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- E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com
- Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor
San Diego Union-Tribune
P.O. Box 120191
San Diego, CA 92112-0191.
As another family joins the Capozzas and Waldrips grieving for the loss of their sons, parents must ask ourselves if we are doing all we can to educate and supervise our children. Are we guiding them to responsible adulthood from their earliest stages of development? It takes time and effort to put children on a trajectory to a fulfilling life. Are we taking and making enough time, and is discipline swift and sure when they take a step on the wrong path?
Yes, there is value in having teenagers hear police, paramedics and representatives of the criminal justice system recount horrific accident details, and decry the waste of human life and potential that is the consequence of “misguided youth.” But many would argue that by the time kids hear this message in an institutional setting, it is too late
The solution is parents talking to parents. How easy it is to say, “Of course, I would never let my son/daughter go out after midnight/drive drunk/ride unbelted.” But hearing directly from one’s peers — the mothers and fathers of these young victims — the terrible price extracted for even a single lapse of vigilance, will give these words a visceral meaning. “You think you’re too busy/tired/under-resourced to police your kid, well, so did I.”
As part of seeking closure, the parents of the dead children, indeed of all the occupants of these vehicles, should be encouraged to tell their story to the parents of children entering kindergarten.
Parents talking to parents — not school administrators, or authority figures, but the family “next door.”
OMAR FIRESTONE
Chula Vista
The worst part about players on the Clairemont High School football team getting caught drinking isn’t that the coach decided to forfeit a game that may cost them postseason play. It’s that the coach, the school, the district and all adults involved are making this about football, not about underage drinking.
Oh, boohoo, the kids were suspended for a game, had to attend a junior varsity game, ride the bus and serve as water boys. That’s paying the price?
These adults are perpetuating an entitlement attitude that the rules-don’t-apply-to-us in these students because they are football players. If anything, these athletes should be held to higher standards.
In the end, the kids are the ones who will lose because they believe they’re above it all. Let’s hope the loss will not be their lives.
PATRICIA M. WALSH
San Diego
Credit for many in making water history
The headline of your Nov. 5 editorial, “Water history: Local legislators played key role,” was right on the mark. On behalf of the San Diego County Water Authority, I cannot thank San Diego’s entire legislative delegation enough for its courage, tenacity and votes to pass this landmark water legislation.
I also want to thank Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders including Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, Assembly Minority Leader Sam Blakeslee, Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee Chair Fran Pavley, and Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee Chair Jared Huffman. All worked diligently to craft a package of measures that will help secure California’s water future for generations to come.
The leadership of San Diego County’s business community also must be commended. The San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and its Governor’s Council, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, BIOCOM and CONNECT supported this legislation and pressed hard to make sure its provisions will help our region achieve its water reliability goals while protecting our economy. Success on this landmark water legislation epitomizes what unified civic leadership on an important public policy issue can accomplish.
CLAUDE A. “BUD” LEWIS
Chair, Board of Directors
San Diego County Water Authority
Health care bill a step forward
We need to stop playing politics with the health reform debate and look at the tremendous progress being made in Washington. As a survivor, I can tell you that the bill soon to be debated by the Senate represents a huge improvement over the status quo for people fighting cancer.
In the current form, the bill will ensure that no one will be denied coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions, place an increased emphasis on prevention, guarantee access to health insurance regardless of health status and eliminate annual and lifetime caps on benefits. These are enormous steps forward. But the only way to benefit from this progress is to keep the momentum going and call on the Senate to pass reform legislation.
Health care reform is about saving lives and it is too important to stall now. We need to act now, not later, on behalf of all of their constituents who have cancer or who could get cancer — in other words, for all of us.
DAWN DURBIN
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Volunteer
San Marcos
The House health care bill disguises the cost by combining 10 years of higher taxes with only seven years of spending. It counts projected cuts in Medicare but does not count the $250 billion in higher Medicare reimbursem*nts to physicians, which successfully bought off the American Medical Association. It cuts off Medicare Advantage programs, which will force seniors to buy Medigap insurance to retain the same level of benefits, which bought off AARP, which makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year selling those policies.
The bill also combines, as only the House of Representatives can, soaring government spending while forcing up the cost of private insurance with new fees, taxes, coverage mandates and forced acceptance of new customers with prior conditions whose expenses will far exceed what they pay in premiums. They create a whole new government insurance company to provide “competition” while continuing federal tax policy and state regulations that forbid competition.
RICHARD E. RALSTON
Executive Director
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine
Newport Beach
It is outrageous that Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, and other anti-health reform members of Congress voted to attach an anti-choice amendment to a bill they had no intention of voting for. The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women. This will, in effect, deny women the right to use their own personal private funds to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system — a radical departure from the status quo.
Bilbray and his ilk had no intention of voting for health reform, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans strongly support it. However, they were not satisfied with merely opposing health care reform itself. They took this opportunity to take abortion coverage away from women who already have it in their private insurance plans.
This vote is a reminder to America’s pro-choice majority that, despite our gains in the last two election cycles, anti-choice members of Congress still outnumber our pro-choice allies.
Dr. JENNIFER REICHERT
San Diego
Regarding your Nov. 9 editorial “Punishing the unpure”:
I disagree that Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is being attacked for not supporting the health care reform bill. Most Democrats are angered by his pledge to join the Republicans to filibuster the vote on the bill. Most Americans believe that if the filibuster were used less our government would work more efficiently. Americans want an up-or-down vote from Congress on the health care reform bill.
C.L. HAMMOND
San Diego
