Accept rezoning as a fact of life
Once again, one of your timely editorials (March 14) has struck a strong chord with me. I could not agree more with your response to the recent school rezoning uproar.
Coincidentally, I just spent a few days with family and friends in the Atlanta suburbs. The friend has lived in two expensive suburban Atlanta homes over the last decade. She called my attention to a beautiful new public school under construction, and said another would be built nearby.
When I told her about the rezoning issues in the Ooltewah area, she said rezoning is a fact of life in Atlanta. Her children were rezoned three times in eight years in their former home, and their current home already has been rezoned in the last three years. She is unconcerned by rezoning, because it has absolutely no effect on her property’s value. The obvious difference is that when growth necessitates new schools, the tax base exists to support their construction. Residents aren’t left to fight over educational crumbs. They don’t have to worry about property values. The existence of quality schools for all is a given.
My Atlanta cousin shared this attitude. He has just moved from one lovely subdivision to another newer. His new home is zoned for a brand-new school, recently built to accommodate the growth. No mobs of angry property owners. No contentious commission meetings. No promises to alleviate overcrowding on the 12th of Never.
MARY BETH CLARK
You can add more to salary lists
Well, I see you plan on publishing my salary on your website. In deference to full disclosure, make sure to print this next to my salary as well: “Martial Status: Single.”
JAMES T. ARNOLD
Bravo for printing Doonesbury strips
Thank you for printing the Doonesbury cartoon strip for this week of March 12.
I’ve been reading online that some newspapers will not run it. You’re probably going to get some flack, so I’m here to say, “Bravo, for letting the readers ponder this important topic concerning women’s health.”
While I’m at it, I’d like to also thank you for running the brilliant political cartoons of Clay Bennett.
DIANE MARRS
Secularism not a good philosophy
Rebecca Taylor (Times column, March 10) admits that college instruction “embraces secularism,” but claims Rick Santorum wrongly calls it “indoctrination.” Taylor says secularism is good; teaching it merely teaches students “how democracy works.” Really?
Secularism (from Latin saeculum meaning “temporal world”) is a philosophy, a worldview, a belief system, holding that every human value and activity must be understood and judged by present societal norms, what Taylor calls “common values.”
Secularism conflicts with the Christian worldview that all values and activities must be understood and judged by the norms of a transcendent, eternal God. Moreover, state-sponsored teaching of one philosophy, excluding others, is classic “indoctrination.”
Is it really “good” for values (right vs. wrong) to be determined by present societal norms? Suppose the majority thinks society is better served by killing female infants (China) or (by allowing self-determined euthanasia by) elderly or disabled persons (Netherlands).
Is murder “right” because the majority thinks so? Is that how democracy works? Isn’t that the relativism Taylor denies secularism encourages?
Secularism is dangerous. It would impose “group-thought” of fallen humanity upon everyone. Apparently, its proponents will say anything to preserve their philosophical monopoly in education.
DAVID L. MOSS
Signal Mountain
Work to preserve historic sites
As your story “Battle begins to lure Civil War tourists to Chattanooga” (March 12) points out, the Civil War sesquicentennial is attracting large numbers of visitors to Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and battlefields across the country. The impact of increased tourism will be felt throughout the local communities that benefit tremendously from neighboring national parks.
Importantly, there are several opportunities to help commemorate the 150th anniversary and expand the stories that are preserved in Civil War parks. Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker have introduced legislation that would expand Vicksburg National Military Park by approximately 10,000 acres. According to the Park Service, in 2010, there were almost 600,000 recreational visits to Vicksburg and visitors spent more than $28 million — numbers that should increase with park expansion. Roughly 4,000 soldiers from Tennessee fought at Vicksburg, and deserve to have their legacy fully preserved at the park.
In Kentucky, Rep. Hal Rogers has proposed a study on the feasibility of incorporating the 500-acre Mill Springs Battlefield into the National Park System. The battle was the second largest in Kentucky and included over 10,000 soldiers — approximately 6,000 from Tennessee.
As we celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, we must continue to work to preserve places like these that honor our American history.
EMILY JONES
Southeast Senior Program Manager,
National Parks Conservation Association Knoxville
Conversation could get story line
Mark Kennedy’s columns are enjoyable reading, particularly for me as I have two now-adult sons, and many of his stories about his sons could well have been written about mine at their ages.
However, I was disappointed in his March 11 column regarding store cashiers. I’m sure he didn’t mean to, but I’m afraid he came across to some readers as one of Santorum’s snobs (i.e., I’m too busy and too important to talk to you people). Who knows? He might get a good story line from one of them.
BOB ABEL
Cleveland, Tenn.
Organizing efforts are not radical
How wonderful to read of the community organization effort that enabled the Washington Hills Neighborhood Association to access long-awaited city services.
How inspiring to learn that this success owed, in large measure, to residents’ participation in Chattanooga’s Neighborhood Leadership Institute, where the skills needed for effecting change were learned.
How gratifying to hear City Administrator Beverly Johnson affirm that, when a neighborhood wants change, “there is power in numbers.”
How discouraging to discover that few of those applauding Washington Hills’ success realize that its model for community mobilization was established over 50 years ago by Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky.
How revolting to hear Newt Gingrich and his Republican cohorts decry as “Saul Alinsky radicalism” this effective, democratic method for assuring that citizens’ concerns are heard by the officials elected to serve them.
So, the next time you hear anyone denigrate “community organizers,” think of Washington Hills’ Neighborhood Association and the many other Chattanooga communities whose concerns now are heard and served by government, thanks to the Neighborhood Leadership Institute, and view with suspicion those who label these efforts “radical.”
HELEN SMITH