I love reason, but I'm wondering if all the illegal drugs that Nick Gillespie used to take are finally getting to him ("Back to Bedrock," April). He has a right to speak out against President Bush, but when he refers to him as "the millionaire president who waited out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard," it reminds me of the garbage rhetoric that I might see if I were reading Ted Rall, or Susan Sontag, or one of the other hate-mongering, America-bashing, leftist whiners. That kind of ad hominem attack is not only disrespectful to a man who is doing a damned good job as commander-in-chief (with approval ratings of more than 80 percent); it detracts from the whole point of the article.
I know Gillespie is at the top of the masthead, but maybe he should run his next Rant past a few of the more mature -- and less drug-addled -- staffers before he sends it out for printing.
Apart from that, keep up the great work. I learn something new in every issue.
Brother Mike Robinson SGR
Braintree, MA
Fringe Finance
Mike Lynch's "Finance on the Fringe" (April) was excellent. I just got into a discussion with my fiancée about a similar issue -- high-interest credit cards. She's from an upper-middle-class background and was completely shocked that it's "legal to charge such a high rate of interest."
Lynch has correctly identified the crux of the issue: an inability to imagine people who, by their own choice, aren't marching lockstep on the trail to suburbia (incidentally, I love suburbia), combined with a desire to have the not-so-poor subsidize the utopian eradication of poverty. We've gone from believing that poverty is caused by individual immorality to believing that the poor are witless pawns of "corporate greed."
A. Clayton
Marietta, GA
Heavy Breathing
I'm writing regarding Catherine Seipp's "Asthma Attack" (April). I'm one of two 10th District Parent-Teacher Association representatives to the Los Angeles Unified School District's Safety Committee. Several years ago we lobbied the school board to make it very clear to employees that inhalers are not contraband and should be readily available, and that the board's medication policy should reflect this. Our efforts ensured that the policy Seipp cited addressed inhalers.
We are still working to ensure that the medication policy, which is based on state law, does not restrict children's access to their medications. California law requires parents to involve the school when their child takes a medication only if they want the school to assist the child. Parents who send their child to school with an antibiotic to take at lunch are not breaking any law, even though many school officials think that no drugs, including over-the-counter medications, are allowed without specific permission.
L.A. schools do not have and never have had a zero tolerance drug policy. They do have a great many employees engaged in wishful, delusional, and sometimes harmful thinking who believe they can make their own policy.
Helen Fallon
Venice, CA
Arrogant school administrators who steal children's asthma inhalers in defiance of doctors' orders are practicing medicine without a license. Why doesn't anyone jail them for that?
Esther M. Cook
Denver, CO
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