Johnston County school board’s tunnel vision leaves kids with a skewed view

Teaching history

I was disheartened reading that Johnston County school board had banned critical race theory — as they understand it. Among their demands is that historical figures are described as nothing other than heroes.

This tunnel vision has left our public educated children with a skewed knowledge of history and a view of present day America that falls short of international understanding.

None of us are one dimensional characters. We exhibit both good and poor behavior. Children can understand this after age 9 when they realize even their parents aren’t perfect. If we teach historic reality of our fallible heroes, that doesn’t make them less heroic, but more human.

Even King David’s sins are spelled out in the Bible and yet he is described as “a man after God’s own heart.”

Angelia Lawrence, Elon

Misguided senators

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, along with the Republicans in Congress, have expressed their view that spending $3.5 trillion over 10 years on human needs is crazy. They have an odd way of judging what’s sane and what’s insane when it comes to spending our tax dollars.

Congress has spent $6.4 trillion on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the past 20 years. It has authorized spending $700 billion over the next 10 years to spruce up our deadly arsenal of nuclear weapons, and $1.7 trillion for at least the next 10 years on a new fleet of F-35 stealth fighter bombers.

These three expenditures alone total $8.8 trillion, not counting unforeseen costs and overruns. Yet, they claim that spending $3.5 trillion on our health, education and environmental security is wasteful!

Manchin and those who support this view clearly lack a basic understanding of which expenditures would provide us with real security and day-to-day safety.

Joseph Moran, Durham

Facebook

Facebook places its profits above our country, and above our safety. The company cares little about us, our children, or our country.

Facebook unintentionally has become a threat to democracy — and to all our lives — because many people use it as their main source for news. That “news” often is no more than a rumor a friend read on someone’s Facebook page, and it’s often false.

If Chicken Little got online today and posted “...the sky is falling...,” apparently 3 billion Facebook users would look up.

Too often Facebook “news” becomes the basis for deciding who to vote for, and even how to care for our health. Woe be our country when falsehoods become the basis for these decisions. Facts should be that basis, and they’re more likely to be found in newspapers and TV news programs.

Those news sources are bound by editorial boards and laws that Facebook posts aren’t. Until Congress enacts regulations forcing Facebook to delete demonstrable falsehoods on public issues our democracy, and even our public health and our lives, are in jeopardy.

Gary Parker, Archdale

Noise offenders

Regarding “In a noisy world, NC man leads a quest to find quiet,“ (Oct 4 Opinion):

Noise and light pollution are two under-emphasized foulings of the environment that harm both people and wildlife. While some of each pollutant is an inescapable product of modern life, they can be greatly reduced by targeting the most egregious offenders. The low frequency sounds of gas-powered leaf blowers and modified motor vehicle exhausts travel long distances and penetrate walls and windows.

As is often the case, a relatively few actors cause disproportionate damage.

Wayne Pein, Chapel Hill

Defining freedom

In his Oct. 3 op-ed, “Goodbye, and good riddance,” Leonard Pitts says a man on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah complained, “There’s no freedom no more.”

Freedom does not mean doing whatever we want. That is lawlessness. Some people are choosing to tip the balance and risk the lives of our fellow countrymen by not taking the vaccine.

There are responsibilities that go with freedom. We must be responsible for the lives of our neighbors, as well as our own lives.

Go ahead, move to a different country, find absolute freedom if it exists, but don’t endanger our lives with your games.

Norman Singer, Cary