Pro-life party

Did you realize that seven of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court justices were nominated by Republican presidents?

Two and a half years into the current administration's control of the White House, with control of both congressional houses, there is still no partial-birth abortion bill on the president's desk.

Over 10 years and 10 million abortions ago, the first President Bush had the opportunity to appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Sadly, he gave us the pro-abortion David Souter.

Harry Blackmun, a Nixon appointee, authored Roe v. Wade.

This White House is not pro-family, as is clearly illustrated by its lack of defense of the controversial remarks by the staunchly pro-life Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

The Republicans, like the Democrats (they are all Republicrats) are tied to the United Nations' "war on population" agenda.

Did you realize that the entire world's population could be stood up within the city limits of Jacksonville, Fla.? Thirty billion square feet divided by 6 billion people gives about five square feet per person. No, the world is not overpopulated!

I used to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy, and in Darwin's fairy tale of evolution. Upon closer inspection of the evidence, all these beliefs have proven to be false.

Please join with me and my fellow patriots and help us reclaim our nation. Help us build a true pro-life America First Party. Go to www.americafirst-
party.org for further information.

DAVID A. NOLD
Crofton



Four Seasons

The positions taken by letter writers in favor of the Four Seasons development on Kent Island fall into interesting patterns.

There is the "We have visited K. Hovnanian Cos. projects in New Jersey and Virginia and they are wonderful!" group. How did these writers come to visit those projects, and at whose expense?

A second group decries the cost to Queen Anne's County taxpayers of responding to the litigation involving Four Seasons. Its writers don't mention that Hovnanian initiated such litigation.

This group also says that a minority is objecting to Four Seasons. That is, of course, untrue. A majority of Queen Anne's County voters voted out the former county commissioners for their abject sponsorship of anything resembling excessive development.

Hovnanian claims to have the interest of Queen Anne's County at heart. It is peculiar, then, that after the citizens voted against the commissioners responsible for the Developer's Rights and Responsibilities Agreement, Hovnanian brought suit.

Perhaps it believes corporate wisdom is more profound than that of the majority of voters? I, for one, don't think so, and I believe history would back me up.

Yet a third group of letter writers has now been marshaled from afar: New Jersey and even distant Georgia. Their "poor" relations simply cannot live on Kent Island unless Four Seasons becomes a reality. One can only wonder how these people are managing to live there now, and why these lost souls are calling upon their distant relatives for aid and succor.

There is an interesting grouping of the subject matter of these letters, leading one to think of orchestration. I do not know that, of course. I am merely asking.

JAMES R. ROONEY
Queenstown



Teaching methods

An editorial (The Capital, June 13) claimed that new programs are replacing "ancient teaching methods."

Here are just some of the teaching methods currently used by Anne Arundel County public school teachers: differentiated instruction, reciprocal teaching, brain theory instruction, multiple intelligences, cooperative learning, co-teaching, interdisciplinary instruction, Socratic questioning (the only ancient one), and numerous academic, behavioral and management methods.

Teachers constantly update their knowledge of pedagogy and will use many methods in whatever programs are chosen.

Our county school system does a great job of training teachers in new, proven methods of instruction. And teachers use their own time to update their methods of instruction, too.

I would be interested to know what ancient methods you have observed that are ineffective. If there are none, then I think that, while writing an editorial decrying cheap shots, you may have taken one yourself. You have insulted the professionalism of all teachers and the staff development of our county schools, perhaps unknowingly.

What if a teacher thinking of working in our county reads your editorial and assumes that our county does use ancient methods? Your editorial added a new divisive, demoralizing and inaccurate facet to an already complex situation.

Your columnist, psychologist Scott Smith, showed the best understanding of the positive effect teachers have on the community and teachers' motivation for the work-to-rule action (The Capital, June 12). Perhaps you could find some way, similar to Scott Smith's, of promoting understanding of teachers.

SUSAN CASLER
Crofton

- No Jumps-

Published July 18, 2003, The Capital, Annapolis, Md.
Copyright © 2003 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.