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Boeing backers are hypocrites
I've spent a good bit of time trying to understand why Boeing and its political supporters have spread false rumors and are such hypocrites. They falsely claim that the people of Alabama do not have a work force that is qualified to build the high-tech air-refueling tanker. They also complain that we will be purchasing parts from around the world, even though Boeing has partnered with companies in South Africa and purchases many parts from around the world.
Now Reps. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and Jay Inslee, D-Wash., bring up the World Trade Organization issue facing the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., yet they have not mentioned the greedy executives in Boeing who once tried to secure a lease on aircraft by pumping up profits for Boeing ("Backers want WTO ruling in tanker deal," Nov. 3 Business Today).
It seems Washington state and Kansas are doing everything in their power to discredit the bidding process that is set up to keep a one-source corporation from receiving contracts that have price tags that benefit the big-money companies rather than our military service members and American taxpayers.
LOUIS SEYMOUR
Mobile, Ala.
More school time
A letter writer assigned some blame for the gang rape of a 15-year-old student in California to the No Child Left Behind legislation ("Values dilemma," Oct. 31 Letters to the Editor). He asserted that focusing on reading and math left little time for studies that promote character building.
Perhaps part of the problem lies in the fact that our schools have the shortest days and school years compared with most of the civilized world.
Perhaps we also should look at the home to explain the failure to develop a healthy character. The odds are that the alleged rapists did not live with their fathers, especially ones who have a committed, loving bond with their mothers.
Sadly, we can do little to modify what goes on in the privacy of homes. We can, however, increase the time that students are exposed to the three R's, as well as social studies. Now is the time to act. This possibly can exert a positive influence on what goes on at home.
RICHARD GILMARTIN
Wichita
Corporate rule
I believe we need to change our form of government. Our government has drifted away from a democracy (people rule). Instead, it has become a corporatocracy (corporation rule).
I am reminded of a couple of slogans that I learned half a century ago:
Free and unregulated competition will result in monopoly.
Monopoly leads to the concentration of wealth that results in absolute power.
We have the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, which are supposed to regulate competition. When was the last time you heard of an antitrust suit being filed by the U.S. attorney general?
A distinct majority of Congress are just hired hands of the huge moneyed corporations in our system. I can see no way to return to the rule of the people.
DONALD E. HOPKINS
Wichita
Real work
Regarding an Oct. 27 Opinion Line comment that most college professors "have never had a real job" and that "higher education and common sense are two different things": I suppose the reader who said this meant blue-collar work. Common sense is an individual trait, regardless of one's position in life.
And does the reader realize that many college-educated people, in striving for a higher level for 10 years or so, have taken jobs in the "real" world to pay their bills and support their families? They get a good deal of sense pounded into them.
I finished college in 1939, and since then I have known several college professors and their families. One sensible, well-known example is a cattle rancher, widely successful in his academic life, who recently received an award for lifetime achievement in helping young people find their track in life.
By the way — preparing for lectures and discussions with a roomful of students is real work.
ZENITH LINDAMOOD
Eureka
