. Currently Tim Ryan and some 122 congressmen are sponsoring HR 1707, we are calling on Charlie Wilson to get on board with this as well.
Please don’t take my word for this information but instead go to www.soaw.org and start your own investigation.
As for Ed Lewinson, you should know that it’s Dr. Lewinson, even though he prefers Ed; that he’s professor emeritus at Seton Hall University; that he’s 78 years old, and that he’s been blind from birth. Consider standing with Ed as he serves notice to the Pentagon that our democracy is still of the people, by the people and for the people. Our great American heritage calls on each of us to demand that our elected officials rein in the misguided bureaucrats who have made our country an accomplice to these unspeakable crimes against humanity. We surely are complicit in the suffering of our neighbors to the extent that we remain silent and fail to act as Ed has on their behalf.
TERRY VICARS
Boardman
Turn houses into homes
EDITOR:
Why are there vacant houses and homeless people here? No real democracy, only a hypocrisy, would even have a word for homelessness, let alone, tolerate the reality. The same is true of hunger. And even unemployment.
Why aren’t the vacant houses given to homeless people? Instead of grants given to the rich and/or employed, or multi-million dollar contracts given to businesses to demolish vacant houses, why aren’t vacant houses and the pay that would be spent demolishing them, given to those who need both most: The homeless?
Why not spend money on materials, repairs and utilities to turn vacant homes into lived-in homes and homeless people into homeowners? Now, that would be change.
LESLIE CHAIN
Youngstown
Drunken driver got off easy
EDITOR:
The sentence handed down to the drunken driver who crashed into the police cruiser was too light.
If these drunken drivers are not given the maximum penalty, other innocent drivers will be killed or injured.
This sentence makes me angry because I lost a loved one through the fault of a drunken driver.
NELIA HUNN
Newton Falls