Letters to the Editor

Savvy coal miners took canaries down into the mines with them. When methane gas started oozing -- lethal to breathe, odorless, colorless and high-explosive -- the canaries keeled over first and gave some warning.

Profoundly disturbed people may serve the same purpose today. If a society is healthy and stable, it tolerates such people and finds a livable space for them. When they start being gunned down, or burned as witches, or cast off homeless with a bottle of pills, society has become too obsessive-compulsive to survive intact. That's how the Nazis got started, by persecuting the insane. Other victims came later, because the first ones were ignored.

Many obscure problems reveal themselves only in unforeseen disaster, too late to ward off the blow. Profoundly disturbed people offer early warning; not because of their disturbance, but because the rest of us are stretched too thin to shield their greater vulnerability. That sheltering confirms society's vigor and resilience; its failure foretells unpredictable disaster.

Mark Mulligan
Seattle

Air marshals did what they are trained to do

T. Jay Farley's Friday letter was the most ridiculous thing I have read in quite some time. So, let me get this straight; you are too simple-minded to understand the following:

A terrorist could use a woman to scream like the victim's wife did to give him time to detonate his bomb.

There are flaws in our security, otherwise we would not need air marshals.

Nobody has said our screening process is impervious and perfect. Take a screaming woman's words into consideration, hesitate and then what if a bomb is detonated?

If they sue and get people who do not understand life and death on the jury, that is their only chance to win.

If your wife or child were on the plane or in the vicinity, they did hesitate as you suggest and your loved one died, you would be suing, so don't come across judging others as hypocrites.

They did exactly what they have been trained and trained well to do -- protect the rest of us. I thank God for people who will stand up and do what's right and not just sit back in their comfortable home and pass ridiculous judgments on others.

Mark Moberg
Richland

Man should have been arrested, not shot dead

The lead story in Thursday's Seattle P-I vividly reported on a man who threatened others with a bomb (that didn't exist) and was shot by air marshals. While I want my government to protect me against genuine threats, I regret that he wasn't arrested and tried instead.

Several years ago, a small group of people repeatedly invented threats about bombs that didn't exist. Tens of thousands of people died as a result including several thousand U.S. soldiers.

Yet that small group of people is still at the helm of the world's most powerful country, promoting a war that has made us less secure, a war that absorbs attention and money needed to confront real threats such as climate change and desperate poverty.

A few months' cost of the Iraq war could feed the billion poorest people in the world. Another month's worth could dramatically reduce disease and improve infant and maternal mortality rates. What terrorist could find anti-American recruits in communities receiving such help?

Let's make Peace on Earth something real this year by supporting efforts such as the ONE Campaign to help the world's poorest people -- while improving our security.

Glen Gersmehl
Shoreline

MONORAIL

City blew its chance for grade-separated transit

A daily user of the Seattle Center monorail was quoted in Susan Paynter's Wednesday column as saying, "It's pretty efficient. A bus has to stop at all the lights. To get all the way down Fifth takes three to four times longer than the monorail."

Well, duh. Can you say, "grade-separated rapid transit"? Seattle, methinks you threw the baby out with the bath water with the result of last month's vote.

Lauren St. Pierre
Seattle

BUDGET SURPLUS

Invest the extra in a housing program

Chris McGann's Monday article, "State lawmakers to face surplus, urge to splurge," was an interesting look at the state's new fiscal outlook, but missed an important angle. Where did the money come from?

According to the Washington State Revenue Forecast Council, nearly 30 percent of the state's new revenue comes from real estate excise tax payments. The housing boom "accounts for well over half of the total change when the indirect impact of the strong housing market on spending on real estate related taxable sales is included" (W.S.R.F.C., September 2005). At the same time, more than 750,000 Washington households do not have a decent, safe and affordable place to live. It is only fair that the surplus (which was created by an unaffordable real estate market) go back to the people that the market has left behind.

The state should do the right thing with this money by investing in underfunded housing programs (such as the Housing Trust Fund, which is responsible for more than $420 million in new and improved housing since 1989). The rising land and construction prices that brought the state this surplus have a side effect -- many individuals and families cannot find a decent, safe and affordable place to live. The state has an opportunity, and a responsibility, to use some portion of this new money to help those that the market has left behind and make sure all Washingtonians have a place to call home.

Ben Gitenstein
State legislative chairman

Washington Low-Income

Housing Alliance

Give the money back to overtaxed residents

Here is a novel idea for our state government since there is a budget surplus. Because you have overtaxed us, how about you give it back instead of finding other things to spend it on.

John Stubb
Kirkland

WASL

Being ready for test is training for real world

Why does anyone, especially our School Board members, think it is a good idea to dumb down our educational system? I am incensed at your Tuesday article. It is perfectly reasonable to give high school students the WASL and for the WASL to dictate whether they graduate. I'm tired of hearing students bleat about passing the test or how this will lead to more dropouts.

Here's a news flash: If you know you are struggling in a particular area, try studying more. Learn to be proactive and to apply yourself.

Here's another new flash: Parents pay attention. Read your child's reports, check how they scored on their homework, make them read a few chapters of a book before playing a video game, if you have time to watch television for an hour, you have time to make sure your child is making the grade.

Earlier generations valued the fact they were given a free education. They worked harder and appreciated it for the gift it is, but now all we hear are the woeful cries of lazy students. You are fortunate to live in a country that pays for you to learn. Take advantage of it, work harder, be patient. Your mind is the most important instrument you will ever have, don't be afraid to push it and you will find the WASL is not something to fear, but a challenge to work toward.

The real world is harsh and unforgiving and will require hard work to gain success. Get used to it.

Laurel S. Barton
Seattle

If WASL's so good, why does it take so many tries?

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson declares she plans to push for another $42 million for WASL summer school, hoping to give students a boost to pass the 10th-grade WASL.

Last spring a mere 42.3 percent passed all three sections statewide. Bergeson seems to think passing the same single test will make a student ready for the real world.

If, in fact, WASL were such a good assessment, it would not require, for the majority of students, five attempts to pass it. I remind Bergeson that doing the same thing over and over, even with more money, and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

Bergeson states, "We can't hide the fact that we gave diplomas last year to kids who couldn't read." That's shameful. Every student deserves reading skills. If Bergeson were truly concerned with teaching proficient reading skills, she would aim her efforts toward utilizing proven, reliable reading programs; not ones she currently promotes. She would provide relevant supplementary reading teachers, and give them tools, resources and support needed to accomplish this responsibility.

Recently, Gov. Christine Gregoire told former Gov. Booth Gardner to "go fix it" -- the WASL mess. Perhaps it's time for Bergeson to re-evaluate priorities and redirect focus.

Rebecca Dykes
Royal City

HUNGER

U.N.'s worthy goal worth our support

I am a student at the University of Washington who finds myself lacking two of the four basic human necessities: food and sleep. As a starving student, I look for many ways to cut costs and find the cheapest possible meal, as it is in my best financial interest. My priorities have shifted lately, as I have discovered discomforting statistics that billions of people are even hungrier that I. In fact, more than 1 billion people have less than $1 (U.S.) to spend on food per day. What's being done about it?

In 2000, the United Nations established an agenda --The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- to attack this issue and others of the like by 2015. This agenda also came to my surprise. How had I not heard of such an effort? Although 2015 appears in the far distant future, projects such as the MDGs cannot be shelved. There are a number of organizations that are also committed to the MDGs. Locally, The Borgen Project is one of those organizations.

Its objective is to inform the public of the MDGs and catalyze efforts to achieving those goals. As citizens, our civic duty calls for us to inform and attack those critical issues.

Joshua Sabrowsky
Seattle

NEWS SOURCES

It's not up to the subject to declare 'off the record'

There is no such thing, ever, as a source being able to declare something off the record. Ever.

The news organization must agree to keep something off the record; a source may not proclaim it. By default, everything is on the record until the news organization agrees to keep it off the record.

That's what sources should be informed of. The problem is that if you do that, you might discourage your source from talking to you at all. So you compromise. You play politics. You just nod and go along most of the time if a source proclaims something is "off the record." And, inevitably, the rules become "unclear."

Chris Nandor
Arlington

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