Concern About School Health, Safety

The pressures of child development, living well, and personal well being have not changed through time, but the pressures of this process in this nation have become most difficult. Many so-called primitive cultures provide more care and support for children than out so-called modernity. The negative forces surrounding our children are pervasive and powerful — the opiate crises and school violence represent a part of this threat.

One part of school well being and safety is in school mental health services as a part of the regular school process and school life. I was honored to be part of a project between the education department of UNH and a large New Hampshire school district for one year providing direct personal counseling from the school’s guidance department. In a short period of time, I was working with all issues of concern-long and short term, critical and less critical with families and significant others. School administration said that this process brought a “large measure of goodness” to their school.

Many school children are very strong and resilient and some need more support from the total school program: Staff, family, significant others, community, school resource officer, technical systems, etc. The most powerful force for safety and well being comes from within and begins with student individual sense of worth and hope for the future. The availability of school based mental health services for staff and students is part of this process.

John W. McCarthy,

Topsham

Israeli War Crimes in Palestine

If Americans only knew the truth about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the inhumane and evil treatment of the Palestinians on a daily basis by the forces of Prime Minister Netanyahu, would we remain idle? Conditions are becoming especially critical as Donald Trump supports moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and American billionaire Sheldon Adelson offers to pay for a new embassy in Jerusalem and David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel supports the annexation of much of the Palestinian West Bank to Israel.

I have traveled to Israel and the West Bank and observed the criminal treatment of Palestinians firsthand. In violation of international law Israel steals Palestinian land, brutalizes Palestinians at every turn, and in many respects repeats the Holocaust against the Palestinians.

Israel’s reprehensible behavior can only continue because the United States supports the Israeli war machine with billions of dollars annually and continues the myth that Israel is our “democratic partner in the Mideast.”

I receive communications on a daily basis from Israelis opposed to the occupation and I would just repeat: “If Americans only knew” the horrors of the Israeli occupation, maybe, just maybe, we could see the beginning of the end of Israel’s brutal and illegal occupation.

Tim Zorach,

Georgetown

Calling on Green Thumb Gang Members

Spring is on the way and the Green Thumb Gang and its beginning will be the subject of the March Historical Society meeting of the Town of Lisbon. The meeting will be held at the MTM building at 7 p.m., with Noyes Lawrence and Faye Brown as guest speakers March 14. The Green Thumb Gang was founded by a small group of volunteers to help beautify our town for our bicentennial in 1999. We worked with the kindergarten classes of the MTM School, and their teachers, until that class entered the new Lisbon Community School as 6th graders. The kids were wonderful, hardworking, and talented. 1 am hoping to get in touch with all of them.

I kindly ask all of the Green Thumb Gang “kids” to give me a call at (207) 353-5771, and leave your name and a brief message about the paths you have chosen as young adults. I hope many of them will be at the MTM program.

Faye Brown,

Lisbon Falls