Features

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday March 23, 2004

FOR KERRY

Editors, Daily Planet:

I am writing in defense of Senator John Kerry’s voting record that has been called inconsistent. His Senate voting record is to me a sign he voted based on the evidence available to him. His vote in October 2002 to authorize the president to use military force was with the caveat that the force must be used as a last resort and with international cooperation regarding Iraq. Senator Kerry then voted against the $87 billion appropriation in Iraq be-cause it was not clear from U.S. allies that that much was needed. The French, at least, were saying that training and rebuilding of infrastructure need not cost as much as $87 billion, if contracts were open to more companies than Halliburton.

Similarly, Senator Kerry’s vote against military spending in the 1990s was against measures that would enhance defense contractors, as op-posed to providing for troops and veterans.

Senator Kerry’s voting record is consistent to a voter who follows the news. It would behoove the electorate to elect a leader who is willing to respond to new evidence issues of national importance.

Devaki Chandra

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ELECTION RESULTS

Editors, Daily Planet:

On National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation I heard this morning [March 15] a British editor agree with an American call-in who opined that appeasement never works. The implication is that the Spanish vote and troop withdrawal from Iraq after the Madrid holocaust will be “Neville Chamberlain-like” appeasement of al-Qaeda.

Bush and Blair will of course embrace this interpretation this interpretation of Spanish revulsion to their non-war, unsubstantiated “preemptive” massacre in Iraq. But I wonder about John Kerry. Could the tardy U.S. troop scramble out of Vietnam be called “appeasement?” Wasn’t it rather a well-deserved defeat by forces we had very unjustifiably viciously attacked?

I hope something has been learned from Vietnam: when a war is wrong, or at least the side we are supporting is wrong, the right thing to do is get out of that war as quickly as possible, and with as little harm as possible to both sides in the conflict.

Bravo for the Spanish voters!

Judith Segard Hunt

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FOR BUSH

Editors, Daily Planet:

My number one reason for endorsing President Bush for re-election is his overwhelming commitment to world peace.

After we were attacked in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush knew his role here in America is to protect us from terrorism and tyranny. President Bush has accomplished this by his honest, brilliant, and courageous leadership.

However our fight for world peace and our fight against terrorism and tyranny will never end. Terrorists are planning attacks every minute of the day and they will never stop. How lucky we are to have President Bush as our leader instead of Gore. Kerry would be worse. During the past 20 years Kerry has been on every side of every issue.

Our economy today is the most prosperous economy ever known on earth. Here in California most people live in $400,000 houses, drive $20,000 cars and spend $3 for a cup of coffee or pack of cigarettes, and eat half of their food out. Retail sales and home construction are at record highs.

President Bush is not only a great president, he is the greatest world leader of the 21st century.

Mike Vukelich

El Sobrante

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POOL REPAIR

Editors, Daily Planet:

Before the Berkeley High School north pool room is rendered uninhabitable by the gaping roof leaks, so that not even the intrepid of the 300 disabled south pool users can safely pass through on the way to the men’s showers and restrooms, can we do some planning?

This summer is the best time to replace the north pool roof, so winter rains can be excluded next year and so interior remodeling can take place. Now is the time to prepare specs and refine the detail drawings to produce a better result than the south pool replacement.

We know the purlins and ledgers have rotted, for example, and need replacement, as well as the roof sheathing boards. Marine plywood would resist high humidity that will doubtless persist.

I’d like to suggest the council and school board each select one person and give them the power to decide what to do, and organize a meeting between them and a pool committee person for one hour, to finalize a spending plan for the unspent warm pool fund, about $150,000. I suggest Lew Jones, Rene Cardinaux and Josephine Arasteh. I suggest a new roof at north, 2 or 3 new doors including frames, repair south windows and north pool windows, wall cleaning, rust removal, more spalled concrete repairs, epoxy painting of concrete and steel wall columns and trusses, remove ducts at north, and repair or remove conduit. We need this work done before next winter.

Terry Cochrell

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Editors, Daily Planet:

How ironic. Just when our Food Service Department is being praised in the New York Times for it’s collaboration with Alice Waters of Chez Pannise; just when our lunch programs at Willard and Longfellow are taking off because of a new menu of fresh, nutritious and good tasting food; just when Berkeley High School will open a huge, new cafeteria with fresh, nutritious, good tasting food with many organic components; and after the BUSD cut out soda pop and junk food snacks from all it’s schools years ago; a hand full of Berkeley residents are asking the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury to investigate our food programs, according to the March 16-18 edition of the Daily Planet.

The Berkeley School’s Food Services Department has not lost $2.1 million dollars over the last three years, as these people contend, but has found all the discrepancies in previous Food Service budgets and given our community a dose of reality therapy in regards to the challenges of supplying quality food to children with a grossly inadequate budget. Simply put, the budget supplied by the Federal food subsidy program is not sufficient.

With a completely new administrative team making realistic analyses of food services; budgets that more accurately described the program; the watchful eyes of a citizens committee; a reorganized food service department; and the collaboration of folks like Alice Waters of Chez Pannise, Zenobia Barlow from the Center for Ecoliteracy, and Bert Lubin, head of the Pediatric Department of Children’s Hospital; and other food advocates; we now may be able to find the way to provide wholesome, nutritious, healthy food for our students. A grand jury investigation will not help us find this way.

Terry Doran

Berkeley School Board Member

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Editors, Daily Planet:

You may already have heard that virtually all of the video equipment at Berkeley Alternative High School was stolen just before Christmas. As you can imagine, the students and staff were distraught, as this equipment was essential to many important academic and extracurricular projects.

Thanks to generous donations by several organizations and individuals, though, the video production program at BAHS is already back up and running. I am writing on behalf of my students and colleagues to thank the community in general and the following organizations in particular:

Berkeley Public Education Foundation, with special appreciation for Trina Ostrander’s invaluable help in making the rebuilding process a success.

Berkeley High School Development Group, for supporting education at Berkeley’s other public high school.

Le Conte Elementary PTA, for their willingness to support high schoolers’ work with elementary-aged kids.

Nancy Riddle, School Board member, for organizing a donation by the company for which she works, Monster Cable.

Beyond the gratitude we feel for the equipment itself, we appreciate the fact that the community demonstrated their support for our school through

their generosity. That support means a great deal to all of us at BAHS.

Philip Halpern

English Teacher

Berkeley Alternative High School

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Editors, Daily Planet: