MIS, MCPS deal mutually beneficial
On June 10, the Missoula County Public School Board of Trustees will consider a recommendation from the Finance and Operations Committee to extend the Missoula International School’s lease of the Prescott School building. The School Board is considering MIS’s request to renegotiate and extend the lease until 2012. We, the Board of Trustees for the Missoula International School, offer our fellow citizens the following thoughts on this issue.MIS is grateful to have leased the Prescott School building for the last four years from MCPS. We are committed to continuing our stewardship of the Prescott School building and property, and to preserving the site’s historic position in our community as an educational institution, neighborhood play area and public meeting facility.
We recognize that MCPS’s process for determining the future of the Prescott School building and property is time consuming. At the present time, MCPS has determined that there is no current or immediately foreseeable demand for the use of Prescott as a public school. We have requested a lease extension to give MCPS time to explore the long-term options for the building. If, in the end, MCPS plans to sell the Prescott School building, MIS will participate in the bidding process as aggressively as we are able. In the meantime, we are privileged to utilize the building for its intended purpose as an educational facility, while providing the school district with a reliable revenue stream and the security of knowing the building and property are cared for.
Raymond Aten, Member, Board of Trustees for the Missoula International School, Missoula
Past generations produced risk takers
To all the kids who survived the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s:First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup on a warm day was always a special treat. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle - and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter, and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because we were always outside playing. We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. If you are one of them, congratulations! You might share this with others who had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, tell your kids so they will know how brave - and lucky - their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run though the house with scissors, doesn’t it?
Daniel Fuchs, Missoula
It’s time to show Rehberg the door
Recent polls show that 73 percent of Montanans believe that the country is on the wrong track. Certainly, this isn’t surprising. It is surprising, though, that 52 percent of these same people would vote to keep Denny Rehberg as Montana’s representative. Since Rehberg was elected to Congress in 2000, he has been one of the most reliable supporters of the Bush administration’s disastrous policies.When Rehberg arrived in Congress, indicted Republican Tom DeLay was the speaker of the House. Rubber-stamp Rehberg voted with DeLay and Bush a remarkable 97.5 percent of the time. During the next Congress, from 2002 to 2004, Lapdog Denny voted with DeLay and Bush 96.6 percent of the time. In the next Congress, Rehberg gave Bush what he wanted 96 percent of the time.
Obviously, Rehberg was one of Bush’s most reliable rubber stamps in sending our country down the tubes. Why in the world would anyone, especially those who recognize that our country is seriously off-track, vote for one of the people responsible for driving the bus off the cliff? Rehberg has been in Republican politics his entire adult life. He was a lieutenant governor for Mark Racicot, who infamously sold Montana down the river by deregulating utilities. Racicot became an oil company lobbyist and Rehberg went to Washington to vote for the GOP agenda. You may not be doing well, but Exxon and Halliburton are absolutely boffo!
George Bush couldn’t have given us $9 trillion in debt, sent 4,000 soldiers to early graves and ruined our economy without the loyal help of yes men like Rehberg. Montanans recognize that it’s time to change the direction of our country. To change the direction of our country, we need to change our congressman.
Richard Buley, Missoula
Everything has become people-proof
This morning as I was attempting to open a jug of milk, I had to get out my vice grips. Now that ain’t funny.How many people have died because they couldn’t open their pill bottles? Everything is childproof any more. Excuse me, people-proof. When a friend has to call you to open a bottle of mouthwash, that’s getting bad. If you don’t have the arrow lined up on the bottle of aspirin it won’t work, then to have strength enough to pop the top when you do.
It seems like we go from one extreme to another. Isn’t there any happy medium?
I’m no spring chicken, but I’m no weakling, either. For people with arthritis in their hands, that makes these tasks impossible.
Now won’t that take your mind off Obama, whoever he is.
Helen Wylie, Missoula
Candidate wants to restore states’ rights
First, let me state that on the morning of May 28 I was not a Ron Paul supporter and actually knew very little of him or his positions. Then I read the guest column by Dallas Erickson in which he blasts Paul and his supporters.Many of the statements made by Erickson actually sounded more like liberal attempts to use government against the people. Especially his quote, “the Interstate Commerce Clause of the First Amendment, which was written to be very broad by our Founding Fathers.” (The clause is found in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, not the First Amendment.) The broad use of this clause has always been a tool used by liberals and battled by conservatives. Check out some of Justice Thomas’ opinions on the use of this clause. This is a problem I have had for the last several years with the Republican party, which I have always supported though never joined.
Erickson’s column attempts to get us to believe that Paul is in favor of child pornography and leaving children without protection. With this in mind, I went to the Internet and researched Paul and his beliefs.
After reading many articles and explanations for his votes, I found that Paul supports anti-abortion regulation by the states but not by the federal government. He was the sole vote against the federal law banning virtual child pornography because virtual child pornography did not directly harm children as real child pornography did, and would actually take resources away from stopping actual child pornography that does direct harm to children. He also supports defining life as beginning at conception and banning abortion at the state level, not the federal.
My take on Ron Paul is that he is a true conservative wanting to return states’ rights to the states.
Shane Norton, St. Ignatius
Friendly advice from an alien neighbor
Ah ... S’cuse me, but I’m an alien visiting your planet for the first time and couldn’t help but notice that your species will probably become extinct within a few hundred years if you don’t quit squabbling over a dwindling supply of fossil fuels and begin immediately converting your civilization to cheap, safe, non-polluting sources of energy.Doing so will have the added benefit of creating a worldwide demand for billions of new jobs in healthy and profitable industries with almost limitless potential. So, what’s the problem?
Not to sound sarcastic, but when you had the luxury of time, how could you have failed to develop the most obvious source, which is literally in your face every day? You know ... your local star! Just a little friendly advice from a concerned neighbor.
See ya later ... maybe.
Ryan Lawlor, Kalispell
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