WHAT WORKS
Krestia DeGeorge
and Mary Anna Towler’s article “Rochester:
Made for Murder” (April 12) was a grim yet honest view of the geographic
and demographic poverty and how it relates to murder here in Rochester.
The article was a step in the right direction. It is
imperative that we are all aware of the true reasons why murders are being committed:
because of insults or perceived insults. The next step would be to look at the
schools in the concentrated, minority-poverty sections of Rochester.
These students are not being served properly, and we are not preparing them to
respond appropriately to perceived insults.
School is most often the first social system children
interact with, so we must provide comprehensive programs to address the issues
children will face as they grow into young adults. These programs are being
offered in many areas in Rochester
by professional school counselors. However, counseling programs in the RochesterSchool District are not offered at
the elementary level.
These professionals can provide programs to address
conflict-resolution skills, anger management, peer mediation, character
education, and appropriate social skills. A full-time counselor can also
provide parent-child workshops addressing such topics as parenting and
discipline, small group and individual counseling, and consultation with
teachers.
Most importantly, a school counselor in the building every
day could address the personal and social aspects of students’ lives.
Counselors are trained to work with a multi-disciplinary team to identify
students who would benefit from academic and personal-social interventions.
They are also trained to create and conduct interventions for students. Early
intervention and proper services for these students can go a long way in
preventing the tragedy we now see in Rochester.
Students are unable to learn when there are such strong,
perpetuating barriers. School counselors can help to remove these barriers by
supporting the great work that teachers and school staff members do. In turn,
these students will be prepared to work productively in the economy.
The culture of these young people is infected with
generations of poverty and violence. The educational system must deal with this
reality if we want to keep these students connected to something positive in
their community. Let’s openly address the life they live in and teach them the
skills they will need to reverse the cycle and erase the barriers to their
success.
There can be no productive discussion without the courageous
and honest view of Rochester as it
is, not as we wish it would be.
Michela Peters, Rockingham Street, Rochester (Peters is a counselor with
the Penfield School
District.)
PURSUE EMPLOYERS
While I have compassion for those who seek a better life in
the United States,
there are legal channels for immigration. That there are jobs Americans will
not do is simply not true. What is true is that many industries exploit our
government’s lax enforcement of labor regulations to the point that no American
would be willing to accept to the wages and working conditions offered.
Subsidies are lavished upon large agribusiness, already rich
from the potent combination of mechanized economies of scale and undocumented
labor, while small farmers struggle, and Katrina destruction is rebuilt by
Spanish-speaking “private contractors” with employers sheltered from
accountability by layers of outsourcing, each middleman taking a cut.
If we do not compel our government to pursue those who
profit from immigrant labor exploitation, slave-wage pioneers will continue to
devalue the work in a growing spectrum of industries.
Evan Kastner, Burwell Road,
Irondequoit
POLITICS AND OIL
Gas prices are on the rise again, and Democrats are on the
attack.
President Bush announced recently that he would relax
emissions standards and suspend deliveries to the Strategic Reserve. Democrats,
including Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, saw an opportunity to sink Bush’s
subterranean approval rating even further and attacked. Bush has displayed a
lack of leadership, they said. His plan is too little too late. It does nothing
to penalize the oil companies, which are enjoying massive profits from the
recent spike in crude.
Of course Bush’s proposals are not enough. Of course the oil
companies are flourishing while consumers are suffering. The American people
are not so stupid that they need Chuck Schumer to wag his fist at a camera and
tell them that. Yet the Democrats are so brain damaged by their hatred of Bush
that they think a temper tantrum will somehow gain them
points with the voters.
What the American people need is a leader who is brave
enough to tell them the truth. They need a leader who will admit that there
will be no more cheap gasoline, no matter how many taxes and standards we cut.
They need someone to tell them that we are very likely
looking down from the peak of global oil production — that very soon, supplies will begin an inexorable decline. That as
less and less oil comes out of the ground, gasoline will become progressively
costlier and scarcer, and no combination of ethanol, hydrogen, and hope will
sustain our hundred million automobiles and high-entropy way of life.
The American people need someone to tell them that they are
going to have to drastically change the way they live and use energy, and that
even if they make those changes, they are still going to suffer through some
very difficult times.
Not surprisingly, none of our leaders has stepped forward to
address the full reality of Peak Oil. Perhaps they are not aware of the scale
of the problem. More likely, they worry that knee-capping the public with such
bad news would lose votes. They fear that their opponents would accuse them of
being alarmist, and they know that voters are not going to reelect a doomsayer.
Honestly facing up to the challenges of Peak Oil would be political suicide.
But what if they are wrong? What if people are capable of
making the necessary changes and enduring the difficult transition to a
post-petroleum economy?
The current charade of denial and obfuscation will do
nothing but leave us more vulnerable to the inevitable difficulties ahead.
Shouldn’t our leaders give us a little more credit? Shouldn’t we be given a
chance to step up?
Matt Fox, West Elm Street, EastRochester
RUMSFELD’S VIEW
An April 19 letter writer sees hurdles to be leapt for us to
share Donald Rumsfeld’s view of our troops in Iraq
another 20 years, including “convincing Americans to send fresh troops”
(“The Long Haul,” The Mail).
There has always been a serious shortage of troops in Iraq,
and recruiting has become more and more difficult. The Army now uses
“individual augmentation” to get people it needs from the Navy. For
example, when the Army needs a Third Class engineer or electrician, an order
goes out to the Navy to supply one.
Anyone chosen is then trained for two months and sent to Afghanistan
or Iraq for a
one-year deployment, for a total of 14 months away. Servicemembers
who have already been in the Navy for over 15 years have volunteered, then said they are scared and have no idea of what they are
doing. Captains on the carriers have now said that no training officers will be
sent away from the ship for individual augmentation.
Rumsfeld must be dreaming about
being in Iraq
for even 20 more months, let alone 20 years. How about clearing out completely,
including those “permanent bases,” within the next 20 days?
Byrna Weir, Brighton
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
Our guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and
we ask that you include your street name and city/town/village. We don’t
publish letters that have been sent to other media — and we don’t publish form letters generated by activist groups. While
we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words
have a greater chance of being published. We do edit letters for clarity and
brevity. And in general we don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces)
from the same writer more often than about once every two months.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.
