Scientists Mull Kansas Boycott After Anti-Evolution Decision

I am living in Kansas, and am embarrassed to death at the recent decision by the school board to end the teaching of evolution. My daughter has packed up her house and is moving out of state with her two children (my only grandkids) to get away from this ruling. I am proud of our Gov. Graves for standing up to them. Sam Brownback is a fine example of the Christian Coalition idiots that control this state. Here in Kansas (as well as other backward thinking states) the motto is: "There's no place like the last century," as they click their heels and hope that the Wizard of Oz will fix everything for them.

Cathy Hildreth

Crisis at KPFA

The horrible way that the Pacifica Foundation dealt with KPFA should not conceal the reality that more people support KPFA as a concept than actually listen to KPFA. My experience is that KPFA is like the Colonial Williamsburg of the 60s -- the ideas and words are preserved but the life, intelligence and dealing with the present are a pale replication. I only listen to KPFA when something 'big' is happening, such as the recent NATO bombing spree. Here, it is invaluable. But day to day KPFA is boring and self indulgent. When a fired staffer refers to Pacifica management as 'militarists' what words are left for the real militarists. Anyone who has experienced actual war knows what it feels like when the tanks roll through the streets. Using this language when you've been fired cheapens the language and gives us a clear picture of whiners who need their diapers changed.

Chris Anderegg

Please help

This letter is about a man that beat the odds and then later was beaten by our legal system. Andres Aviles is a mechanic that works under me in Indio, California. Over the years he has become a friend to me and many others, and has proved to me that people can change.

He was born in Mexico but grew up in a bad area of Chicago. He ended up with the wrong crowd (gangs and such), spending many years in and out of jail. He never got deported all those years -- why, I don't know. He was -- and still is not -- a legal citizen. Five years ago, at 32 years old, Andres changed. He realized that he was an undesirable person in this society and didn't want that anymore. Maybe it was his new belief in God, maybe it was his family, or maybe it was just the real person in Andres. He came to work for me about four years ago, and I would of never believed that Andres was a criminal most of his adult life. He is extremely smart, kind, courteous, understanding and caring, and a good family man, currently married and is raising six children. His wife and children are U.S. citizens. Andres and his wife both work and have been making a serious effort to be good and loving parents and good wholesome people. He pays taxes and has no subsidy from the government.

Andres has been able to obtain a legal working status until this year. He hired a lawyer, who only took his $2000 and said there was nothing that he could do. He wrote Congresswoman Mary Bono's office to see if there was something they could do to help him. Last week Bono's office set Andres up with an appointment to see some head person at INS in Los Angeles. At the appointed meeting place they arrested Andres. He is now currently being held in a federal prison until a court hearing, which will be follwed by his deportation to Mexico. Their reasoning is a new law that says that illegal aliens that have spent more then five years in prison in the U.S. will not be able to receive any type of residency or pardon. Andres has lived in the U.S. for 34 years and spent twelve years in prison, but he has paid for his crimes.

After Andres is sent to Mexico in approximately three months, his wife will most likely collect welfare and housing for six children because she doesn't make enough money to continue making rent payments and support their children. California taxpayers will pay that bill. The state of California will lose the $4000 in back child support that Andres was paying off on his first child. And most important of all, how are we to explain to his children already crying for their father, that they may have to move to another country, just to be with their father?

Is there anything that we can do for this family? Is there anything that we can do for Andres? Is there anything we can do for my friend?

Michael Morrow

Don't Buy Rumors of China Invading Taiwan

This article misses several important points. It didn't mention the 50th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the desire to reunify China before the anniversary. It also didn't mention anything about the oath that certain mainland cadres have made regarding getting Taiwan back at any cost before Y2000.

The reality is most likely that there is an internal battle going on inside of China, with the two sides battling for and against the invasion.

The real story is China's gathering presence in key outposts in the Pacific. One is an atoll which performs two functions: as a business, but also, according to the U.S. military, is to act as a PLA reconnaisance site.

Patricia Hoffa

A Y2K Solution

I have a plan for people to be prepared for Y2K "disaster" and to help the homeless. You should send a public service announcement for people to stock up a two weeks' supply of food, (or at least some food) and then if this Y2K "global disaster" doesn't happen, and I don't think it will, then people could give their canned goods and non-perishables that were stocked up, to a soup kitchen. You should also give addresses and contact information of soup kitchens. That way it will be a win/win situation.

Matt Werner, 15 years old

Damned if we know

Why is Henry Kissinger a famous person? If you could tell me this I would be greatly helpful!

Heidi Nielsen

George, Bill And Buford Furrow

This is the most amazingly stupid essay I've read since Gertrude Himmelfarb's on compassionate conservatism a couple of months ago in one of the eastern newspapers. I do not now, however read Dowd, Safire, Rich, etc., so I could be exaggerating.

I was fascinated to learn that Cockburn has a built-in, infallible lie-detector. One wonders, why, with so saleable a skill at his command, he bothers with writing. Actually, one wonders that anyway. With some half a million words to choose from, his "elegant" use of the verb "jumps," as in Clinton's behavior toward "every woman with whom he comes in contact," is a wimp word. If he means "fuck," why doesn't he say so. In any case, as long as the woman is adult and willing, it's nobody else's business, including Kenneth Starr's.

Finally, his effort to connect Furrow, Bush/Clinton, and school shooters is not only absurd, it's a slap in the face to mental health treatment. Cockburns's uneducated, uninformed comparisons of three very different emotional and/or mental issues is totally out of line, and he should apologize publicly to his readers for purveying this misinformation.

Gayle Ernst