Letters to the Editor 7/12

Evaluate Bible’s claims

Recently The Tribune reported a Georgia congressman proposing President Obama designate 2009 “the year of the Bible.” Maybe a better idea is to designate 2009 as the year to actually read the Bible to evaluate key biblical truth claims in light of mankind’s current knowledge of human history.

A few of the many biblical truth claims to evaluate include:

1. About 6,000 years ago, there were only two humans on the earth. They appeared instantaneously by a spoken word (Genesis 1) or from clay and a rib (Genesis 2.)

2. About 4,500 years ago, there were only eight people on the earth, Noah and his family (Genesis 7.)

3. About 4,200 years ago, all the people of earth lived together on the Plain of Shinar and all spoke one language (Genesis 11.)

4. About 3,300 years ago (to assist genocidal slaughter,) the sun and moon stood still “for about a whole day,” (Joshua 10.) This awesome worldwide event was not recorded by other civilizations.

How can we reconcile biblical history with the overwhelming physical evidence of mankind’s presence and activities on earth for about 200,000 years?

Lowell Davis

Arroyo Grande

Years of service

I’m probably dating myself, but I remember when it was considered sexist to use the term “policeman” and badges had to be changed to read police officer. I’m not sure if Capt. Dan Blanke was an officer during that time, but he has been on the job a long time and is certainly to be congratulated on his many years of dedicated service. What I don’t get is the need to close out the article on his retirement with a list of candidates running for sheriff. It indicated he was going to hike and travel, not throw his hat in the ring for the county’s top cop job — or did I miss something?

Joy Elliott

Paso Robles

Education’s value

I would like to reinforce the words of Mark Buchman in his Viewpoint (July 3) on the value of education. When I was looking for a master’s program 38 years ago, I found about a dozen universities that offered free tuition and subsistence pay for math and science majors who agreed to teach for two years. The programs were funded by the federal government through the National Science Foundation. Five of the universities offering the programs were within commuting distance of Silicon Valley.

The amount of wealth generated in Silicon Valley is possibly in the trillions of dollars. The amount of money I received was invaluable to me, but was a pittance compared to total government expenditures. Just the tax revenue from the wealth created in that particular educational program would be enough to repay the government hundreds of times over. Education pays dividends.

Richard R. Fisher

Arroyo Grande

A strange charter choice

I was reading the side bar in the state section of the paper on June 21 and there was a story about Governor Schwarzenegger’s plane having to make an emergency landing Friday at a Santa Monica Airport. What troubled me about this story was not that our governor’s charted private jet may have put his life in danger for a few minutes, but the fact that the jet was chartered from a company that was based in ... New Jersey? I guess there were no California-based companies that our state government could have hired for the job of ferrying our elected officials around. Well, I guess New Jersey will not have any problems keeping their state parks open this summer. They can just use the money they receive from the taxpayers in California.

Mike Teehee

San Luis Obispo

Realistic budget solution

Regarding: The Budget. What is the matter with our legislators? Only a few weeks ago, the voters overwhelmingly told them (voted) that they did not want to cut our services in order to balance the budget. We said that we wanted the governor and legislators to fully fund our education system, our law enforcement, our parks, our transportation system, etc. Maybe small cuts, but not $24 billion.

Now, we voters don’t want to pay more taxes, either — but that is unrealistic. If we are going to demand those services, then we must pay for them. The reason the state is in the hole is not because we spend (want) too much, but because there is a (temporary?) income shortfall.

Therefore, the legislature should pass and the governor should sign a bill to increase sales and income taxes temporarily, perhaps for a year, to cover the shortfall. They can reconsider next year. (There should be mitigation for low-income people.) Politically, if all would sign that, then all can share the honor of doing something reasonable, intelligent and responsible — we hope. Signed: I’m sorry to say I’m a life long Republican.

Ed Carson

Oceano

Where are our leaders?

Out of Sacramento and other political offices comes the words of doom. Thousands of children lose health care. Schools are short of the funds and lay off teachers. Mental care is being cut, etc.

The doom words echo the shortage of dollars that are needed to cure the ills of our society.

On the other hand, we learn that if California were an independent country we would be the sixth largest economy in the world.

What is the truth? What happened to the money? Why must we raise the tuition of the students attending our great state universities — or who knows what will happen? Above all, say our so-called leaders, we must not raise any taxes. Why can’t we tax corporations?

Why can’t the state halt cutting of taxes for business that send their money offshore to avoid taxes?

Why don’t we know the difference between sales taxes and progressive taxation?

Every day our movie star governor comes up with another great idea to close the parks or put new taxes on the poorest people. Where are our leaders?

Justin Purchin

San Luis Obispo