Swift boats land in S.F.

For advocates of openness and sunshine, Mark Sanchez and Jane Kim seem surprisingly eager to whisper mysterious, anonymous, out-of-the-blue stories without details, sources, or substantiation ["Sunshine for the Schools," 9/15/04]. And the strategy of attacking an adversary's strengths – in this case, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's successes in defeating the Rojas-era scoundrels who looted our school district – with imaginative new "revelations" seems strangely familiar. Ahoy – is that a Swift Boat I see approaching?
Caroline Grannan
San Francisco

It's about kids

Neither San Francisco Board of Education member Mark Sanchez nor board wannabe Jane Kim, the two authors of the opinion piece titled "Sunshine for the Schools," is a parent. Perhaps this is why the word kids does not appear in their article until the very end. In fact, the article is not about kids at all, or what is best for kids or their education, which should be the main concern of the Board of Education. Instead, Sanchez and Kim focus exclusively on the adults. What would be best for reporters, what would be best for teachers, what would be best for "progressives" – all of these are topics of concern to Sanchez and Kim, but kids are pretty well forgotten. I am a parent of three San Francisco Unified School District students, and this rankles me.

I have a message for Mark Sanchez, Jane Kim, Eric Mar, and Sarah Lipson, and I hope they are listening. Education is not about the adults – it is about the kids! How dare you lecture the school district on how they are not meeting the needs of investigative reporters? That is not their job; their job is to do what is best for the kids. Take, for example, that "$400,000-a-year public relations department" which troubles you so much. The reason why the district needs a P.R. department at all is because they are regularly bashed by the local media, including the Bay Guardian. When citizens have no confidence in a school district, they are unlikely to support the schools, and that hurts our kids. Fortunately, thanks both to the P.R. department and to Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's achievements, the public's confidence in Ackerman has grown so strong that within the past 12 months, voters approved not one but two funding measures. Both the $295 million facilities bond approved by voters in November 2003 and Proposition H, approved in March 2004, to send as much as $60 million per year to the schools for essentials such as art, music, and physical education, won with 70 percent of the vote. That's the kind of support that helps our kids, and it's a pretty good return on that $400,000 investment, wouldn't you agree?
Dana Woldow
San Francisco

Republicans are more polite

Your article ["The Intimidators," 9/8/04] gave me great amusement. Here your group goes to NYC to harass the Republicans but get harassed instead. Good. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Did any Republicans get arrested in Boston? Did any Republicans harass the Democrats in Boston – the liberal media did not report it if they did.

You see, the Republicans are more polite and well-mannered than your group. They allow diversity of ideas, which your group fails to accomplish. For your group, it is your way or the highway.

Perhaps in time, you also can grow up and learn to accept other political ideas and diversity of thought and learn manners.

The discussion should be on ideas, not mayhem in the streets.
Bernie Schweigert
San Francisco

O'Brien is shocked

I am shocked by the egregious misrepresentation of facts presented by Tim Redmond in last week's Bay Guardian [Trail Mix, 9/8/04].

For the record, I think diversity in our schools is wonderful and important, however, bussing children across our city for hours each day is not the solution. I've spoken with parents throughout the city and have yet to find one who thinks this practice makes sense. San Francisco has always endeavored to reach across ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries, and obviously we still have much work to do. But to punish our children for society's shortcomings is unfair. We simply need to find a better way.

I stated I would support higher housing density in District Seven along the transit corridors. Your statement is an absurd distortion of my original comments. I do not condone reckless expansion in areas where the existing infrastructure cannot support it.
Dr. Milton "Rennie" O'Brien
San Francisco

For the record

Last week's Techsploitation misnamed Starbug, the Berlin hacker who perfected a way to fake out fingerprint readers, and Freifunk, the infamous Berlin wireless group.

In the September Lit supplement, "Rad Storm Rising" boxed text misspelled the author of At Berkeley in the '60s: The Education of an Activist, 1961-1965; the author should have been cited as Jo Freeman, as it appeared in the body of the article.