Noninvolvement - In Tecumseh, plenty of blame to go around

In response to your May 19 editorial, "Tecumseh: Young lives ruined while everyone looked away": With 1,076 students in one building, all marching to the tune of academic anonymity with 54-minute classes, curriculum silos, isolation of
teachers and academic disciplines, a perverted focus on competition instead of cooperation all working to create an unnatural behavior pattern perceived as normal by the adult world, it is no wonder that it took
so long.
Standards are being met, a perception of control in place. Parents and the community are held at arm's length with an occasional play, open house, athletic competition or parent-teacher conference to assure that all is normal.
We represent the root cause of these destructive behaviors. Look around. Tecumseh is not alone in the state or nation. And wake up to the fact that the structure of education, which we all endorse with our silence and noninvolvement, is the root. It's not "Shame on all of Tecumseh." It's shame on all of us who confidently nod our heads in agreement with your editorial.
Chuck Fellows
South Lyon
Blame belongs to everyone
All are guilty. The coach, students and parents are equally guilty in this scandal.
The coach's actions fed into his perverted mind-set. The students had choices. These choices started when they entered the home of the coach and chose to stay, drink and participate in sick behavior. The parents had choices and chose to let their kids attend, drink and engage in sex while closing a blind eye to their behavior.
It's time that all of them look at what part they played in this scandal and take responsibility for it.
Beverly Mark
Sterling Heights
Picking on Michigan State
It's an embarrassment that you turned the Tecumseh High School scandal into a Michigan State University story. Not an embarrassment to Spartans, but an embarrassment to serious journalism everywhere.
Instead of focusing on the real issue -- the gross manipulation of young people by a publicly paid deviant and the subsequent, inexcusable attempts by Tecumseh school officials to protect one of their own -- the Free Press chose to portray the story as one of titillation and, ultimately, Michigan State. Where were the stories and the blaring headlines two weeks ago when Matthew Peterson was (far too lightly) sentenced to prison?
Curiously, the Free Press chose to wait until the eve of Cole Corey's sentencing. Could it be that the Free Press would rather paint MSU in a bad light in attempt to shift public focus from where it belongs -- toward the gross neglect and negligence of the teachers and administrators of Tecumseh Public Schools to its community and the taxpayers who pay their salaries? Nah, I'm sure that the timing was merely a coincidence.
David A. Turnquist
Farmington Hills
Insult to readers
How can you claim to be a responsible newspaper when your lead story on Page 1 is about the peccadilloes of a small-town high school coach? Make up your mind: Either be a serious newspaper for concerned adults or a supermarket tabloid, but don't insult us by trying to be both.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060523/OPINION04/605230326/1072

Finally, in the catbird seat - noninvolvement

One of the great joys in life comes from discovering something new about ourselves. It doesn't need to be earth-shaking, merely something that adds a little more substance and a little more depth to the individuals we see ourselves to be — or, at least, believe we should be.
Occasionally, we discover something so out of the ordinary, it flabbergasts us. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered last week that I am "an active and engaged member of our Party in your community" and "the newest member of the Democratic National Committee."

No, it was not some flashback to the '60s when I actually might have become an active and engaged member of something. The words were there, in black and white, under the signature of no less a personage than the DNC chairman himself, Howard Dean.
This new aspect about myself was revealed in the "2006 Grassroots Survey of Democratic Leaders," conducted, the enclosed material notes, "to help gauge the opinions of local Party leaders on the critical issues facing our nation."
Dare I dream? Black-tie dinners in the nation's capital; schmoozing with the likes of Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, Wesley Clark, Joe Biden, Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon; helping shape the future direction of the Democratic Party?
Before the daydream gets out of hand, a disclaimer is in order. I am registered as a Democrat. But, because of the profession I have chosen, I do not allow myself to become actively engaged in partisan politics. That means I do not lend any kind of financial support to a party or its candidates. I do not attend partisan political gatherings except in my role as a journalist. And, I do not stuff envelopes, walk precincts or indulge in any of the other activities political parties engage in. My sole political activism comes from casting my ballots at election time.
I have accepted invitations to speak before local political organizations — one from the Green Party and two from Democratic groups, none, unfortunately, from any Republican groups — but I purposefully shy away from punditry and keep my talk limited to the topic, "Our Friend, the Opinion Pages."
Despite all this noninvolvement in local party politics, I was touted in the Democratic mailer as a local party leader and the newest member of the DNC. How the party came to this conclusion is beyond me, but, since this is a political party mailing, ulterior motives always exist. In this case, no big surprise here, the whole purpose of this DNC survey boils down to fundraising. I could become a contributing member to the DNC by contributing the proper amount of money — a sum anywhere from $25 right up to "Other," a blank space left for those who have no problem putting at least three zeros at the end of their donations.
Fame can be and usually is fleeting. But it was nice to think during that brief daydream of what I might have been saying had I actually been a party leader or even merely an active and engaged member of the party.
Actually, it wouldn't have been much since the Democratic Party in Ventura County seems to be squandering, so far, its best chance in decades to give Rep. Elton Gallegly not merely a run for his money, but possibly unseat him.
No, that's not hindsight. Even before Gallegly's stumble over announcing his retirement March 10, hours before the filing period closed, the 2006 midterm elections had been shaping up as a referendum on the Republican Party's control of the House and Senate. The heavy-handed control exerted by the party's hard-right wing and its slavish devotion to spending habits that have been moving this nation toward fiscal disaster have angered many moderate Republicans.
That emerging dissatisfaction alone should have been enough to energize the Democratic Party in Ventura County to scour its ranks to find the strongest candidate it could to field. Doing so became even more critical after Democrat Brett Wagner — who lost to Gallegly two years ago — dropped out of the race, leaving only newcomer Jill Martinez to carry the banner.
The Democrats had a good week before the filing period closed to find another candidate.
But the prevailing attitude among Democrats seems to be to sit on one's hands; because the district is so safely Gallegly's, why waste the energy? Wagner spoke of that attitude in explaining why he would not be running against Gallegly again:
"If the Democrats had the advantage in the (24th) district that the Republicans enjoy," Wagner was quoted in the March 3 edition of The Star, "I would have stayed in the race."
So Gallegly's stumble over his retirement became an opportunity lost. To take advantage of such a stumble, the Democrats needed a strong, viable candidate in the race at the time.
The mailer made one cogent point Democrats should heed: Either they fade into the background, as Republicans want, or they roll up their sleeves and get to work.
The choice is theirs. As for me, my stint as a party leader is over.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/opinion_columnists/article/0,1375,VCS_223_4735531,00.html