Always finding great help at the Job...
Always finding great help at the Job Center
Thanks to Daily Pilot publisher Tom Johnson for his Monday article
on the Costa Mesa Job Center (“There’s no place like the old
office”). I have hired many workers over the last 10 years -- I would
guess I have employed 50 different guys. A day here, maybe a two day
stretch, and never once was I disappointed with their performance. In
actuality, I had to make them take a break, relax a little more after
lunch -- “You’ve got 15 minutes left” -- don’t work so hard and fast.
Through the years, I have learned more Spanish than I thought I
knew. I have always encouraged the men to take English classes so
they could get the best jobs at the center or maybe score a longer
position with a company. More importantly, they taught me that they
are just like you and me, trying to take care of their families from
afar. They tell sad stories of the weeks and sometimes months they
spend away from their families to help support them. They speak so
proudly when they say they have “dos ninos,” and you realize they
live thousands of miles away. Then I say, “Cuantos anos su ninos?”
And they say “dos and quatro anos” so sadly.
The men from the Job Center won’t sit on the pavement eating lunch
or in the garage eating lunch at my house. Come into my house and
meet my kids and wife, and sit down at the table for lunch.
These are a great bunch of guys and I pray the Job Center stays
open so they have a place to find work. Four a.m. is not my idea of
being first in line each day to get a low number so that I could sit
up front on the benches.
I think more people would hire the men at the center, but I think
they might be a little apprehensive in bringing a stranger to their
house. I’d encourage anyone who has some work that they really didn’t
want to do to wander over to the Job Center and get a helping hand.
They are a great bunch of guys just like you and me.
RICHARD STEVENS
Newport Beach
City Hall meeting not world class enough
I attended the meeting April 2 at Newport Beach City Hall and was
appalled at the tone of the audience toward City Manager Homer Bludau
and the engineers and architects who gave the presentation. I left
the meeting after hearing uncouth statements about downsizing. I was
embarrassed by the tone of our audience. I thought the city manager
was in a very difficult position. I think the city needs first-class
buildings.
CHRIS HANSEN
Newport Beach
Film editorial went in wrong direction
I was very disappointed to read in your editorial on March 10,
“Two thumbs up for film issue’s happy ending,” that you thought
movies have a place in classrooms as a “valuable teaching tool for
history, politics, the arts, even mathematics.”
To be purposeful in the discussion, we need to be clear about what
you are calling a movie. My assumption was, since the subject was
raised after the showing at Corona del Mar High School of an R-rated
film, that we were talking about movies that the general public could
see in a local theater. If this is the case, I challenge you to
support your position more vigorously.
In my letter to the Daily Pilot I quoted the Fordham Foundation in
its reporting that 31% to 41% of middle school and high school
teachers who teach history did not major in the subject during
college. Again: On average that’s less than four in 10 of those
teaching history to the sons and daughters in this country -- a
subject which includes the development of Western civilization,
monotheism, structured government, democracy, civil rights, the New
World, this country’s founding and all the stuff that happened before
and since -- didn’t major in history. They studied something else.
One of the many letter writers published last month mentioned that
the English text book at his child’s high school needed a review too.
Perhaps the person saw something that bothered him. I can understand
that because I’ve seen lots of things in text books that bother me.
But at least that text was peer reviewed, and if Newport-Mesa is like
other school districts, the text was chosen because it met certain
criteria. I would imagine that the Newport-Mesa Unified School
District board also played a part in the decision to choose the text
and compared it with those from several publishers. And if board
members erred, parents have recourse at elections to remind board
members of their mistakes.
But who plays a part in the decision to choose a movie for a class
at school? And believe me, movies are prevalent in all classrooms,
public and private. Is “Shakespeare in Love” an honest representation
of Elizabethan poets or even the bard himself? Is Oliver Stone’s
“JFK” a factual account of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination?
Or is it a fantasy. Is “Glory” an accurate assessment of Northern
culture in 1860? And if so, why did hundreds of thousands of white
soldiers die to end slavery? The movie suggests Northerners were
bigots save one New England colonel. Yet all these movies are shown
in Orange County classrooms.
Movies, as I define them in this matter, do not have a place in
school for an important reason. They are fictional representations of
a moment in time. Whether adapted from fiction or nonfiction books,
they are interpretations by a screen writer and include an author’s
point of view. The script is then interpreted by a director and
actors may even put in their two cents during production. And this is
what the Daily Pilot endorses as a teaching tool in school?
At 18, either before or shortly after graduation from high school,
youngsters can register to vote in elections that require a basic
knowledge and understanding of what has come before us in time. Man’s
mistakes are found in triplicate. The study of history can illuminate
them. Some even suggest that it can prevent them.
As to the “Talk on the Street” interviews that accompanied your
editorial: What would have been the comments you collected from
people if, instead of camping out at Metro Pointe, you had gone to a
library?
We should not be comfortable as a society that what we thought the
schools were providing as an education in history could have easily
been attained by a visit to Blockbuster.
KENNETH LARSON
Newport Beach
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