Love-Hate Mail
Failed "grown-up" retort
This letter is in reply to someone named "Hansen" in last week's Scene (Love/Hate Mail, Jan. 22). Did you name yourself after the boy band?
You called President Bush "subhuman garbage." That is not a phrase you hear everyday. Did you happen to glance around your living room at your friends and have this phrase suddenly pop into your head? How clever!
We were taught in elementary school that name-calling begins when one has run out of constructive material. You must not have reached elementary school.
Your facts ("hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths") are also way off the mark. Those pesky comic books can never get anything right! So, Hansen, why don't you leave the Letters to the Editor for us grown-ups. Any political party would be embarrassed to have someone like you. Grow up and become a person of integrity and dignity.
Nancy
Fairview
As the Crow flies
They must have known you were writing an article about them at 3 Crow Bar ("Cheap Thrills," Jan. 21).That's the reason you had "exceptionally quick" service.
I've yet to experience that type of service firsthand in that particular establishment. Each time I go there I think it'll be better this time. No such luck. If it weren't for the occasional good band playing there, I wouldn't be there in the first place. It seems if you don't live on the East Side and spend most of your time in that bar, they'll get to you when they get to you. Cool bar, crappy service.
On the other hand, I haven't made out with anyone working at The Red Door East and most of those folks know my name.
Doyle Sheppard
Nashville
No big deal
Being a neutral person in this matter, I agree that the chant may not be suitable (MBA's 'Hooked on Phonics' Chant Officially Retired," Jan. 27). However, I do think that this has been blown out of proportion by Ensworth and their parents. I have gathered that MBA has the same amount of African Americans at their school as Ensworth.
Bob Perkling
Great chants of yore
Ahh, this brings back memories of certain evangelical high schools in University School's district in the '80s chanting at our basketball team:
"We've got Christmas, yes we do.We've got Christmas, how 'bout Jew?!"
Kids can be cruel. And stupid. And bullies. Nothing new here.
CeeElCee
What resegregation?
So let's see. The NAACP would be cool with this if the board abandoned the "resegregation" plan ("Black Leaders Condemn 'Vestiges of Racism' in School Rezoning Plan," Pith in the Wind, January 26). That would take us back to the status quo. Pearl-Cohn would be 88 percent black instead of 92 percent. Several of the elementary schools in the Pearl-Cohn cluster would still be almost 100 percent black. Maplewood and Whites Creek would still be 80 percent or more black. Hillsboro would have significantly fewer black students, and Hillwood again would have significantly more.
And then everything would be hunky and progressive again?
I can see why the NAACP and the Scene would argue that we need a completely new approach to school assignment. We could have a very interesting discussion on something as radical as allowing complete free choice within the district.
But it's more than a little disingenuous to call this a "resegregation" plan when the status quo is already heavily segregated in many of these schools, and when those who are hollering loudest about the bad new plan would be content to return us to the bad old plan.
It's worse than merely reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's actually wasting time in complaining about how those deck chairs have been reshuffled.
One good question to ask Jesse Register is how committed he is to the idea of assigning the best and most experienced teachers to the schools that are struggling most, even if it means finding a way to pay them more for their trouble. It's a strategy that has been proven to work.
Or is the Scene more interested in scoring cheap points? Honestly, how can you guys complain about Phil Valentine when you're taking a page right of his playbook—ignoring the complexity of the larger issue for the sake of punching a few hot buttons?
Boyd B. Biggs
Black-approved school plan
One major oversight in Jeff Woods' article and in the NAACP's position is that the rezoning plan was unanimously recommended by a black majority committee. This committee spent months reviewing all options before making this recommendation. How come no one wants to acknowledge that fact?It's also true that the issue isn't race—it's poverty. Lots of middle income black families have been fleeing to private schools to avoid having their kids contend with the baggage that kids in poverty bring to school.The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that schools no longer have to consider race in student assignment. We do have a moral duty to consider poverty issues and to provide extra services to those kids, which is what the rezoning plan does.
Betty Sands
Close the schools, get creative
The schools have failed Nashville, not vice versa. Close them and get creative. This could be Nashville's shot at a return to a high quality of life and end the shame that is our public education system. Otherwise Nashville will continue to be the armpit of this state; even Shelby County retains local control of its system.
I don't care whether it is vouchers or some other new and provocative plan. The first step is to admit there is a problem. If that problem in intractable, admit that as well.
Jackson Hunted
False cries of racism
Outlaw the NAACP. These scandal-plagued race baiters need to go away like a dinosaur.
Fifty years of social engineering has produced dumber kids and a failed school system. Send the black kids to the white schools to get better educations. Wait, the standards are too high. Lower the standards for the blacks so we can compete.
More money and lower standards! That ain't working! More money and cry racism! All the white folks are moving away! Time to do more bussing! Uh oh! All whitey is gone, we is now being in ours own schools by ourselves. Mo money and cry racism!
Please stop. Black failure is not the fault of whitey. It is the fault of race hustlers like the NAACP
Fred Thompson
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