Letters to the editor

must be learned

Editor,

After reading the letter "Why us, why now?” in the Nov. 27 edition of the Daily Journal, I now know why our American society (rules, regulations, laws, and proper conduct in society) and the current generation of teens and young adults, has "gone to hell in a hand basket.”

Ms. Conran, a Half Moon Bay High School cheerleader, asks, "Why us, why now?” in regards to the past incidents of poor behavior and unlawful acts of violence committed by students from Half Moon Bay High School against players from Sequoia High School at a football game.

Ms. Conran, that is like when a speeder gets pulled over by a cop and the speeder asks the cop, "Why me, why now?” The cop answers, "because I saw you and I caught you.”

The author continues with the reasoning and logic that: (a) it is a tradition of ‘streaking’ and rowdy behavior at the homecoming game ( AKA: We haven’t got caught yet), so it’s OK; (b) other schools have done it or do it too, (AKA: They haven’t been caught yet either) so it’s OK; (c) no one said anything about this before (AKA: We didn’t get caught before), so it’s OK. These are the type of childish, immature (and ignorant) comments that I would expect from my 4-year-old grandchild, not from a high school student.

Where are her parents, family, friends and school officials at, to teach Ms. Conran the lessons of life, including, follow the rules, obey the law, be respectful to others, use your common sense and logic in life? What part of the illegal acts of indecent exposure (ie: Streaking), assault, battery and assault with a deadly weapon (ie: Throwing eggs and throwing rocks) does Ms.Conran not understand? Anyone, including students and adults, who use the same reasoning and logic that Ms. Conran does, is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

It is obvious from her letter that neither she nor her fellow students have learned a valuable life lesson.

It is also obvious that Ms. Conran and the students she represents in her letter are only mad because they got caught, and not because they had to learn a hard lesson.

Michael R. Oberg

San Mateo

Backing the wrong victims

Editor,

I would like to refute Patricia Gray’s letter as she suggests in the Nov. 28 edition of The Daily Journal. So, Tom Lantos doesn’t pay heed to the numerous U.N. resolutions passed by the General Assembly against Israel. I’m guessing that Ms. Gray is clueless about the 57 Muslim nations voting bloc in the U.N. lined up against Israel (22 of these are members of the Arab League). Look up the Organization of the Islamic Conference for a list of all these Muslim countries who also vote against U.S. interests. http://www.oic-oci.org/index.asp (Yup — Palestine was made member #39 in 1969.) Tom probably realizes the unfairness of this balance of power.

Yes; we give money to Israel but we also give money to Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan.

Egypt, for example, after voting 79 percent of the time against the United States in the U.N., still receives $2 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid. Jordan votes 71 percent against the United States and receives $192,814,000 annually in U.S. foreign aid. Pakistan votes 75 percent against the United States and receives $6,721,000 annually in U.S. foreign aid. Comments Ms. Gray?

Ms. Gray has a lot of empathy for Palestinian refugees. But I remind her that in 1948 there were two refugee populations. There were 900,000 Jews persecuted, robbed and expelled from Muslim countries.

They now make up a third of Israel’s population. Arabs have 22 countries, Ms. Gray; the Jews have nowhere else to go. The Palestinians aren’t so powerless. You are backing the wrong victims. Why?

Sheree Roth

Palo Alto

Bush’s totalitarian undercurrents is obvious

Editor,

"Pinochet, when he was overthrowing the Democratic government of Chile, told Chilean citizens that there was going to be a terrible terrorist attack, with armed insurgents. Now there were real insurgents, there was a real threat, but then he produces what he called Plan Z, which were fake papers claiming that these terrorists were going to assassinate all these military leaders at once,” Naomi Wolf said.

Most Americans reject outright any comparisons of post-9/11 America with the fascism and totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or Pinochet’s Chile. Instead they turn to Bush, as a compromise candidate, a little more palatable neo-fascist. In other words, they knew they had in Bush the man that he is, he would go to military rule. He’s a great pretender, a real ham actor, and he’s making the public think he’s a great humanitarian and a great democratic leader protecting the people. Which is the opposite of what he is.

Ted Rudow III

Menlo Park

Singing with Hitler

Editor,

So Keith Kreitman’s column in the Dec. 1 edition of the Daily Journal in his conversation with "God’s envoy,” cleverly slips us the message that all war is evil. Good thing Kreitman wasn’t around 70 years ago. He’d be telling us to sing "Kumbaya” with Hitler.

Scott Abramson

San Mateo

Editor’s note: Kreitman was around 70 years ago and fought in World War II soon after.