MCNAIR ACADEMY
Questions linger after
near-tragedy at school
Now that all the awards and congratulations at McNair Discovery Learning Academy have concluded, can someone please explain how an armed perpetrator entered an elementary school undetected?
In other recent shootings, such as Newtown and Virginia Tech, the perpetrator immediately started shooting people and did not stop to talk to any employees or ask them to call the media. We will probably never know if the McNair gunman actually wanted to harm anyone. The investigation should focus on how this individual defeated school security; how he illegally obtained a firearm, and what can be done to ensure we don’t have armed perpetrators entering schools in the future.
GEORGE C. PETTRONE, SNELLVILLE
CELEBRITY DUI
Let’s not obsess over
Hawks coach’s arrest
It is very unfortunate that Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer got a DUI.
What is even more unfortunate is our insatiable desire to report the mishaps of public figures. Yes, he should have called a cab, but his blood level was well under the .08 legal limit.
Why the media (and public) obsession or need to drag public figures through the mud?
ART HAMILTON, ATLANTA
DEKALB GOVERNANCE
Full-time pay doesn’t
ensure improvement
Regarding “Officials propose full-time pay” (Metro, Aug. 26), so DeKalb County commissioners seek to govern poorly full-time rather than part-time?
It’s funny how corporations far larger than DeKalb can be governed a few days per year, and not per week. So far, reported statements of how commissioners’ extra time would be used portend the doubling of poor methods — not the introduction of advanced ones.
What DeKalb County needs is a board of commissioners with enough grasp of advanced governance methods to allow control over management without meddling; a group process that ensures at least as much board discipline as it expects of its employees, and tools for monitoring management performance against pre-established criteria, rather than obsession with mounds of data.
JOHN CARVER, ATLANTA
COMMENTARY
Better conservative
voices are available
Thomas Sowell’s recent editorial continues his long track record of contributing either completely silly or grossly uninformed (and uninformative) opinions (“With phony like Obama, facts don’t really matter,” Opinion, Sept. 3).
Here, he recounts two small mistakes made by the president, and concludes that this is clear proof that Mr. Obama is a charlatan. This, like each of his weekly descents into partisanship for partisanship’s sake, is beneath the AJC. With so many other thoughtful conservative voices available (such as David Brooks, who you also carry), it seems wasteful to use print space for the drivel of Mr. Sowell.
Readers on all parts of the political spectrum want well-researched, considered editorials. That Mr. Sowell recounts tales from another editorialist instead of contributing original thoughts only adds to the silliness.
JOSEPH BRESEE, DECATUR
