READERS WRITE

Educator remembered

JAN KEMP

Her lessons live on

I was sad to hear of Jan Kemp’s death. My former husband and law partner, Pat Nelson, was one of her lawyers. To me, Jan is best described as an educator. She believed every moment was an opportunity to teach. When she was jailed for almost a year related to her divorce, she promptly started English classes for fellow inmates. While at UGA, she tutored unpaid, for hours and hours, whatever it took to teach her students.

My fondest memory of Jan occurred during a trip post-trial to New York for a “Today Show” appearance. I mentioned my inability to keep up with my gloves. She exclaimed, “That’s an easy one, just put your left glove in your left pocket and your right glove in your right pocket.” By the end of four days, she had taught me to keep up with my gloves, something I had not achieved in 30 years of life.

Every fall when I take out my winter coats and find my left glove in my left pocket and my right glove in my right pocket, I silently thank Jan Kemp. Georgia has lost a great educator.

JANET E. HILL

Athens

Purpose of universities is to teach

I think the article “Difficult to say where Kemp fits in history” (Metro, Dec. 14) misses the point by a mile. The real point is that Jan Kemp exposed the dirty underwear of university athletics despite powerful forces that tried to silence her in public and private. She believed she was right, held her ground and prevailed. The article tries to diminish what she did by focusing on her life rather than her message.

Sadly, in the 20-plus years since she made her point it seems that university athletics has returned to its old practices. We must honestly acknowledge that the only purpose of universities is to teach, not to sponsor professional athletic teams.

CHRIS JOHNSTON

Atlanta

National Health Insurance Act would be a good start

The AJC editorial and Dr. Oliver Fein’s accompanying viewpoint on the broken health care system offer life-saving ideas (“Health care reform: We can’t afford to wait to fix this broken system” and “There is a cure available for current plan,” @issue, Dec. 14).

Most people don’t realize that all could be covered for what we’re now spending if we adopted a Medicare-for-All system, and that private administrative costs are about 10 times Medicare’s administrative costs. Many studies show superior health care results in countries with national care.

The AJC editorial says we might compromise by first covering all children, but that wouldn’t address critical needs for adult care, soaring costs or the problems of providing rational systems for distribution of resources for primary, mental health and trauma care. With a national payment and planning system, cures for these problems could be found.

The National Health Insurance Act (Medicare for All) would be a good start. Let’s get aboard with the 59 percent of surveyed physicians who favor something like it.

DR. WILLIAM R. ELSEA

Sandy Springs

Bookman misdiagnosed situation

In Jay Bookman’s column “Life-and-death questions dog health-care debate” (@issue, Dec. 18), he asserted that my sister, Terri Schiavo, was “brain dead.” This is patently false.

Brain death is an authentic medical diagnosis, not some “phrase” or someone’s “point of view.” In addition, his claim that Terri was comatose and that she was sustained by life support(s) is also inaccurate. Terri had a profound cognitive brain injury but was not comatose. Again, comatose is a medical finding and Terri was not diagnosed as comatose. Moreover, the life supports he referred to were food and water via a feeding tube. That was all. There was nothing else required to sustain her life.

As most people know, my sister’s food and water was taken away, causing her to slowly die by dehydration, a process that took almost two weeks. It is important to keep in mind that regardless of how one might have felt about my sister’s situation, my family’s only goal was our unconditional love for her and simply to care for Terri for the rest of her natural life, something that people with loving families would surely understand.

BOBBY SCHINDLER

St. Petersburg, Fla.

Where’s the U.S. support?

It doesn’t bother me a bit that the Japanese or Korean governments support their carmakers, as do the Germans, French and Swedes. These governments are working in the best interests of their citizens.

What bothers me is that our government —- especially Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and others —- are OK with using their states’ taxpayer funds to support foreign carmakers while doing their best to destroy U.S. automakers and unionized workers. These officials are working against the best interests of their citizens.

BARBARA ROCHELLE

Atlanta