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Always finding great help at the Job...

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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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