Regarding your vicious and uncalled-for attack on the Maine teachers union (Maine Education Association) in the Our Views of the Maine Sunday Telegram, Feb. 12, I would like to remind you that the MEA represents the views of public school teachers in this state.

When you attack their union, you are attacking them personally. When will anti-workers like you and your ilk understand that you can’t be pro-education and anti-teacher.

It doesn’t work that way.

David F. Driscoll

Westbrook

I am appalled by the tone of and conclusions reached in your Sunday editorial about LePage’s education proposals.

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Your opening paragraph sounds like a jibe from an intensely political rag. It even contains a lie.

The MEA does not control the education process. That is educational policy and that is controlled by school boards, most of which are made up of people who could not tell good educational policy if it ran over them. They are more concerned with their property tax rates.

Basically, LePage’s proposals are an opening for charter schools. Have you read any research on charter performance? Have you read the research on the current crop of teacher evaluation models? Read the CREDO study, Larry Cuban and Dianne Ravitch. Even charter supporters are coming to see their limitations.

Do you not know or not care that the research shows that the U.S. public school system does as well educating each socio-economic class as the highest performing schools around the world? What do you imagine will happen to local schools when their brightest students, best athletes and most gifted artists leave?

We will end up with a segregated school system.

There is immense benefit to our communities and students to have a mix of skills, interests and abilities represented in the local public school. Expanded pre-school education, more school time for the lowest third of achievers and expanded vocational and technological learning opportunities. Simple, not disruptive, and everyone will be on board.

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Brian Hirst

Harpswell

The real issue with public funding of private (religious) education is not whether the education is of sufficient quality, but whether it is appropriate to spend public tax monies to further religious education in occult beliefs: creationism, anti-health (contraception), anti-women, anti-gay, etc., etc. This is the reason that the founders prescribed separation of church and state. The State must not promote the beliefs of ANY religion.

Stuart Rich

Owl’s Head

Gingrich mocking Romney insults Franco Americans

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In the internecine battle that is the Republican campaign for the party’s nomination for president of the United States, some of the candidates have uttered rather offensive remarks.

Newt Gingrich has excelled at making such remarks. In a repugnant putdown of rival Mitt Romney, he accused him of speaking French, reminiscent of the same insult thrown at John Kerry by the George W. Bush re-election campaign in 2004.

The remark not only belittles the opponent but also everyone in this country who dares speak French.

What is it that prompts certain people to disparage others? Stupidity? Discrimination? Prejudice? Sense of superiority? Ignorance? Combination of all the above?

For a person who takes pride in his university professorial experience, Newt suffers from World History Deficiency Syndrome (WHDS). He seems to be unaware of the contributions of France to the fledgling United States in the late 18th century, including uniforms, rifles, warships, and officers such as Admiral Degrasse and the Marquis de Lafayette. The colonies could not have won the Revolutionary War without the help of French-speaking military personnel. France also built our Statue of Liberty and gave it to the U.S. as a sign of friendship and alliance. If ever a country and a language deserve our respect, it’s France and its beautiful French.

Finally, the English that Gingrich speaks has a vocabulary that is 54 percent of French extraction due to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 A.D.

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Because of the Norman dynasty that claimed the English throne, the official language of the Court of England for over two centuries was French.

Ross Paradis

Frenchville

LePage asks right questions on renewable energy

Letter writer Michael Mayhew is impressed with his professional energy credentials (Feb. 12). If I am to reply, here are mine. Prior to World War II, I worked as an engineer with the General Electric turbine division. During the war, I worked for GE on gas turbines for aircraft. After the war, I became professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maine (thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, etc.)

I was involved with several U.S. Department of Energy contracts. I hold several patents on wood burning appliances and refrigeration systems. I was appointed by Gov. James Longley to a committee to evaluate the Dickey-Lincoln hydro eclectic proposal.

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At age 93, I have been there and done that.

Gov. LePage and I are not political kin. During the 1948 election (Dewey vs. Truman) I voted for Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate.

In spite of this, Gov. LePage has invited me, along with several members of the energy policy cognoscenti, to two meetings in his office to discuss energy matters.

He asks the right questions. Mr. Mayhew laments that the governor does not “check the science behind the issues.” There is no science behind the issues! To arrive at an energy policy one must fight through a bag a scary mush: foreign policy, atmospheric chemistry, the gap between the rich and poor, resource availability and cost, industrial policy, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.

The U.S. Department of Energy (Energy Information Administration) has a website inviting questions. I asked, “What has been the cost impact of the various renewable energy mandates?” Surprise! I received a several-hundred word email — not from the EIA but from an outside contractor working for the EIA. To boil it down: “we don’t have a clue.”

Richard C. Hill

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Old Town

Birth control a health issue that should be covered

I was appalled by letter writer Dan Hogan’s argument that preventing pregnancy should not be covered by health insurance because pregnancy is not a “disease” (Feb. 2).

The lifetime odds of dying as a result of pregnancy are as high as one in 16, the death rate in sub-Sahara, Africa. In the developed world, the odds drop to one in 2,800 according to Wikipedia. How many of the medical conditions covered by Mr. Hogan’s insurance have such a death rate? Certainly not erectile dysfunction.

If medical insurance should not cover conditions that can kill you, exactly what should it cover?

Anne Richmond

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Cape Elizabeth

Paper should use investment to boost local coverage

I was pleased to see The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram has a new investor. Every day I purchase the newspaper as my small contribution of support, and every day I am disappointed as to the lack of local content. Wire services make second hand news and meager local content does not make a local newspaper.

Local media means local news. In my experience, the media outlet which devotes itself to the community, local interests and local news wins the loyalty of the community. It has been a long time since The Press Herald has shown such an ethos. I hope this is a new beginning.

Best of luck!

George Silverman

Portland


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