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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Un-Decent Profit
To the editor: I just read your article about SSR (Static, June 13, 2002). David Kaplan is a friend, but I’m not so sure I’d go so far as to suggest that SSR did anything “decent” simply by turning over a property for a 6 million dollar profit!
There is something perverse about using retirement funds of public workers to displace retirees and other persons on limited and fixed incomes whose housing becomes part of the bottom line of a financial services industry that has no social conscience or interest in community. That is closer to the paradigm.
Harvey Shapiro
Salem, Mass
Didn’t Die Soon Enough
To the editor: My thanks to Dan McGraw (“City’s No Longer Taking the DARE,” June 13, 2002) for proving the theory I’ve been espousing about “drug prevention” programs for years. That is, that they lead to premature curiosity, which leads to earlier experimentation. I mean, we want our kids to “wonder” don’t we? We want ourselves to be that way to show how “open” we still are to new ideas even into our cranky old 30’s/40’s and beyond.
It’s a shame that budget shortfalls and personnel requirements from a 9-11 sort of event are causing D.A.R.E.’s demise. It should have been canceled years ago (and not just in Fort Worth) based on its lack of merit. Sadly, it’s one of those “for the children” sorts of boondoggles, so once it gets its budgetary foot in the door it’s extremely hard to get it out. Congratulations to Fort Worth, and thanks for paving the way for other communities to be able to do the same.
And about the “pleasure factor” — I agree, but ... the problem arises when a societal (Southern?) mindset works to make even responsible adults feel guilty for indulging in a drink or two at the end of the day. The challenge is in teaching (I feel it’s best through role-modeling in the family) kids that “Miller/Pleasure time” isn’t all the time. It’s not school (or on the job) time; it’s not homework (or housework) time. In fact, they must be taught, that during their childhood it’s never time.
This lesson, of postponing a particular “adult” pleasure (along with interpersonal sex), is one of the most needed lessons, hardest to teach and harder yet to enforce. If and when parents look the other way on these adult-pleasure issues — giving a de facto go-ahead — they end up with teens that by 16 or 18 are bored, cynical, burnt out, or worse.
Maybe Officer Frazier could start a D.A.R.E. program on his own time, thus continuing “God’s work” — at his church? — then go out and “evangelize” in the community schools.
Patrice Stanton
Keller
Stock Praises
To the editor: Betty Brink’s story in Fort Worth Weekly on Holt Hickman and Sue McCafferty (“Dude Wrangler,” May 23, 2002) regarding the Fort Worth Stockyards was well researched and well written. In short, it was excellent.
Horace Craig
North Richland Hills
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