Quality child care is essential on several levels

At the Pennsylvania Governor's Conference for Women last month in Pittsburgh, working women were highlighted in terms of the gender wage gap, equality in employment, economic self-sufficiency and labor force participation. We should applaud the conference for its work.

However, only when Gov. Ed Rendell, Teresa Heinz and Marion Wright Edelman spoke was child care discussed. Affordable, accessible, quality child care is not only a women's issue, it is essential for children's development and critical for businesses to have an optimal work force.

In the United States, most mothers with children under age 18 are employed, including 59 percent of those with infants and 74 percent of those with school-aged children. Approximately 13 million infants, toddlers and preschool children are regularly in nonparental care, including 45 percent of children under one year of age.

Quality child care, with developmentally appropriate curricula and qualified teachers, costs approximately $12,000 a year. For full-time care, this is about $4.25 an hour. Compare that to the hourly labor costs to service your car.

High-quality care is not always available. State and private sector investments have helped, but it is not enough. Teachers still earn low wages and working families are often "caught in the middle" when it comes to child-care assistance. With working families depending on child care to enable them to contribute to the economy, support from the business community is essential.

JEANNE E. TAYLOR
University of Pittsburgh
Office of Child Development
Point Breeze

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Santorum delusion

If you want an insight into how Rick Santorum thinks, read his book, "It Takes a Family." He discusses many of the social problems afflicting this country in it. He suggests causes and solutions. Unfortunately, his interpretation of the root cause of most problems is based upon his delusion of a massive liberal conspiracy. Not surprisingly, the solutions that he offers are just as untenable.

His argument goes something like this: Morality and truth come only from God; the questioning of the orthodox view of God, morality and truth by influential individuals (liberals, all of them) leads others to question it, too; the liberals' pursuit of this "no-fault freedom" has infected our public schools and many universities and has caused people to lose sight of the orthodoxy.

The solution is predictable: For the "common good," people should abandon their pursuit of this heresy; once a critical mass of orthodox believers is achieved, our social ills will be cured.

The problem with this reasoning, of course, is that many groups have their own, different view of what God, morality and truth are. Many people have come to this country to escape governments that want to impose an orthodoxy on its people. It looks like Sen. Santorum wants to create such a government here.

LEW RUFFING
Murrysville

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Master waffler

In his Sept. 24 letter ("Clear Positions"), Joe Babinsack argues for Rick Santorum's re-election, claiming that he is a man of integrity who votes his conscience and doesn't waffle. Mr. Babinsack must be speaking about a different Rick Santorum than many Pennsylvanians are familiar with. The Sen. Santorum we know has repeatedly reversed himself on positions over the years.

In March 2002, he wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Times arguing that intelligent design should be taught in public schools. When the Dover Area School District lost a lawsuit last year for enforcing such an opinion, waffling Rick suddenly cut his ties with the legal center that had defended the district.

The man so involved with the K-Street lobbying project suddenly reversed course and said we needed to reform the lobbying system. He said that we should cap malpractice lawsuits at $250,000 for pain and suffering -- but not before his wife sued her chiropractor for $500,000 in 1999 (winning $350,000).

Rick Santorum is a master of waffling and changing his vote at the drop of a few million dollars or to suit the political climate and should be replaced by a man of true integrity and conscience, Bob Casey, Jr.

Mr. Casey can cite many positive accomplishments, such as cracking down on nursing home abuses and wasteful government spending or standing up against the recent pay raises. As Sen. Santorum has not accomplished anything positive for our state, his supporters can only offer false claims to integrity which do not hold up upon any serious inspection.

MISCHA GELMAN
Greenfield

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Our energy needs

The anti-nuclear letter offered by Beverly L. Darwin and Barton Paul Levenson ("Nuclear Power Is Not the Way to Satisfy Energy Demands," Sept. 13) reflects a serious lack of understanding of the basics of energy production.

There is a concept, which can be described as "energy density," that reflects how much usable energy can be derived from a given quantity of "fuel," whether it is provided by the sun, wind, biomass (including coal) or uranium. I can assure you that solar and wind power will never provide the amounts of electricity and other forms of energy required to operate a steel mill or an automobile factory.

That is not to argue we should not develop renewable forms of energy -- we should, and with considerable resolve. However, to refer to nuclear power as a "30-year dead . . . technology" is not merely wrong, it ignores tremendous strides in safe design and implementation over the past 30 years.

France is well on the way to energy independence because of nuclear power; India, Japan, China and Korea have defined a similar future. These countries realize that they forfeit the security of their nations' industrial infrastructure, as well as trashing their environment, by lashing themselves to oil wells and coal mines.

The numbers of deaths attributable to coal mining over the last 30 years, here and abroad, and the profound international strife and loss of life being waged over oil, speak for themselves.

BOB GOLD
Mt. Lebanon

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A memorial lesson

Where a schoolhouse once stood there is now a field, a pasture. It didn't take a bipartisan committee, or legislation, or $5 million. Just a good decision to make the memorial of these dear children one of the heart and not one of granite and grandstanding.

As we join them in their grief, let us also join the Amish in their character, and learn a lesson about how we memorialize those among us who have fallen to the forces of evil.

RICHARD M. BAGWELL
Hampton

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Andy Starnes , Post-Gazette James C. Dobson at a Stand for the Family rally in Pittsburgh last month. Click photo for larger image.

Sick of partisan preachers

So let me see if I have this straight. In the last year, four GOP House members have resigned in disgrace and face possible jail time. One of them, Mark Foley, just got caught soliciting minors via the Internet while the GOP House leadership knew it was going on and did nothing. Republicans had no trouble giving tax cuts to millionaires for what seems like the dozenth time, but balked at setting aside money for rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina until public pressure forced them to do so. The GOP Senate leadership and the GOP White House recently agreed on a resolution gutting the Geneva Conventions in order to allow torture, which they had until recently denied committing.

Yet in the midst of all this, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson comes to town and tells Christians that we must vote for the GOP or else things will get "frightening" ("Dobson Preaches Mixed Message," Sept. 21). I'm sick of corrupt and lying politicians who have disgraced our great nation, but I'm more sick of preachers who have traded in the beautiful, all welcoming gospel of Jesus Christ for the slimy, partisan pit of politics. I feel very sorry for him and for the church. We deserve better.

REV. CHRIS STILLWELL
South Park