Cheney defense not surprising
I was watching Dick Cheney on a news segment as he defended the use of torture. He has always said that water-boarding and various other “enhanced interrogation” techniques are not torture. I would like to see him willingly undergo repeated water-boarding or rectal hydration himself and then let’s hear him say that they are not torture. And based on the reports, those are probably the mildest of the techniques that our interrogators have used.
The fact that we are even having a debate on whether the use of torture is acceptable for any nation that calls itself civilized shows to what extent we have lost our moral compass. It’s no surprise that by and large the ones who call themselves Christian, who believe that greed is good, and believe that our nation’s poor, elderly, sick, and underprivileged should be ignored by our government are the very ones who believe that it is acceptable that we sink to the same level as our barbaric adversaries.
Rick Armstrong, Monteagle, Tenn.
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Erlanger managers committed to jobs
It is very disturbing to me to hear of Erlanger’s Kevin Spiegel and his “gang of 99.” I, along with most of this “gang,” have put in countless hours above and beyond what is considered a normal week. It’s our job as management. While I am in complete agreement that many are due market pay increases and are paid below market, most of the middle managers are below market as well. Unlike most hourly employees, we work 12-, 14-, 16-hour days with no added compensation. Hourly employees work a 7.5-hour day and leave. If they work over, they are compensated. Our compensation is based on service metrics such as patient safety, decreasing supply costs, maintaining the budgets that we put together, etc. The additional compensation that we were to receive was based on numerous metrics that were put together years ago. As I said to someone, the additional compensation did not even come close to the hours that I gladly put in above my “normal” work week. I work hard for an organization that I love, and I am angry for being called part of a “gang of 99.”
Cathy Swafford, Pikeville, Tenn.
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Right-wingers behind contempt for citizenry
Jonathan Gruber has made the outrageous statement that premiums paid by the young and healthy pay for care for the old and sick. Whoever does not recognize this as basic insurance theory is, if not stupid, at least culpably ignorant. Columnist Michael Gerson exploits the recently excavated Gruber videos, which were not news when they were current, to recite the familiar article of right-wing faith that academic achievement and progressive politics are, by nature, snobbish and antidemocratic. The reader is invited to take offense.
The suggestion that the “liberal elites” — whoever they are — regard the public as ignoramuses to be manipulated and deceived is not original with Gerson. It is a staple of the right-wing press, who are the ones actually practicing manipulation and deceit.
By promoting the fiction that those who take the trouble to acquire learning are arrogant and underhanded, they foster resentment and suspicion of knowledge.
In truth, it is Gerson whose cynicism and contempt for the ordinary citizen should be obvious to the wise and the simple alike.
Barbara S. Arthur
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Common Core based on flawed premise
In my opinion, Common Core is a farce predisposed to misguide our children into believing that rhetoric and glibness are pure thought. To wit, I recently read where a student may earn an A by “thinking” and then making a great presentation; for example, that 2 x 2 can actually be 5 instead of 4.
This is idiocy and not rigorous mathematics. By this same logic, a student could earn an A by making a great presentation that gravity does not exist. To test this logic, the student jumps off a 50-story building. I am fully convinced that this test of logic will prove the student to be “dead wrong.”
Lastly and sadly, it seems students are being taught to think more about passing Common Core tests than the original concept of being taught empirical thinking.
Jerry Pearson, Signal Mountain