Bravo to the New Hampshire Superior Court judge for deciding Croydon cannot use public funds for private schools. The public school system was created to educate the public. And an educated public is necessary to maintain a democracy.
Most of all, public schools must remain free of rigid dogma. If you desire that your child have a private school education, fine, pony up the money. Some people probably feel private schools give their child a slight advantage, but you can’t use tax dollars that should go toward a public education, the great equalizer. If you don’t like what your town’s public schools are doing, you have options. You can pay for a private school. You can home-school, though not all families are cut out for that. Or better yet, get involved with your school and help make it the institution you covet. Not only will your child benefit, so will all their friends!
Deb Clough Grafton
I congratulate the Valley News for publishing a list of seven topics on which our two main political parties picked platforms for the election (“Party Platforms Are Miles Apart,” Aug. 1). This article originated from the Los Angeles Times. In spite of what is said below, the statements on both sides of the issues were cogent and even-handed.
It is interesting that “Climate Change” was at the top of the list of platform items. In my estimation, this should be at the very bottom. But this ordering by the Times is understandable, considering that three years ago, its letters editor said he said he would not accept letters from climate-change deniers.
First of all, a newspaper attempting to shield the public from one side of an important discussion and exaggerate imagined outcomes, does not deserve to be taken seriously. Another problem is that reporters, TV commentators, political activists (for example, large wasteful gatherings such as the recent Paris Conference), and politicians all perpetuate this mindset.
Tragically, they have little understanding of the chemical and physical phenomena operating in our atmosphere that affect weather and climate. As an example, physical chemists tell us that the ability of CO2 to cause incremental warming decreases as concentrations increase, since it obeys a logarithmic relationship. By the time concentrations have reached pre-Industrial Revolution concentrations of about 300 parts per million by volume, the “curve” has become almost flat and further increases (or decreases) in concentration will have little effect on temperatures.
At present, atmospheric concentrations are about 400 ppmv, and the “curve” is even flatter, further reducing the incremental effect.
What this tells us is that anything we do to decrease CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, by whatever means, will probably have no measurable effect on our climate. If we have to suffer carbon taxes and are forced to go to windmills and solar panels with reduced efficiency and higher costs, the economic effect will be greater on poor people than for the rest of us, since their energy costs are a larger percentage of their incomes than for us of better economic circumstances.
John E. Yocom Hanover
You’re doing it again: allowing “The Donald” to dominate the headlines simply by being ignorant and outrageous. That’s how he won the GOP primaries. He may not understand the Constitution, or Economics 101, or the difference between truth and falsehood, or, heck, common decency. But he certainly does understand what any undisciplined 3-year-old understands: that negative attention is still attention. Obviously, Hillary Clinton’s well-informed policy discussions do not generate headlines the way Trump’s over-the-top rhetoric does. But surely you could occasionally find ways to feature Clinton on Page One above the fold? It’s important.
Peter Beardsley West Lebanon