Teach children reason and logic; both are enemies of propaganda
To counter the absurd demands to ban or censor books, schools should increase their number and diversity. As a lure to reluctant readers, they could include a few of Stacey Abrams’ bodice-rippers. A more important job of educators is teaching, encouraging and never punishing critical thinking. That means furnishing kids with what used to be called a “crap detector” and its essential tools -- reason and logic. They are the enemies of propaganda and ammunition against indoctrination. And they tell us that there is no word to be feared and no idea off-limits to question and debate.
MARGARET DUCKWORTH, TUCKER
As gas prices soar, make MARTA more responsive to our needs
I think that there was a chance that gas prices would recede once we had gotten supply-chain issues and the like behind us. However, the war in Ukraine has put the kibosh on that possibility.
While increasing the use of electric and hybrid cars is one way to combat higher gas prices, there has not been a lot of talk about public transportation. We need to make MARTA more responsive to our needs.
I lived in DeKalb County in the late ‘70s and took MARTA buses to Georgia State University. I saw the construction work on the rail line during those commutes. When the East Line was completed, I took it everyday to school. I took it to see games at The Omni.
Now I live in North Fulton. I stopped using MARTA years ago. If you are traveling north toward Dunwoody after about 8:30 p.m., you have to change trains at the Lindbergh station and wait and wait and wait.
Also, consider that MARTA doesn’t run between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.
When I go to New York or Chicago or Boston or Tokyo or Shanghai, I use public transportation. In Atlanta, MARTA is not for every person. MARTA is considered only as a means of getting poor people to the suburbs to work for wealthy people.
Make MARTA better!
JIM GUESS JR., ROSWELL
Legislators ignore statewide problems to focus on nonexistent ‘threats’
Re: “Pandemic bills forgo key factor: The science” (News, March 14), what an apt headline for this important story.
The situation also boggles the mind because this headline could easily be used for the current crop of bills affecting education and others. It is hard to believe that members of the so-called Republican Party can support bills that are not based on accurate information and/or on what is purported to occur only in .01 percent of classroom cases, for example.
Evidently, they have the time to address .01 percent when huge problems face us Georgians no matter where we live. For example, education continues to be underfunded, even though a recent cutback has supposedly been restored. But education must be constrained by fear of nonexistent “threats.” And the state income tax can be “lowered” so that the top 1% of earners can be the primary beneficiaries rather than be constrained by progressive income tax rates. And the state can continue to claim that funding Medicaid to benefit so many more Georgians is just too darn expensive and just too much to bear.
But we cannot give up on restoring sense to governing, hopefully, at the ballot box.
ALIDA C. SILVERMAN, ATLANTA
