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Show "Mi? are dedicated to the public interest, to fairness and accuracy, to innovation and growth, and to the restless pursuit of excellence." PuliltT mission statement AD' EDITOR: IX)NAl D W AkTC i THE DAILY HERALD (www HarkThcllerald.com) BR .HI till MY TURN 1 1 - MONA ClIAREN car-bom- Teacher justly dismissed for preaching to class June 8, 1998, was a sad day for P.S. 74, in New York's blighted South Bronx section. If she had merely told her class that Christopher Lee was in heav- en, there would have been no controversy. Where Rosario stepped over the line was in summoning the children to make their own religious commitments then and there. That is the province of the church, not the school. . Some of the Republican politicians who declared Rosario a heroine pointed out that another teacher who was discovered to be a member of NAMBLA had been merely transferred to a desk job. The NAMBLA teacher was moved out of the classroom and out of contact with children. And Rosario was fired only after she refused to refrain in the future from proselytizing. Rosario frightens not just the churchstate separation fanatics but also reasonable parents who do not wish to see a teacher usurp their proper role in the religious training of their children. She is a poor model for those who wish to restore some sanity and balance to the churchstate separation debate. Mono Charen is a columnist with Creators Syndicate. Her column appears Wednesdays. EDITCF This last round of violence was touched off. when Ariel Sharon, leader of Likud Israel's hard-lin- e visited the Temple Party, Mount, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims, and declared it an Israeli possession forever as Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat were discussing who would control the site. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassi-nated,fiby a Palestinian, fight. As hard as it may be, emug ensure that there will be no more distractions. Neither side can afford t!6 allow extremists to derail ai: peace plan. There has been'-enou- gh fighting and blood-"- " shed in Israel, and it hasrrt served any useful purpose."''' The only times when peace, has prevailed was when reasonable people sat dowri" at the table and worked together for the common "J 4 -- Barak and Arafat must goal of peace. ignore these extremists as Members of The Daily Herald edU they push for peace. If they ' torial board are Publisher Kirk ? "Y are truly serious, they will Mike Editor Parkinson, Managing do what they can to get Fitzgerald, Opinions Page Editor troublemakers in their Donald W. Meyers, Community Editor'' camp to stand down, even if Sharon Gholdston, Orem resident it means using force on the Curtis Turnbull and Provo resident x extremists in their midst to Carolyn S. Wright. ot Typical of elitist educators is to offer commentary so disjointed that it actually causes you, the manipulated reader, to der if you are nuts. won- Consider Rick Soulier's Dec. 22 column. He begins with scare tactics, bashing the presidentelect, and ends on some flower-chil- d cry against war and violence. Nice try, Rick. Setting the reader up for how warlike the Bush administration will be by virtue of each official appointed to date, Soulier babbles some things about violence (so Bush, violence connects) then stirs in some Second Amendment prattle (Bush, violence, right to bear arms now connect) d then adds mass murderers and Harris of Columbine fame in some twisted argument that is supposed to lead back to Bush. As he connects the obvious dots to where we are headed, he can only hope the rest of us boobs get it. Yep. Nasty, Republicans. Can't wait to send our kids off to get killed. His silly, patronizing, insulting rhetoric and conclusions don't help his obvious left and Democratic Party bias. Sorry. g Rick. This truly reader wasn't fooled. What a disservice to real thinkers. Hope UVSC isn't paying for this kind of instruction from the English professor. Kle-bol- war-hungr- y, mass-murderi- peace-lovin- James Pratt Provo Forget dam breeching California recently made the news due to a shortage of elec- trical power. A shortage that has resulted in a threat of "brownouts" across that state. Government officials are forcing power suppliers in the Northwest to sell power at less than market prices in order to keep California's lights on. Perhaps that is a good thing, but one cannot avoid musing over the benefit to be derived from allowing those brownouts to occur for a short period of time. One is compelled to believe that such an experience might cause a rethinking of the environmental nonsense, now quite popular on the coasts, which would breach the dams on our nation's rivers. The electrical preservation of free institutions. On the surface it might seem generators in those dams supply like we should just go by the at least 10 percent of our nation's electrical energy needs. popular vote. The Electoral ColIndeed one might wonder how lege is not an anachronism but is instead one of the vital checks we have arrived at some of the c bizarre associated with and balances created by the current environmentalism. The Founding Fathers to ensure the answer seems to lie in the preservation of liberty. I like the phrase, "If it is not broken, don't topic of "new textbooks for our schools." try to fix it." Once again, although the sub"Modern textbooks" routinely throw in the Chicken-Littl- e stantive differences that sepaphorate Bush from Gore are not as bia of environmentalism. For example the local chemistry text pronounced as most appear to makes reference to "Fish dying believe, the 2000 election demonstrated how advocates of in the Snake River in Idaho" as a result of chemical contamiinvasive, plunder-craze- d government could win the popular vote nants. Even though the story is fictional, it is never identified as be focusing their efforts upon urban such. winning population-dens- e 1 centers and ignoring the vast local could Utahns suspect and should do a better job of .expanse of America. Rudy Rutishauser writing texts with the substance of the three R's in mind, rather Orem than supporting the social and Teach healthy lifestyle political agenda's often held by authors outside our state. Have the words "nutrition" Frank T. Gardiner Provo and "fitness" been removed from our vocabulary? The health of America is rapSave Electoral College idly fading and, unfortunately, There are some interesting the effects of these health problems have come to include not statistics that most people are not aware of about the presidenonly the adult population, but tial election. children and adolescents as From USA TODAY analysis well. by Paul Overberg, I learned that Many adults are suffering the popular vote by "counties" now for living unhealthy shows that Al Gore carried only lifestyles in their youth, but not 677 and George W. Bush carried every generation must suffer this fate. 2,434 counties. In Ierms of If we could only instill a "square miles Gore got 580,134 while Bush captured 2,427,039. desire to exercise and eat right in the youth of today, I am conDispensing with the Electoral vinced that our society's health College would indeed simplify matters considerably. However, problems would greatly dimin the framers of our Constitution ish. understood that in matters of Concentrating efforts on the human government the simplest younger generations does not solution is not necessarily the free the rest of the population from responsibility, however. The one most compatible with the Pi By Garry THIS 11 Bush won't create new violence Doonesbury IS mLAfCfgPLSY ftnW.COM! 20fC 10 Ti2 EDITCn the teacher explained. Other students pursued the matter, asking, "What is heaven like?" Rosario's response was to ask those students who did not wish to discuss God to move to the back of the room, near the computer. Reports suggest that two boys did so. With the rest of the class assembled, Rosario, a Pentecostal ist, asked again whether this "was something voluntarily free will." She then proceeded to tell the children that Jesus had come into the world to save humanity and asked which of her students would like "to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior." Most of the students must have agreed because Rosario walked up and down the aisles placing her hands of each child's head and praying. When word of Rosario's altar call got around, there was a fuss. The Board of Education was in an uproar. There was a disciplinary hearing, but only one. After a few questions, the board issued its decision she was fired. Rosario's story ignited the fax lines in Washington, D.C., where conservative politicians smelled an outrage. A teacher who prays with her students gets fired, they fumed, while a member of the North American ManBoy Love Association is merely transferred! With drugs and crime stalking our schools, they continued, how in the world can they justify firing a teacher for praying? But Rosario's case is just too far over the line to serve as a cause celebre. but by an Israeli upset over Rabin's peace plans. Sadly, some on both sides of this fight cannot see a peace without total victory over their adversary. Others, maybe, have become so hardened by fighting that they see their lives losing meaning without a battle to HERALD 3. JANUARY rm eireiiiisiLS wmm paace ; it.-- There's a disturbing pattern in Middle East peace efforts. It seems every time Israelis and Palestinians get close to working out their differences, an extremist does something to drive the parties apart again and derail the efforts. In recent weeks, we've seen advances in the peace b process pushed back by attacks in Israel, driven by Palestinians who apparently don't want peace with Israel. This isn't to say that Israel doesn't have its share of people who don't believe in peace, either. - A student, Christopher Lee, had drowned. Speaking over the public address system, the principal asked the school to observe a moment of silence. In Mildred Rosario's sixth-grad- e class, the moment of silence led to questions. Luisa Corporan, 11, asked Rosario where Christopher Lee was. "He is in heaven," I WEDNESDAY. IHMt BAUOIfOieOftl FOK. teettY! non-logi- much-ballyhoo- Trudeau ir rcajui CHANGC SCATS. . ed youth turn to us for guidance. "'" We cannot be hypocrites who ,u" preach the importance of and fitness and then refuser-t- o live our own teachings. It is up to us to set the exam-pie concerning health issues jusl" as much as it is up to us to set , , the example concerning other social issues. ", Even if it may seem a little """ late to save ourselves from health problems, how much do we really have against passing up a burger or walking"' instead of driving once in a while? It is our personal choice, and , if we truly think that setting an x example of feeling better, looking better and living longer require t too great a sacrifice, then the fate of our health is set. And if this is our final deci- sion, then we cannot expect any1" thing more of the rising genera1-"- " tion. Aimee Kirkhdfrt, nutri-""-tio- n "' . -- ProT, ' The Daily Herald welcomes your lette'is to the editor. Please remember to include your full" name, address and phone number where3" you can be reached. Only your name ano"1' the city in which you live will be published" All other information will be kept confidential. Anonymous letters will be discarded. Letters must contain 250 or fewer wordS,' approximately one page, typed and double, o. spaced. Your letter will be better read if it concerns one central theme or idea. )"" All letters will be edited for length, ; accuracy and clarity. The Herald encourages community dli'" cussion of issues in a responsible manndHr Please send your letters to: J Editor. TIm Dally Herald P.O. Box N. 1555 Provo, 717 FrMdom Blvd. LTT. address is: Ldean9heraldextra.com. If you have questions, call Opinions Pagfln Editor Donald W. Meyers at 344-254- By Bruce Tinsle .Jzo refer 1 Moiig . ZZ: 84603 Letters may also be faxed or The fax number Is 344-298The Mallard Fillmore mm Mil wit 3i to |
