Publication Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Letters
Letters
(December 21, 2005)
Time to start later
Editor,
I was grateful to read Alexandria Rocha's article on teens and sleep in the Oct. 26 Weekly. Despite significant and compelling research on this topic, high schools in our area are not addressing early start times and the associated health risks for our teenagers.
I worked in the field of health promotion for more than 15 years and am the mother of five. My youngest child is now a freshman at Menlo-Atherton High School and I see in her (as I did with her older siblings) the untoward effects of school bell schedules that take teens into the classroom at 7:50 a.m. and earlier.
With the natural shift in the biological clocks of adolescents, it is obvious that school start times should be adjusted to 8:30 a.m. or later as many schools in Minnesota, for example, have done.
Minnesota School Superintendent Kenneth Dragseth reported that changing the high school start time "is the single most significant thing we have done to improve student morale and attitudes. Sleep deprivation creates nervous, anxious and exhausted students -- not the type our teachers like to encounter."
Concerns about the effect of later start times on after-school sports and activities are expressed by some school officials. Adjustments would be necessary, but isn't the first priority of our high schools to educate our teens while supporting their health and safety?
As the National Sleep Foundation points out, considering that schools are in the business of educating students and preparing them for the future, early school start times may be counterproductive and not in the best interests of a student’s ability to learn, perform, pay attention, get along with others, and be healthy and safe.
Let's encourage our high schools to examine this issue and work to institute later start times for our teens.
Eileen Moran
Encino Road
Atherton
Trails and tree hugging
Editor,
I mildly understand some of the backlash against the Stanford trail proposal. But some people are complaining based on a line drawn up by governments and not much else.
Granted, I am far from a land-use attorney, but some of these complaints seem a little shallow. I can hug a tree as tightly as the loneliest of Sierra Club members, but I cannot understand why anyone, let alone someone who is "pro-green," would want to put asphalt 10 feet away from another asphalt trail merely because of a line that exists only on maps.
I've used the Alpine Road trail many times and have always thought it could use some upgrading. Stanford is doing that and, as proven by the other hundreds of miles of trails it's built in and around campus, it'll do a great job.
I have yet to hear anyone commend Stanford for the proposal to build more than 3,000 housing units on campus, two-thirds of which will be for students. That must provide a huge environmental benefit as fewer students/staff/faculty will need to drive through the surrounding areas to get to work/school.
I guess Stanford could do what Palo Alto did with Foothills Park. If Portola Valley and/or San Mateo County want to complain about the trail, then maybe Stanford should close off campus and all of its trails to those residents.
These are the same people who, when they win the lottery, complain about paying the taxes.
Keith Ferrell
Escobita Avenue
Palo Alto
Strike-story disappointment
Editor,
For the past five years I have worked as a nursing assistant at Lucile Packard Hospital. I also am a member of the SEIU negotiations team.
I am deeply disappointed with your coverage of the one-day historic strike of 2,600 Stanford University and hospital workers. This is the first time in Stanford’s history in which both university and hospital workers held a strike at the same time.
The strike was very successful -- 90 percent of workers honored the strike. Throughout the day we had 10 picket lines. We had a major rally at noon in which more than 1,000 workers converged on the Board of Trustees’ meeting.
Assembly member Ira Ruskin, along with other community leaders, spoke at rally. Nonetheless, your newspaper published an online article with the headline, "Strike fizzles, hospitals claim." It was followed by the lead paragraph that almost 60 percent had crossed the picket line.
If this were true, why did Stanford try to hire a strike-replacement outfit led by a man the S.F. Bay Guardian calls a "convicted felon"? Why were elective surgeries cancelled? Why were managers working as nursing assistants? Why did nurses report total chaos on the floors?
For you to rely on Stanford Hospital’s statement as fact was very poor journalism. Moreover, your reporter was present at the noon-time rally, yet he failed to include the rally in the article.
Your newspaper clearly failed to give balanced coverage of the strike. As a result, you discredited the commitment of me and my 1,400 co-workers to achieve competitive wages, affordable health care for health-care workers and an end to outsourcing jobs to companies committed to profit, not patient care.
Rob Rutledge
Hope Court
Redwood City
Fortunate decision
Editor,
Menlo Park is fortunate to have Nicholas Jellins once again in the mayor’s chair. The leadership skills that he has demonstrated during his seven years on the council will serve the city well during a year that will see continuing budget challenges.
It is sad, however, that Mayor Pro Tem Kelly Fergusson and her supporters have chosen to use the selection of the mayor as yet another excuse to abuse her fellow council members.
A non-binding 1993 council policy, with a goal of encouraging rotation of the mayoral appointment, is a great idea when it results in each council member getting to serve as mayor sometime during their four-year term. While Fergusson still has the opportunity to be selected as mayor in the remaining three years of her term, this goal was cast aside by one previous council.
In 1997, Bernie Nevin was denied the mayor’s seat by the residentialist majority of that council in the final year of her term, ensuring that she never had the opportunity to serve as mayor. Now we have residentialist former council members, Fergusson supporters all, hypocritically slamming the current council for making Fergusson wait a year before becoming mayor.
The city would be better served if Fergusson and her allies cut out the constant attacks on her council colleagues and instead concentrated on solving the city’s important problems.
Frank Tucker
Politzer Drive
Menlo Park
Mayoral '(s)election'
Editor,
It was very disconcerting to view the Menlo Park City Council's (s)election of a new mayor. It again brought to mind the saying about "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The council majority attempted to rationalize its unethical behavior by stating that the city's written policy was not a "law" and it could be circumvented. Lee Duboc remarked that "experience" was the important criteria, although this was ignored in a past mayoral election when the most experienced person (Chuck Kinney) was passed over by this same majority.
This excessive exercise of power has trickled down, for example the environmental quality commission in its selection of a chairperson. Mr. Jellins lost the opportunity to be a principled and honorable public official by declining a third term.
In view of the nation's distain for present-day governmental corruption, it is sad to view our City Council majority's pathetic attempts to justify its unethical behaviors.
Margaret H. Carney
Claremont Way
Menlo Park
Choking woodsmoke
Editor,
I feel sad and frustrated this time of year when the smell of woodsmoke is in the air. Airplanes, restaurants, bars and workplaces are now smoke-free, but our homes, backyards and streets are often still filled with dangerous smoke from wood-burning fireplaces. Cigarette smoke is a known hazard and so is woodsmoke.
Exposure to woodsmoke has been linked to lung disease including asthma and cancer. More people die of lung cancer than of breast, colon and prostate cancers combined. Asthma has reached pandemic proportions in many communities.
Children and the elderly are the most susceptible to bad results from frequent exposure to woodsmoke, but all of our lungs suffer. One smoky chimney can send an asthmatic running for an inhaler, air purifier and additional medicine.
The Bay Area may have relatively clean air in general, but if you can smell smoke in the street or in your house, you are breathing highly polluted air that would rate in the "unhealthful" category. Wood-burning fireplaces contaminate the air inside our homes as well as outside, including the home that has the fire burning.
Is it legal to burn wood? Yes and no. Wood-burning fireplaces are already banned in new construction because of known dangers, but those who have them are still allowed to use them.
Is it considerate to burn wood and not care who has to breathe the resulting contamination? In my opinion, no. Talk to your neighbors and ask them to respect your right to breathe clean air.
And feel very self-conscious and guilty if your smoking chimney is the one choking the whole neighborhood.
Maria Kleczewska
Marmona Drive
Menlo Park
Lieberman's disgrace
Editor,
Senator Lieberman’s stubborn defense of President Bush’s disastrous Iraq adventure defies credulity. Lieberman has disgraced his elected office and performed a grave disservice to his Connecticut constituents and the Democratic Party.
This "closet Republican" is so aligned with the core anti-democratic beliefs of the Bush White House that he should resign. He has deceived his Connecticut voters by masquerading as a Democrat while he espouses a Republican platform.
He has undermined his party’s right to vigorously dissent over Bush’s Iraq policy and thereby is a continuous embarrassment and liability to his party.
Jagjit Singh
Louisa Court
Palo Alto
Historians grade Bush
Editor,
In a Dec. 9 speech, President Bush predicted that history would vindicate his decision to invade Iraq. He was "absolutely" convinced that 50 or 60 years from now, an American president would speak to an audience: "Thank goodness a generation of Americans rose to the challenge and helped people be liberated from tyranny. … Democracy spread and the world is more peaceful for it."
I am afraid that this generation of Americans cannot wait this long. According to a recent study by History News Network at George Mason University, 338 out of 415 historians believe that Bush is failing, of which 50 say that he is the worst president ever.
Reasons being cited include bankrupting the country by waging unnecessary wars and cutting taxes, attacking separation of church and state, misleading the American people on domestic and foreign affairs, hostility to scientific and technological progress, ignoring corporate cheating in wartime supply and, yes, incompetence.
I am leaning toward believing the collective wisdom of the historians.
Then again I could be wrong, because President Bush may know something that we don't, like the weapons of mass destruction.
Simon Chiu
Talisman Court
Palo Alto
Ford's folly
Editor,
It was announced Dec. 6 that Ford Motor Company will no longer advertise in gay magazines nor recruit gay employees because some religious-right group has threatened to boycott its products.
What a waste of energy by both groups. It would seem that if the religious right was so interested in protecting American "morals" it would put more emphasis on demanding that all car manufacturers begin immediately on manufacturing vehicles that help America become energy independent and develop hybrid vehicles that get 200 MPG.
Now that's an important moral dilemma -- not someone's lifestyle choice.
Wake up Ford and do the right thing by choosing to develop oil-free hybrids that truly "protect" Americans -- gas guzzlers only help the oil industry's pockets. Never mind about someone's lifestyle.
Donnasue Jacobi
Haight Street
Menlo Park
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