Let’s compare 17-year-olds

The Democrats are running scared. That is why there are so many attacks and lies about Sarah Palin and her family. They viciously attacked her 17-year-old daughter because she is pregnant.

Let’s compare three 17-year-olds. First, Bristol Palin is pregnant and plans to marry her boyfriend, the father of her baby. She will not abort the baby as many liberals think she should.

Second is Barack Obama’s mother at 17. She was a radical who went against the system whenever she could and ended up having an affair with a married man of another race who already had a family, and ended up pregnant out of wedlock. Would the liberals have suggested she abort her baby if it was legal then?

And third is Barack Obama himself. In his book “Dreams from My Father,” he admits when he was 17 he was lightly into drinking beer and into drugs. There is no comparison. There is no room for Democrats to throw stones at Sarah Palin’s daughter.

Nancy Young, Albany

Why math is Lebanon problem

“We have a problem” with the math scores at Lebanon High School, Superintendent Jim Robinson was quoted in the “Academic emergency” article in the Monday, Sept. 1, edition of the paper. Superintendent: “Our problem is a long-established one and predates academies.”

Further he blames classroom instruction and learning for the problem rather than the way the classes are “packaged,” meaning the division, and isolation from each other, of the math classrooms. They are currently located in four different areas of the school. As a solution to the problem he is now suggesting that math teachers should begin to have weekly meetings.

Having taught math at Lebanon Union High School for 27 years, (1970-1997), I too am concerned with the low math scores. I’m glad to see that math teachers can now talk together weekly. When I was there, we talked daily and were in continuous contact with each other since all of our classes were grouped together on the same hall.

Our “packaging” also included a math office, a math department chairman, and an abundance of math teaching models and supplies. The math teachers knew each other well, as well as all of the students in the school, not just those in our own little academy.

Old-timers will also remember that for many years math students from Lebanon were the ones to be reckoned with at the Linn-Benton Regional Skills Competition. Students and teachers were excited to prepare and then compete in these annual events. Every math classroom was proud to display the many plaques and trophies won by our students for the various individual and team math contests. Traditionally we excelled in math. Current low math scores on the part of

our students is definitely not a “long-established” pattern.

The many academic problems now occurring at Lebanon HS are a direct result of the division of the school into the four small academies.

One fourth of the students and teachers do not know or communicate with the other three-fourths of the people at the school.

Teachers are not in constant contact, giving support and encouragement and sharing ideas and materials. The number of elective classes is severely reduced and there are no academic departments anymore.

Superintendent Robinson also blames “classroom instruction” for the poor showing on test scores. Unfortunately the many excellent teachers at LHS don’t always have the opportunity to do their best teaching because they have very little support in trying to maintain a disciplined teaching environment in their classrooms.

A strong administrative support staff is definitely needed to assist teachers in maintaining classroom discipline, control and respect from all students.

Obviously, like Humpty Dumpty, something is broken. My suggestion is to put the math department, the teachers, and the students all back together again.

Cheryl McAllister, Lebanon

About sweeping the streets

I’m glad the newspaper wrote about Albany’s street-sweeping mess. I hear the city has quietly resumed sweeping the streets with their own employee and own sweeper! Good.

They just about had to do that; Albany has eight employees in the street department to do minor street repairs but said they couldn’t sweep the streets? Lebanon and Corvallis have, on average, one employee assigned to sweep their streets!

Who decided 20 years ago that Albany would contract out street sweeping? Why didn’t the mayor or council call Lebanon and Corvallis then, and now, to find that they did it cheaper with an employee and their own street sweeper?

Albany’s city manager, Wes Hare, said, quoted in D-H recently: “By the time you buy the equipment” (Albany already has one street sweeper) “and add employees,” (Why add? You have eight!) “the cost is even higher than if you contracted out.” Not true.

I’m glad they saw the light, meaning they remembered they get elected by the people, and decided, yes, they can sweep the streets with one employee and one sweeper!

Mary Brock, Albany

Let’s get over the past

“You know,” I have been told, “there are people who just will never vote for a black man for president.”

Everyone gets to vote his conscience and vote for who he thinks will be the best president. Isn’t that what democracy is all about?

We all have our reasons, be they informed, wise and thoughtful or uninformed, ignorant and thoughtless. Some are open, inclusive and hopeful, yet others can be closed, exclusive and hopeless.

Some look to a better future for all, and others look back to a past that favored the few.

Some see only the color of the skin, others see our common humanity.

Some radiate goodwill and work for cooperation; others are afflicted by ill will and see only enemies.

This is America. The catch is that we get the president the majority votes for. We suffer together the consequences or reap the benefits.

For those who cannot give up the past, they will never have a real future. For those who have the courage to change, to embrace “our better angels” and to work together for the “pursuit of happiness,” our future can be bright for all Americans.

“We the people” is not an exclusive club.

David Anderer, Albany

Can he cure that too?

I would categorize Obama’s message of change as “loose change,” an agglomeration of promises that everybody might like to hear, all at no extra cost. Free and easy, and it jingles too — the kind of glib promises any ignoramus can make and every ignoramus out there will be gullible enough to believe.

For a few extra cents he could have promised that he would turn water into gasoline and cure everything from cancer to erectile dysfunction.

Wayne O. Hadland, Sweet Home