Letters to the Editor
Another blazed trail for Sotomayor I cannot understand why the media continues to report that Judge Sonia Sotoyayer may become the first Hispanic appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Obama administration may want credit for a "historic nomination" to gain Hispanic votes, but please check the history books.
Another blazed trail
for Sotomayor
I cannot understand why the media continues to report that Judge Sonia Sotoyayer may become the first Hispanic appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Obama administration may want credit for a "historic nomination" to gain Hispanic votes, but please check the history books.
In New York City, there is the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which honors him for being the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court; his ancestors came from Portugal. Born in 1870, he was appointed by President Hoover to succeed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and served on the Supreme Court from 1932 to 1938. Cardozo has long been recognized as the first Hispanic, and the second person of Jewish descent, to be appointed to the court.
Frank Piecuch
Centreville, Del.
Too bad lawsuit
is threatened
When I read in Tuesday's paper ("Day camp rejects pool's offer to return") that the executive director of Creative Steps Inc. day camp planned to sue a private club to prevent "permanent" scarring of the children who had been asked not to return to its swimming pool, I immediately wondered: What would Dr. Martin Luther King say?
I can't help but feel that having a human-relations program to promote positive intergroup relations between the families and children of the Creative Steps day camp and the families and children of the private swim club would result in a lasting, constructive, positive outcome that would do more than a lawsuit to reduce the possibility of the "permanent" scarring of children who were upset by racist comments they reportedly heard concerning their presence at the swimming pool.
Renee Levine
Philadelphia
Fumo didn't earn
lighter sentence
The lead-up to Vince Fumo's sentencing was pretty disgusting.
Let's make it real simple: I am a person who spent five years (1981-1986) working 80-hour weeks, for $290 per week, training men and women exiting prison in construction work, as we renovated 23 buildings in West Philadelphia.
I fervently believe in second chances for those who admit their guilt, apologize for the damage done, seek to remediate it, and chart a new path. Until his sentencing, Fumo remained oh-for-four: no admission of guilt, no apology, no remediation except for some returned tools he can't use, and no whisper of a new path.
Aside from that, in the four years of the Fumo investigation and trial, please make a list of specific criticisms that Gov. Rendell made about Fumo's plundering: You could write it on a matchbook. But the praises for Fumo by our governor are voluminous. This is the same governor who signed a death warrant for a retarded teenager who had a third-rate public defender, just before the Supreme Court's death-penalty moratorium.
Thomas Henry Massaro
Philadelphia
Meritocracy
should be our goal
Harold Jackson's essay ("End of racial bias? Not yet," Sunday), mocking those of us who argue that a racial disparity in economic, social, or educational outcomes can not be seen as a priori evidence of discrimination, is from the same old predictable, unthinking, liberal boilerplate The Inquirer has been wedded to since I can remember.
A majority of Americans, in poll after poll, have long since moved on from the utter silliness of the assumption that, in a just and fair society, each racial and ethnic group would perform equally well on standardized tests, and understand, further, that the government has no role in attempting to assure equality of results, only equal opportunity.
There was a time when the left believed in working toward achieving a true meritocracy, but those ideals have been pushed aside for political expedience, and the insidious ideology that views certain groups as oppressors, and certain groups as victims. Tragically, in denying such pre-assigned victims any degree of moral agency - that is, responsibility for their behavior - the left is practicing the very racism it so passionately accuses others of engaging in.
Adam Levick
Jerusalem, Israel
Pa. state employees
treated like pawns
The fact that House Bill 1771 is not even being considered is blatant proof that state employees are being used as pawns in the Pennsylvania budget impasse. The bill would enable the commonwealth to pay its employees until a new budget is passed. But the governor came out against it, saying it would remove the urgency in passing a budget.
The legislature is too busy collecting its $158 per-diems to care. Meanwhile the people who keep Pennsylvania running face reduced pay, and no pay in August. We can take out more loans. But many of us are not eligible.
Mark Krull
Millville