Downtown should not become an upscale playground

Forces of gentrification are upon us. Developers, speculators and privileged classes are buying up Downtown spaces once inhabited by less well-off people of diverse backgrounds, gambling that Downtown will become "hot," trendy and expensive. A new class of highly educated, highly skilled, highly paid residents is moving in. Proposed spectacular urban spaces will surely attract capital and people (the right sort).

Developers, believing "you are what you see," want to reroute Port Authority buses so that new residents won't have to look at working-class riders who've been taking trolley cars or buses down Fifth Avenue for decades to work in subordinate positions that aren't paid a lot, certainly not enough to afford Downtown parking fees. Developers want to shuffle the "hired help" in through the pantry door, like "Upstairs, Downstairs," the PBS series that defined class struggle.

The Downtown social fabric is changing, as evidenced by the desire to exclude the "menacing" middle and lower classes, all of whom remind new Downtown residents that they are living in a noisy, workingman's city once proud to be blue collar.

I hope Mayor Bob O'Connor doesn't forget that there is more to a neighborhood than "upscale markets" and elegant lofts. Constituents also stand at bus stops. And as for back streets in your other 88 neighborhoods, Mr. Mayor, don't forget them. I sure got my eye on mine.

ANDREW J. LECCE
Executive Director
Lower Bloomfield Unity Council
Bloomfield

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Help them learn

The May 29 column by George Will, "A Vote for English," demands a response from those of us who work in the field of adult education.

Mr. Will says it is perfectly reasonable to expect immigrants to master the English language before they are granted citizenship and the right to vote. We agree with him on this. Adult education programs throughout the nation are teaching immigrants the English language and the basics of American history and government.

Mr. Will just doesn't go far enough. He fails to address the nation's responsibility to see that sufficient numbers of classes are available for immigrants who want to learn our language. Last year the Bush administration proposed a 67 percent cut in support for adult education programs, including English classes for immigrants. Only a groundswell of citizen action prevented this large cut from taking place. A cut of 1 percent was approved instead. This policy still leaves thousands of immigrants on waiting lists for classes that Mr. Will would require them to attend. So whose fault is it that they are not learning English?

In all of the heated debate about immigration, few policy-makers are discussing the successes of the adult education system in teaching English and integrating new Americans into our country. This system is an essential part of the immigration picture.

DONALD G. BLOCK
Executive Director
Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council
East Liberty

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Immigration justice

The Tri-Diocesan Sisters Leadership Conference supports comprehensive immigration reform that is compassionate, humane and just. The conference is comprised of 70 Catholic women religious who serve in leadership positions within 16 religious congregations in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Altoona-Johnstown and Wheeling.

TDSLC urges legislation that respects the rights of all persons while responding to values of family unity and community life. It advocates legislation reform that addresses family reunification, a path to earned legalization, worker protections and an effective border policy that is humane, rather than punitive.

SISTER MARGUERITE COYNE, C.S.J.
Co-chairwoman
Tri-Diocesan Sisters Leadership Conference

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E pluribus unum

In your May 24 editorial "Language Barrier: Americans Should Not Be Divided By How They Speak," you argue that "English as a national language is a complex matter," but that it is also "a fundamentally trivial issue." Can you get your minds round the obverse: that the national language question is both simple and consequential?

Its gist is that America's public business -- in courthouses and polling stations, in state offices and town squares -- shall be transacted in the mother tongue only.

True, our forebears learned English without such legislation, but until recently no one questioned the terms of the bargain by which immigrants became Americans. Here on these shores, as Cr?vecoeur noted in 1782, "individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men."

Today the idea of America as an "amazing solvent," or great "melting pot," faces a malign threat, which liberal historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, in the "Disuniting of America," describes as follows: "Instead of a transformative nation with an identity all its own, America in this new light is seen as preservative of diverse alien identities. Instead of a nation composed of individuals making their own unhampered choices, America increasingly sees itself as composed of groups more or less ineradicable in their ethnic character."

Are we a polity of individuals? Or are we a grab bag of distinct and inviolable cultures?

Making English the official national language furnishes a powerful answer, one that reasserts the old idea, "out of many, one." UNUM, it says, remains the vital center of PLURIBUS.

BOB G. WYETH
Homestead

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Not frills

The May 31 article on "wasteful" government spending ("$3.7 Billion in Wasteful Pa. Spending, Groups Say") should be a great concern to the families of the state of Pennsylvania.

The article mentioned that the Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg and Citizens Against Government Waste in Washington, D.C., attacked Gov. Ed Rendell's budget proposal with suggestions to cut funding of the arts, agricultural research, historical museums and public television.

David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, stated, "That's all fun when you can afford it, but Pennsylvania can't afford it."

I am trying to understand how the state's funding of the arts, museums and public television is perceived as fun rather than a necessity. Cultural dispositions between children in schools further the socioeconomic gap in the future, and it can be said that cultural deprivation is often linked to poverty.

If the state cuts funding to the arts and the environment, how will these kids be exposed to the culture they need?

Bravo to Gov. Rendell for proposing more funds to education and public services. It is a relief to know that Pennsylvania is willing to continue funding programs that enable our children to learn, fish in parks and watch enriching and commercial-free television -- all of which can prevent the underprivileged from falling into poverty and saving welfare funds in the future.

STACY SONG KEHOE
Squirrel Hill

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Where to invest

I was pleased to see in "Rendell Wants Surplus Used for Tax Cuts" (www.post-gazette.com, June 1 breaking news) that many of the initiatives the governor proposes to invest the $726 million tax surplus on would benefit the public welfare and environment of Pennsylvania.

I find it dismaying, though, that some of the budget surplus will go toward tax cuts to aid wealthy corporations instead of the people of this commonwealth. This money could alternatively be used towards more citizen-friendly initiatives such as lowering state tuition rates. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education Pennsylvania, tuition is "significantly higher than the national average." An increase in direct funding to state universities and colleges should be provided so they can remain accessible to everyone.

Another area which gravely needs attention is this states infrastructure. Recently, in its "Report Card for Pennsylvania's Infrastructure," the American Society of Civil Engineers gave Pennsylvania a "D," partially due to funding shortfalls. Few residents of the states would miss the omnipresent potholes, or threats of public transit rate increases, if funding were adequately provided.

I have the sincere hope that Gov. Rendell recognizes that this surplus should be invested back into the people of Pennsylvania, as he has advocated for in the past.

DAVID FRANK
Squirrel Hill

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Call Social Security by its real name: a government Ponzi scheme for suckers

The Post-Gazette has recently carried stories about two different Ponzi schemes ("Court Reaffirms Swindler's Long Prison Sentence," April 27; "Ponzi Scheme," May 28), The men in each case were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for operating the schemes -- an illegal arrangement whereby old investors are paid dividends contributed by new investors. The courts across the land seem to agree that Ponzi schemes are crimes worthy of prison.

Let's replace "old" with "older" and "new" with "younger"-- what do we get? A Ponzi scheme that operates under the name of the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance -- or Social Security, for short. Why is it that Robert Atkinson of Brackenridge and James Lewis Jr. of Santa Ana, Calif., are sent to prison for the same arrangement that the federal government operates with impunity?

I'm a younger (read "new") investor who is forced to participate in the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of mankind, totaling trillions of dollars, which is fully sanctioned by the government.

Let's stop punishing the young by forcing contributions to Social Security and get Uncle Sam out of the Ponzi scheme business.

MATTHEW MALETESTINIC
Bellevue

The writer is a graduate of the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University, where his research focused on retirement finance.