The arts have the power to transform

I read Post-Gazette staff writer Tim Grant's "Arts Education on Endangered List Across Country" with tears in my eyes on Monday. I cannot understand how there are people out there who don't see the arts as a necessary part of any child's education.

I am one of the many people who know firsthand how arts can affect a student -- and not just academically. In my case, the art was music. I was a four-year marching band member, and those four years and all the experiences they gave me literally transformed me from a shy, self-conscience girl to the confident, ambitious young woman I am today.

These educators need to find it in their hearts (and their so-called budgets) to do everything they can to keep the arts in every school of this nation.

This No Child Left Behind Act is a great idea, in theory. Unfortunately, it only focuses on the academic achievements of our children. People need to start realizing that the arts not only make young people better students, but they also provide them with a creative outlet and give them something to be proud of. How could anyone think that these things are not important?

STACY SALOPEK
Whitaker

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Priorities are skewed

The Post-Gazette sent a sorry message to women and girls Aug. 23 by placing an important hard-news story about the likely loss of women's rights under Iraq's new constitution in the arts, entertainment and lifestyle section ("Women Facing Setbacks Under Iraq's New Constitution"), while finding room on the front page for a story on a sports video game that appears to slight the Steelers quarterback ("Video Game Gives Big Ben No Respect").

I'm a sports fan, but please, let's get our priorities straight and place the sports features on the sports page.

The plight of women in Iraq is yet another tragic chapter of the Iraq war story. Women's rights is not a lifestyle story. For many women in the Middle East, it is a matter of life and death.

MARILYN COLEMAN
Edgewood

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His master's voice?

In response to the Aug. 24 editorial "Unholy Suggestion: Scripture Says One Thing, Pat Robertson Another": It just goes to show that if a liberal Jesus made a return engagement, Christian Dominionists like Pat Robertson would be the first to nail him back to the cross.

ROBERT BARAN
Peters

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Anyone can preach

I always knew Pat Robertson was a damned evil phony wrapped in a lamb's tailored clothing ("Robertson Ignites Firestorm Over Call to Assassinate Chavez," Aug. 24). I just never truly understood how deep he could descend into the espousal of extreme and inhumane nonsense -- though I've heard him say similarly disgusting and ignorant things on "The 700 Club."

With the Chavez remark, Robertson foolishly displayed his wannabe-politician persona. He's little more than a cheap evangelist with onyx eyes. Any prisoner on death row or child molesting madman can be an evangelist. Understand that any weirdo with no religious training at all can simply say, "I want to be an evangelist," and poof! they are one and they can start a-preachin'.

It is also extremely unnerving, but not surprising, that President Bush is so much aligned with this dangerous freak Robertson. They wax each others' cowboy boots with rare carnauba wax, I've heard.

Conservatives and Christians everywhere should damn Robertson forever. Banish him for life from all fund-raising dinners. Getting caught in a journalist's camera eye shaking hands with this man will become akin to chumming it up with a geriatric gang-banger with God only on the tongue and absent from the soul.

JUSTIN D. ANDERSON
Moundsville, W.Va.

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Probe them more

I attended the press conference at the Thomas Merton Center Aug. 22 regarding the use of excessive force to disperse what was supposed to be a peaceful protest of the Iraq war and deceptive military recruitment tactics ("Group Says Police Used Excessive Force," Aug. 23). And I was also at the protest.

I believe the use of police force was unnecessary, incited the chaos that ensued and resulted in people being injured by police over-reaction. The little news coverage of the event I've seen, including in the Post-Gazette, seems relatively neutral.

However, some of the questions raised by reporters at the press conference seemed accusatory in nature. Am I naive to be surprised at the negativity and skepticism I sensed by some members of the media? It seemed at times as though victims were being accused of being the perpetrators.

I appreciate the need to gather facts. But listening to the questioning, I was wishing that the media would be more aggressive and persistent in asking members of President Bush's team about: why they continue to equate Iraq with weapons of mass destruction and an al-Qaida connection, yellow-cake uranium in Africa, the outing of a CIA officer, the ever-changing reasons to be in Iraq, the true cost of this war in terms of all the lives lost and the billions of dollars squandered, why the military fails to meet its enlistment goals, and why flag-waving, yellow ribbon-displaying, patriotic Americans aren't enlisting in droves.

EDITH WILSON
Edgewood

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Propose a better way

I saw the editorial against Sen. Jeff Piccola's state proposal to eliminate school taxes on property by transferring the cost of education to other areas with sales tax on food, clothes, etc. ("Swap Flop," Aug. 23). The PG whines that the additional sales tax will be paid by everyone, not just the unfortunate homeowners and those with property, and the extra cost to some will be too burdensome.

Well, how about the couples who have paid property school taxes for 40 or more years, don't have any kids in the schools and live on a small pension? Do they not deserve some consideration? Isn't it more fair to spread the cost of education, a universal right, to everyone who eats food or wears clothes rather than to the few who have wisely scrimped and saved enough to own their homes?

If the PG continues this argument, why not have those living in the most expensive homes pay all the school tax and exempt the lower-cost homes so we can really make the rich pay?

Apparently, the PG does not want universal payment for a universal right but wants a fraction to pay the majority of this cost. The PG should drop the elitist-should-pay attitude and propose a really good way to reduce property taxes and pay for schools that will make it feel good about who is paying and who is getting a free ride.

Maybe it can actually think instead of showing the usual knee-jerk reaction to a proposal reducing property taxes, the most onerous in the nation.

It would also be nice when writing an editorial to place the blame on Gov. Ed Rendell for not making sure that gambling income will be used to replace property tax and not give it away to sports teams and other causes the governor supports for reelection.

The PG should be ashamed for attacking homeowners' on this issue. It isn't the homeowners fault that this issue has gotten out of hand; it is squarely in the governor's lap.

JERRY ROBBINS
McCandless