Reader Mail: Week of March 20

Reader weighs in on tragedy
[Regarding a recent story in the Sun on a man killed on railroad tracks,] here are a few questions about this situation: Did this person not hear the whistle blown by the driver? Did he not obey any of the laws that state when a train or any moving vehicle is coming around? This shows that one should not be wearing earmuffs, headphones, listen to an iPod, or talking on cell phone at the moment a vehicle is moving around you. You can not hear oncoming traffic, whether it is a car, bus or train! I still wonder what happened, but I suspect that the victim was standing on or too near the railroad tracks to jump off the tracks before the train came. He may have become so frightened that he could not have had enough time to jump off the tracks. After reading the news, I intend to pay more attention, especially when around traffic of any kind! This incident teaches us to use our heads and common sense.

Anna Victoria Reich
Stafford

Local tells others, dare to dream
Are you weary from exposure to violence, attacks on family values, being discouraged, feeling helpless, and of being told what you should think, what you saw, heard or read? Try inspirations from your mind! It is where the imagination takes flight and the unusual is an everyday occurrence. Just dare to dream and let your imagination run free of restraint. It was once said; “If it can be conceived of and believed in then it can be achieved.” Nothing more truthful was ever said! We all need to believe in ourselves and to take charge of our present and our future will follow. You are meant to achieve, to adapt and to overcome all situations in life. You must be persistent in your endeavors and never say no. Rejection should never discourage you. Insults and put downs are only true if you accept them — as reality!

What you see isn’t always as it appears to be. What you hear isn’t always true. Investigate all that you read. Does it pass the litmus test of truth? Question its merits if it isn’t honest, ethical or it brings harm to anyone. You hold the reigns to your future!

Richard G. Freeman
North Stafford

Reader: Zinn book has got to go
During the March 10 meeting of the Stafford County School Board over 30 people showed up to express their disapproval with the recent adoption by the county AP History Program to use Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” as a “supplemental textbook.” Make no mistake. Howard Zinn’s APHUS reads like Cold-War, Soviet propagandist writings that defile our great nation and the capitalist-free market system which has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty. No where does Zinn’s book even come close to the perspective of Winston Churchill’s famous quote, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

I understand that there are those who applaud Howard Zinn. His advocates normally cite two reasons why his tome should be used. First, they maintain APHUS offers a “fresh, provocative perspective” on the contributions of minorities to our great land, which are omitted from standard textbooks.” This is false. I have thoroughly reviewed “Liberty, Equality & Power,” which is currently used by some of our high schools. I found numerous discussions on the plight, the status and the triumphs of various minority groups. In fact, I might observe that attention is given to minority contributions at the expense and omission of major U.S. historical events. For example, LEP devotes only one paragraph to the D-Day Invasion of Normandy. However, gender and racial segregation in the WW2 military and the contributions made by minorities cover eight pages of text. In covering WW1 and WW2 LEP provides more photographs of minorities fighting than of white soldiers fighting. One such photograph isn’t actually from WW2, rather is of Tom Hanks in his role in the movie, “Saving Private Ryan.” To maintain that Zinn’s book is needed to make up for omissions of minority contributions is to live somewhere in the dark past.

Second, Zinn’s admirers insist APHUS is appropriate at the high school level since our students allegedly have the maturity, knowledge and judgment to decide for themselves if Zinn is accurate. How wrong this reasoning is.

Our students deserve much better. Howard Zinn’s book needs to be removed from the county’s AP supplemental list.

Mark Jaworowski
Stafford