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Published on 01/18/1999 All articles from this issue

Letters to the Editor

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K-9 story was touching

My name is George Edmonds and I was a K-9 police officer for the city of Lincoln Heights, Ohio.

The story you wrote about the officer and his dog resigning (Dec. 30 - "Looking Back at 1998") was most touching. After being in the company of death and seeing the worst of human nature I decided to turn in my shield.

I am now a paramedic and volunteer K-9 Search & Rescue worker. I train and breed working German shepherds and Labrador retrievers.

I would like to wish this brave officer all the best. I would also like to tell him that, yes, there is life after law enforcement.

George A. Edmonds Jr.(No address given)

Rule by law, not by majority

I am writing in response to Bob Johnson (Jan. 6 Town Crier) who wrote that in our democratic system, representatives should be bound by popular opinion rather than conscience.

The United States is, in fact, not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. Knowing that the majority is not always right, our Founding Fathers gave us "rule by law" rather than rule by simple majority opinion.

The job of a representative in our republic is to judge, to the best of his understanding and conscience, what is most beneficial to the whole of his constituency, rather than what is most popular.

With so much power in the hands of our representatives, their consciences are our great security.

The day that conscience loses its place in our government is the day we lose what integrity and honesty remain in politics.

Please consider; was it not a "crisis of conscience" that precipitated our current situation?

In his Farewell Address, George Washington asked this question, "Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in the courts of justice?"

With our senators now serving as jurors under oath, let us applaud those who have the courage to choose conscience over popularity.

Kirsten M. CrouchLos Altos

Great test scores, stifled creativity?

With educational issues on the front page every day, we are seeing a national increase in the volume of homework that burdens our smallest kids.

I am a former engineer and research scientist who has become the full-time mother of a sixth grader. I see a grave danger in the three-to-four hours of homework that my son has each day.

All of my colleagues in engineering and the sciences spent a lot of their childhoods diddling. They looked under rocks, through telescopes and into soap bubbles.

They built forts, booby traps and dams. They took apart locks, old radios and lawnmowers. They painted, danced and stared into space.

Creativity comes from play. When we have raised a generation of children who can score well on standardized tests, we will have a generation with no dreams and no ideas. Will this keep America great?

Lisa Orton, Ph. D.Los Altos Hills

Columnist applauded over movie trailers

I want to applaud Kerri Gordon's column last week, outlining her appalling experience at the Mountain View Century 16 theaters when trailers featuring graphic violence assaulted the audience of toddlers, children, and parents awaiting "A Bug's Life."

I, too, have been appalled by commercial breaks on television that are graphically violent, specifically designed by savvy advertising professionals to haunt viewers' memories for days.

Parents who carefully screen and monitor their children's media viewing can't protect offspring from cheap shots like that.

And it's not just product advertising that is at fault.

On a program billed as the "ultimate family viewing experience," my family was urged to "Stay tuned at 11" to learn why an "Indiana dad shoots children then himself."

It wasn't the news teaser I'd expected to hear between Barney's "Imagination Island" and "The Sound of Music," but at least I received a strong personal apology from a top local programming executive the following day.

My fear is that, without a strict fine imposed for showing inappropriate trailers to our tiniest citizens, theater management has little incentive to train its recruits to avoid such mistakes.

Mistakes happen, but mistakes like this one need to provide opportunities for managers to put procedures in place to assure the same mistake doesn't happen again.

The truth is, just as parents have turned away from television that refused to tailor its commercials to its programming, many of us will refuse to pay a bundle for a family outing that could so easily turn sour.

Mary Cooper Feliz

Los Altos