Funny how many people complain about the "pink building" while quietly new 18th century buildings are being built around town. In the land of SUVs, cell phones and laptops -- why is anyone still designing buildings based on the time of the horse & buggy and the telegraph?
-- LoriAnn Maas, Charlotte
The CMS Monster
Tara Servatius' article on "Bricks and Mortar" (Sept. 22) was an excellent depiction of the self-centeredness of the CMS system as it relates to the demise of the future of education in the suburbs of the Charlotte metro area. This insanity will continue until someday the small incorporated towns surrounding Charlotte stand up to the CMS monster and tell them to get out of their neighborhoods and accept full responsibility for their future and manage their own educational systems, and roads for that matter. As I see it, the only hope for the future of Charlotte is when this CMS monster is broken up into 10 incorporated towns not exceeding a three-mile radius from their centers of influence and based on geography and not race. If this happens, which I hope it does some day, Charlotte will become a first class city with 10 jurisdictions that compete with each other for the homeowners' taxes in their respective areas. Otherwise, the flight will continue to the surrounding counties for sanity, which doesn't make any sense either when you consider the commuting time to get back and forth to work or enjoy the city services. I am not anti-city, just anti-county control, which makes sense based on what's transpired so far by this monster jurisdiction which operates under this selfish dictatorship called the Charlotte Mecklenburg Authority.
-- Tom Scott, Charlotte
Opinion, Not Fact
"This doesn't appear to have been an accident" (from "Bricks and Mortar" by Tara Servatius). Once upon a time, conservatives would look at the media and say, "These aren't facts, this belongs on the editorial page." The point was: conservatives felt that the general public was too stupid to separate facts from conjecture. I see now that they've gone from condemning the practice to embracing it.
As a writer of essays and commentaries, I've often taken an observation and fleshed it into a concept, but I've never cloaked it in the guise of anything other than my opinion. While there may be some truth in Tara's perceptions, this article does not contain any supporting evidence to back up the above quote -- only opinion -- and when then followed by, "This is why the school board has spent endless hours this year brawling over whether to build a handful of new suburban schools..." you have assigned uncorroborated motives and become a publication with an agenda.
No shame in that. Just call it what it is: opinion, editorial, commentary, propaganda; and place it accordingly instead of attempting to mislead the readership.
-- M. Scott Douglass, Publisher/Editor, Main Street Rag, Charlotte
Editor's Note:
Actually, we make it pretty clear that the Citizen Servatius column is just that -- a news commentary column. It is perfectly acceptable for a columnist to state a group of facts and follow it with an opinion about those facts. In fact, that's pretty much what a news commentary column is.
Fire the "Leader"
It should be clear by now, even to the dullest among us, that the Iraq war has been a costly, misguided enterprise. George Bush and his Pentagon chicken-hawks were so anxious to take out Saddam that they neglected to think much about the long-term situation. It seems not to have occurred to any of these geniuses that our Blitzkrieg victory over a third world military establishment might not end the problem. Now we find ourselves in a pickle from which there may not be a good way out.
George Bush now wants to be re-elected based on his performance as a great wartime "leader." Give me a break. If he had followed through against Osama bin Laden (the real terrorist threat, still free, and no friend to Saddam), that would have made sense. Instead, he took us on this ill-conceived Iraqi undertaking that is costing us dearly and shows little promise of success.
A boss with his record should be fired, not re-hired.
-- Bill Woods, Cornelius