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Intolerance doesn’t belong in La Cañada
I am deeply saddened that Dr. Sahi and his family have been targeted with hateful and bigoted behavior at their home in La Cañada. Intolerance has no place in our community. I hope our city government and sheriffs will improve protection for this family.
Janice Partyka
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Vast majority would be disgusted
I was surprised and disgusted to read Dr. Baljeet S. Salhi’s letter to the editor last week because I despair when I hear of such back-woods cretinism still going on in our tolerant country.
Having found my own car, left on the street overnight, splattered with ketchup and surrounded by a bag of McDonald’s garbage, and once with its rear window shattered by a flying bottle, I am familiar with the anger and frustration he feels. The difference is these were random acts of moronic vandalism not a personal attack by some loser.
Dr. Salhi is right to be angry. But I caution Dr. Salhi to remember we are a nation of individuals, and that his calling upon the community and schools to add more non-curriculum-based classes on tolerance and multiculturalism is not a reasonable way to solve the problem. It is neither the community nor the schools that are doing this. It is a particular individual and maybe one or two of his henchmen.
Remember, America was founded as a self-help nation. I suggest Dr. Salhi use the standards of the community to shame his tormentor(s). Put up a pole and fly the Star’ n Stripes. Put up a sign listing the dates and acts of stupidity that have occurred and asking for witnesses. Shame and fear are the language best understood by those who throw things in the night — use them.
No one thinks you deserve this and the vast majority of Americans welcome legal immigrants and are glad to have religious and cultural diversion. And the “vast majority” is the best we’ll ever get in any nation full of “humans.” Instead, use your intelligence and cleverness to stop this. We’ll all applaud your success and heave a sigh of relief at the same time because it’s humiliating for all of us that these things happened in the first place.
Lauren Oakes
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End justifies means for president
As reported in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, President Obama showed up in Afghanistan to take Hamid Karzai to task about “building respect for the rule of law.” This is the height of hypocrisy considering that next on the Obama agenda is rewarding illegal immigrants with citizenship.
“It is the recognized truth of jurisprudence that laws are created by man and that civilized men in a tradition of more than two millennia agree to abide by these laws for the common good of society, for it is only by the rule of law that any civilization holds itself above the promiscuous squalor of barbarism.”
The Obama administration is replacing the rule of law with the rule of “the end justifies the means.” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Trent D. Sanders
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Doesn’t want class sizes to increase
As a resident of La Cañada, and a supporter of La Cañada schools, I was disappointed to learn that the La Cañada Unified School District will be reducing the number of teachers in the district and thereby increasing class sizes. [“District eliminates positions,” March 4].
In the article it is stated that class sizes will be increased from 20 to 1 to the mid-20s, and that we are taking every measure to support staff and maintain the integrity of the instructional program.
I am all for supporting staff and maintaining the integrity of the instructional programs, but I specifically don’t want class sizes increased to the mid-20s, or perhaps the low 30s, to be how we go about balancing the budget. In my opinion, the last place you cut is where the rubber meets the road, and in this case it is where our great teachers are actually teaching our children in the classrooms.
A great deal of our educational success as a district has to do with our class sizes and wonderful teachers. Let’s find a method to balance the budget that does not compromise actual face-to-face, in the classroom instruction.
Brett Miketta
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Health care in Los Angeles
For all who opposed the recently passed national health care bill (including our Congressman, David Dreier) I’d like to call attention to two recent articles published in the Los Angeles Times.
Monday’s Times reported on a free health care clinic held at the Forum last August staffed by volunteer doctors and other medical personnel. 6,300 uninsured and underinsured people attended the clinic, exposing the depth of the need for low-cost health care in Los Angeles.
Saturday’s L.A. Times reported on the sorority girls attending UCLA who opposed the health care bill because it imposes a 10% tax on their tanning salon sessions (I kid you not). I can only assume that when these pampered princesses graduate, can’t find a job with health insurance and are diagnosed with skin cancer as a result of that “healthy glow” they will be very grateful for that same health care bill which will allow them to stay on their parent’s insurance plan until age 26.
Mary Freeman
La Cañada
Health-care op-ed argument ‘weak’
Let me see if I understand the logic of Dan Evans in the Valley Sun op-ed “A story of the broken health-care system,” March 25. Because of a $250 bill for elective medical services and time wasted in a doctor’s office, he feels we have a broken health care system in this country. Who of us has not spent wasted time in a doctor’s office? So we should scrap the whole system and start over?
His other three examples need to be explained in greater detail before they can be determined to be examples of widespread failure of this industry. His implication is that they were all examples of widespread health-care negligence, ignorance and/or greed.
The author spends approximately 1050 words denigrating the industry and almost all the words revolve around his experience with elective medical services at one HMO, Kaiser Permanente. My brother-in-law in Portland, Ore. is a member of Kaiser. Kaiser discovered a soft tissue tumor on his spine and because of their lack of experience with this problem, they sent him to Sloan Kettering in New York — at their expense — for the operation and post-operative care, minus a $200 deductible. A friend in Pasadena whose daughter had cancer was likewise sent out of the Kaiser network, again at Kaiser’s expense, to have the treatment needed. Both survived. I could get even more personal, regarding my immediate family, with other examples of outstanding medical and insurance company performance but I am limited to 350 words.
Our health-care system does need changes and better cost control (the author instead of feeling “safe” in seeing three “august steel and glass” hospitals within his short seven mile commute, should have asked himself why we needed three hospitals within such a small area, all with duplicate, underutilized medical equipment). The system is not broken and the argument in the op-ed as weak an argument for change or overhaul as I have witnessed. La Cañada Flintridge citizens deserve better, stronger and more logical editorial positions than that one.
Richard Chambliss
La Cañada
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Cat rescue group sends thanks
Happy Strays Rescue would like to thank all their friends and supporters who helped us reach our goal of raising money to pay for the cat, “Pumpkin’s” medical care — we raised more than enough to pay his medical bill and the extra has been put in our account for future medical needs of kittens who are now arriving; as it is the beginning of “kitten season.”
We also want to let everyone know that Pumpkin has fully recovered and was adopted by a wonderful family. We will also be having a bake sale this Saturday in front of Petco (475 Foothill, La Cañada) — both human and pet treats will be available and funds raised will go toward medical care for kittens.
Jan Magnuson
Happy Strays