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Pasco Letters to the Editor

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 2, 2008

Teachers Discouraged

Why is the state of Florida willing to discourage and penalize the educators who are so willing to improve their skills by applying for the National Board Certified Teachers program?

This is a grueling, time-consuming process that many have compared to a graduate degree. I think they would want the best and brightest teaching our children.

I am proud to say that my wife, an elementary school guidance counselor, successfully completed this process, which took many hours to complete. She chose to do this for two reasons: to set herself apart from her contemporaries and increase her compensation. The latter was multifaceted.

In recognition, the state would reward the NBCT with a 10-year bonus for the certification and another bonus to mentor fellow educators for a minimum of 91 hours during the school year. The increased compensation would be applied to their retirement.

My wife has worked many days, nights and weekends assisting fellow counselors in becoming better counselors and faculty members. And from what I hear, not one has said her advice and dedication to aiding these counselors has been unappreciated.

Most importantly, the children have benefited.

So again, why? Why would you discourage and penalize educators who want to be better, to be the "Top Guns" of their profession? Are we saying that we really do not care about who teaches our children? I hope not.

STEVE WOLBARST

Odessa

Strong Words

In a Pasco Tribune letter Feb. 18 ("McCain's Assurances"), John DiGaetano, president of the Tampa Bay area chapter of the Second Amendment Club of America, wrote: "The gun owners of Florida, all 6 million of us, owe much to this man" (Bill Bunting).
DiGaetano went on to state that "elected officials here in Pasco County, as well as the governor, owe much to this man." He added: "Gun owners are a very loyal and informed group of people. We know who our friends are, and we know who our enemies are. And we don't forget either."

These statements should be a cause of concern for anyone who values the Constitution and hopes for freedom from a police state. Consider this: Our election season is in full swing, and we are sending our sons and daughters to fight two wars under the guise of preserving "freedom in America."
DiGaetano referenced the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, and his commitment to Bunting, to nationalize gun rights. "If McCain is elected," DiGaetano continues "and turns on us, we will remember that also, which in my opinion will help destroy the Republican Party."

These are strong words - strong words that show not a commitment to America or the Republican Party but rather a commitment only to guns. This could be seen only as the rantings of one man except for the fact that Bunting heads the Pasco GOP.

Party politics aside, I urge all Americans to pay close attention to such tactics and rhetoric. This is not what America is about. This is not what freedom is about. This is not democracy.

PENO HARDESTY

New Port Richey

'A Devil's Bargain'

Regarding "Celebrating Earth Day," letters, April 23:

Steve Bass of Covanta, the contractor operating the Pasco trash incinerator, appears to have confused April Fool's Day with Earth Day because his had to be a joke, particularly when it is juxtaposed with the article "Report Links Smog To Deaths" in the same issue of the Tribune.

It is even more of a farce in light of expectations that EPA is expected to require this region to take expensive new steps to reduce smog to reach required pollution standards ("Smog Added to Area Hit List," March 13).

Bass illustrates the trash-to-energy industry's great skill at portraying burning trash to produce energy as a wonderful and perhaps even an ecofriendly, solid waste disposal solution. But the grim statistics on increased mortality, asthma attacks among our children, heart attacks, lung disease, etc., as well as the sheer cost of incineration, really make trash incineration a devil's bargain.

Rather than the win-win scenario painted by its proponents, the health effects and cost really make it a lose-lose proposition.

JERRY KISSEL

Clean Air Florida Now

Words Have Meaning

Some proponents of state Sen. Ronda Storms' "Academic Freedom Act" explain their support on freedom-of-speech grounds, but they shouldn't. It's well-rounded education and saying that opposing views exist, that's all. Reminder, it's the "theory of evolution." Words mean things.

The simple facts are that evolutionary theory has holes; among other things, it doesn't account for complex things, like eyes, and that many phyla suddenly appeared without antecedents in the so-called "Cambrian explosion."

There has to be some middle ground between, on one hand, believing evolution explains everything and on the other, being a religious fanatic.

Alternatives (or complements) to evolution are almost metaphysical. If one takes evolution all the way back to the Big Bang, what was there before that?

ERNEST LANE

Trinity

'Dumbing' Starts Here

Well, way to go, Ronda. With Florida education already pretty much the laughingstock of the nation, now we have "intelligent design" as a science! What's next? Will we teach our children that babies come from the cabbage patch in sex education classes or maybe teach medical students how to make a diagnosis by reading tea leaves and treating patients by waving chicken bones at them?

Apparently, the dumbing of America starts with our state Senate.

ERIC FOECKING

Zephyrhills

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