• Public schools offer quality education • Libby lessons • Commuted sentence meaning Public schools offer quality education I am the mother of five grown children, four of whom graduated from Kauai High School. I’m responding to the letter about
• Public schools offer quality education
• Libby lessons
• Commuted sentence meaning
Public schools offer quality education
I am the mother of five grown children, four of whom graduated from Kauai High School. I’m responding to the letter about private vs. public schools (“Every child deserves a quality education,” Letters, July 7). All public schools have challenges, in part since they are the school every child in the community has the right to attend. There are many other problems such as burned-out, tenured teachers, low pay, limited resources, etc. Teenagers by their nature can get bored, even under the best of circumstances. Teachers have a challenge in keeping students’ attention, especially in classes the student has no interest in or doesn’t think is important to them. Parents can contribute to their teens enjoying school by making sure the child knows education is valuable. I also believe other school activities besides the basics should be encouraged by parents and teachers, such as music, sports, theater and after-school programs like mock trial. Parents should nurture hobbies outside of school activities as well, starting at younger ages. With my children, the after-school theater program for public students, KPAC (Kauai Performing Arts Center), along with Kauai High Singers (advanced chorus at Kauai High) were the interests that kept my kids focused and in love with school. They may not have enjoyed every class (sorry, biology teachers), but KPAC and the singers taught my children wonderful lessons similar to what is learned in team sports: being dedicated, learning to work hard, accomplishing goals and working as a team. Teens who are so intelligent that their classes are boring them, need to take the most challenging classes and find other areas to apply themselves, like the programs mentioned here. I applaud all the dedicated public school teachers who not only have teenagers and their parents to deal with, but also administrators who are not always the most supportive to their efforts.
Thank you Dennis McGraw, head of KPAC and David Conrad, choral director at Kauai High, for the many wonderful memories my kids enjoyed thanks to you. All my kids have gone on to accomplish much, including two with college degrees in challenging fields and one who received a big scholarship to study musical theater in NYC, and they graduated from public Kauai High.
Poppy Shell
Kalaheo
Libby lessons
I’ve read with interest the letters on both sides of the Scooter Libby case and have to say both sides have a point. Whether or not Mr. Libby should be sent to jail is up to interpretation and perspective. The left says he violated the law and was sentenced to jail. He was. The right says he was the object of a witch hunt and the case was flawed. It was.
Though Mr. Libby will not go to jail, he has been severely punished already. Reputation, probation, fines, civil lawsuits, etc. When one stands back and looks closely it seems our president took the middle road and for that I respect him. Everyone knows Libby had nothing to do with “outing” Valarie Plame. Armitage is the one who “leaked” that information. In fact, the whole thing became comical when it was revealed that Valarie the “covert” CIA operative was actually anything but. She followed the same routine every day entering CIA headquarters through the front door with no disguise in broad daylight and going to her office in front of the world. Covert? I think not. Smile Valarie, Al Qaeda has you on their candid camera.
This whole affair started when the CIA was looking for someone to go to Africa and check out a story about potential nuclear material purchases by Saddam. Valarie lobbied hard for her husband to be picked for the job and he was. “Kaching!!” Later she told the grand jury she “couldn’t remember” whether it was her or her boss who suggested Wilson. Right. Perhaps Valarie should have been indicted for lying to the grand jury?
Libby was convicted of providing false information because he got his timeline mixed up under oath. Whether it was intentional or not God and Libby only knows. Fitzgerald, it seems, was the bad guy here. He reminds me of Nifong out to get the Duke lacrosse team. Fitzgerald successfully got the grand jury to suppress valuable information that was not given to the court before the jury made their “guilty” finding. With that information Libby probably would have walked.
Of course the extreme left will not see the forest for the trees no matter what logic is used. The extreme right, likewise. It has been refreshing, however, to see very left leaning, liberal commentators agreeing with the conservative base that Mr. Libby was the victim of a witch hunt, Fitzgerald should go back to school, and the president made the right decision.
Gordon Oswald
Kapa’a
Commuted sentence meaning
It’s rare when anyone, other than the president himself, knows why he pardons convicts. However, in the Libby/Fitzgerald/Bush fiasco it is obvious to any thinking person: No one now will implicate Vice President Dick Cheney in any of the impeachable going’s-on coming out of the vice president’s office. One can lie, weasel and wiggle his or her way through any court in the land, be convicted but assured that he or she will be pardoned.
Good move. Sad move.
May the voice of reason ring out loud and clear.
Bettejo Dux
Kalaheo
