MAILBAG - June 12, 2007

HOW TO GET PUBLISHED

Mail to the Daily Pilot, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Send a fax to (714) 966-4667 or e-mail us at dailypilot@ latimes.com. All correspondence must include full name, home- town and phone number (for verification purposes). The Pilot reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity and length.

Public school teachers already paid enough

In your article, “Teachers approve salary-increase terms,” (June 1) Orange County taxpayers are told that teachers have won a pay increase of more than 21% combined in the next three years. Call me a mean-spirited conservative, but this is not good news. The high school drop-out rate in Orange County is about 30% to 50% nationally, we are still far behind other nations in math and science, our children are failing in the three “R’s,” but they’re being taught important life skills such as putting condoms on zucchini, accepting transgender/ cross-dressing teachers, and being treated like criminals for any mention of God. They are paid 40% more than private school teachers, (who actually teach our kids to read), and when adjusted for benefits, holidays, summers off, and often scant hours, are already higher paid than a long list of other competent professionals. Where else can you perform so dismally and ask for more money? Teachers unions, tenure, 50% of education personnel not being teachers in the class room, are all part and parcel of the sad state of our educational system.

JIM GOLDING

Foley’s anti-expansion campaign hypocritical

Now that there is little chance of halting the expansion of John Wayne Airport, Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley comes forward with a resolution to oppose the expansion of JWA into the back nine of the Newport Beach Golf Course, to provide rental car storage for the airport. The resolution passed unanimously. (“Council votes to oppose JWA expansion on course,” June 6).

I’m all for putting the county board of supervisors on notice that Costa Mesa is opposed to changing the land use of the course, but it is too little too late. What does it really accomplish other than to give Foley credit for the resolution?

Where was Foley when the city of Newport Beach and the Airport Working Group fought valiantly for a commercial airport at El Toro, as an alternative to John Wayne? Foley claims that when she ran for City Council in 2004, “I promised to work hard to stop the expansion of John Wayne Airport. I joined AirFair then and I support them now in their grass-roots mission for permanent caps at JWA.” (“Turn anti-expansion rhetoric into reality,” Pol Position, June 4).

Yet, when Foley ran for City Council in 2002, shortly after Measure W ensured the development of “The Great Park,” she had nothing about protecting Costa Mesa from JWA in her campaign literature. Now she is on the advisory council of the Great Park Conservancy and a supporter of the Great Park!

Some might conclude that Foley was grandstanding with this resolution, advocating against something that most Costa Mesa residents passionately oppose, more planes flying over more of Costa Mesa. Some might even believe she did it for political gain.

I find it fundamentally hypocritical.

ILA JOHNSON

Intelligence doesn’t depend on beliefs

Rabbi Marc Rubenstein (no relation) says confidently that “People who are atheists suffer from a lack of intelligence” and “Those people who don’t believe in God have little meaning in life.” [ “Why the uptick in atheism,” In Theory, June 2). Actually, the atheists I know tend to be sharper, on the whole, than the folks who cast aspersions on anyone who doesn’t espouse their personal belief system.

One need not believe in a God to believe life amounts to more than a meaningless accident, or to live with integrity and morality. Indeed, “If people are good only because they fear [God’s] punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” The unintelligent atheist who said that? Albert Einstein.

ELIZA RUBENSTEIN