The readers’ forum

Schools bill empowers business, not parents

When it comes to deceiving voters, Florida politicians earn an A+ every time. The Parent Empowerment Act or “parent trigger” promoted as “opening the door to a whole new level of communication between parents and the schools,” is nothing more than another bait-and-switch scheme like the Florida Lottery.

Church and politics

Kathleen Parker may be confusing President Obama with some of his Republican counterparts ( For Catholics, it’s about freedom of conscience, Feb. 8, Other Views). He is running for reelection, yes, but perhaps not all of his positions are based on the road of political safety or popularity. He may indeed make decisions, tough as they may be politically, on the basis of fairness to the masses.

Broader view

Often, after reading the news or observing the world, it is difficult for me to believe that no man is an island, a part of the main. There’s a big problem in Indianapolis with private jet jams. Infants are freezing to death this winter in Afghanistan. Americans are selling some of their vital assets to pay heating bills. Multimillionaires are saying nasty things about one another in hopes of becoming president.

Too many ballots

I sympathize with Rochelle Lessner, who wrote the Feb. 6 letter Polling irregularities. As a 2011 candidate in a municipal election, one of my poll watchers saw a voter receiving two ballots. It was not obvious until the voter went to the voting machine to insert the ballots and still had one in hand after inserting the first one.

Fire this teacher

Re the Feb. 4 story Blanche Ely teacher accused of calling Haitian-American student ‘little chocolate boy’: With Leslie Rainier’s history of hateful conduct, she should be fired, not just suspended for three days. If a white person were to call a student similar bigoted epithets, a politically correct termination almost certainly would occur — immediately. But because Rainier is black she only gets a slap on the wrist?

The readers’ forum

Support Cuba’s dissidents, commissioners

Among Cubans and Cuban Americans, a number of foreign companies have earned a place in the “hall of infamy” for their outright complicity with the Castro dictatorship. These include Spain’s Sol-Melia hotel chain and Canada’s Sherritt mining company for profiting from long years of the Castros’ apartheid brand of tourism and exploitation of Cuba’s natural resources.

Cleanliness matters

Two ships from Princess Cruise Lines returned to Port Everglades with outbreaks of norovirus. We recently took a cruise on the Emerald Princess and were surprised at the lack of hand sanitizers. When I asked an officer about it, I was told that when passengers use hand sanitizers, they “don’t wash their hands as much.”

I obey the law

I will never be killed by police because I obey the law. I have never been asked by police to show my hands, but if I am, I will. If anyone wants to do a background check on me, they will find that I have no rap sheet.