Letters to the Editor

In contrast to Wednesday’s “50 Percent Victory Equals Half a Loss”, Bush achieving over fifty percent of the popular vote attests more to the unity of the country than to its division.

History validates this point. In neither of President Clinton’s elections did a majority of voters cast their ballot for him, yet he managed to be an incredibly popular and successful president.

Even in President Reagan’s outright shellacking of Walter Mondale, 41.2 percent of the voting public said Reagan wasn’t the man for the job.

Bottom line: For a presidential election, a 55-45 split is a landslide, and this year’s 51-48 split was a comfortable win for Bush.

The author of the aforementioned article said it seemed impossible to run the country when half the voters don’t approve of the winner and asked, “How can either candidate properly run the country against those kind of odds?”

The answer, I suppose, is precisely how Presidents Clinton, Kennedy, Truman, and the rest of the “under 50 percent of the popular vote” club did.

—Garet Comer

Try children as adults? Ludicrous is the only word to describe Martha Martinez’ recent article. Not only do I find it costly to the taxpayers, I also think it’s representative of society’s view of problem children—no time for the weak.

First off, it’s an absolute tragedy what happened to the victims of the two boys described in those articles and I, in no way, want to condone or play down the seriousness of these crimes.

However, in some situations there are only victims, not only the victims of crimes, but also victims of society. The fact that one boy was exposed to gang influence and the other molested someone clearly shows a lack of parental concern and influence of positive adult figures, which is something that isn’t hard to fix.

Instead of paying for lengthy prison terms so the boys will “learn their lesson” why don’t we put them into homes and give them community service where they can get in touch with mentors and be in an environment with people they can relate to and learn from. At 12 and 13, regardless of what Martha Martinez thinks, these boys still have a chance to be productive—much more than they would if we locked them up for 30 years and then see what happens after we release them.

I’m sure we’ve all run across kids who just need a little more attention, some time, patience, and understanding. If we’d just give it to them perhaps we could prevent these crimes from happening.

—Ria Williams