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What's wrong with this picture?	Itsdb	02/23/05
NYC Kids Send Anti-War Letters to Soldier Tuesday, February 22, 2005 By David Andreatta The New York City Department of Education, red-faced over Brooklyn sixth-graders who slammed a GI with demoralizing anti-Iraq-war letters as part of a school assignment, will send the 20-year-old private a letter of apology Tuesday. Deputy Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina, who has a nephew serving in Iraq, plans to personally contact Pfc. Rob Jacobs and his family, said department spokeswoman Michele McManus Higgins. "She knows how difficult it is to have a loved one in a war zone," Higgins said. Jacobs is stationed 10 miles from the North Korean border and who has been told he may be headed to Iraq in the near future. The GI got the ranting missives last month from pint-sized pen pals at JHS 51 in Park Slope. Filled with political diatribes, the letters predict GIs will die by the tens of thousands, accuse soldiers of killing Iraqi civilians and bash President Bush. Teacher Alex Kunhardt had his students write Jacobs as part of a social-studies assignment. He declined to comment Monday on whether he read the rants before passing them along, but said he planned to contact Jacobs soon to explain the situation. In an accompanying letter to Jacobs, Kunhardt had written that the students "come from a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs, but unanimously support the bravery and sacrifice of American soldiers around the world." "Support" was not the word that came to Jacobs' mind when he read the letters. One girl wrote that she believes Jacobs is "being forced to kill innocent people" and challenged him to name an Iraqi terrorist, concluding, "I know I can't." Another girl wrote, "I strongly feel this war is pointless," while a classmate predicted that because Bush was re-elected, "only 50 or 100 [soldiers] will survive." A boy accused soldiers of "destroying holy places like mosques." Even one kid smitten with soldiers couldn't keep politics out of the picture, writing, "I find that many extreme liberals are disrespectful to you." Uplifting letters from children are dear to soldiers, Jacobs said. He looks at a batch he got from a Girl Scout troop from his hometown of Middletown, N.J., whenever he feels lonely. At the time the 21 JHS 51 letters were penned, Jacobs, who has been stationed in Korea for nearly a year, was told that he may be headed to Iraq. But no official order for deployment was given. "If I were in Iraq and read that the youth of our nation doesn't want me to be there and doesn't believe in what I'm doing, it would mess up my head," Jacobs said. Jacobs said he would welcome a letter from the Department of Education and the teacher. "I want to think these letters were coached by the teacher or the parents of these children," Jacobs said in an interview from Camp Casey, Korea. "It boggles my mind that children could think this stuff." ******************************************************* I don't want to implicate the teacher...yet, but shouldn't he at least have told the kids hey, this guys is in Korea, not Iraq, that he is only doing his duty, and perhaps that the letters should be encouraging? Do you think they were coached by parents, or that maybe the media had a role in influencing these kids, or that the mayor is right, who said something like we don't censor our kids? Can you imagine how this guy felt, expecting encouragement from home and being told by a sixth grader he is "being forced to kill innocent people"? What is wrong with this world???
Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 02/23/05 11:26 am: Hello Steve: I agree, the media's job should be to inform, but they don't. I'd call it a draw, though. The left has the major newspapers and networks, but the right has talk radio and Fox, the hightest rated "news" network. excon Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 02/23/05 11:51 am: ex, A draw? One news network and talk radio doesn't equal the Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, the NY Times, LA Times, Time, Newsweek et al. Even the few conservative papers around are generally hindered by using AP as their news source. I think realistically there's a ways to go before it's a draw. Steve Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 02/23/05 12:30 pm: ....and Fox News seems to be pretty balanced (except in commentary ). Talk radio is for the most part one sided . Alan Colmes is one of the few that have an audience outside of Air America ;and in Air America only Al Franken is showing to have a following.(There may be other regional ones that I am not aware of .)And of course NPR is mostly liberal commentary . Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 02/23/05 1:16 pm: In Judaism, we have a concept called "Hakarat Hatov" which roughly translates as "thankfulness" or "appreciation". The literal translation is "recognition of goodness". It is one of the cornerstones of Jewish behavior. I find the lack of hakarat hatov of these students and the teacher APPALING. The soldiers are out risking their lives defending the USA. You may have differences of policy with the Bush administration over the war in Iraq, but the job of any US soldier is to protect the USA, no matter where he is stationed, and no matter his specific duties. IT IS OUR DUTY AS CITIZENS TO RECOGNIZE THEIR SACRIFICE AND ACT WITH THE APPROPRIATE APPRECIATION FOR THEIR SACRIFICE. And it's not that hard a duty to accomplish either... a nice word, a smile, a word of encouragement. What these students wrote, and what they have been told by their parents and the other adults around them, shows a distict lack of hakarat hatov for the soldiers who risk their lives on our behalf. The students and their families are idiots for saying the things they said in those letters. The teacher is an idiot for not having vetted the letters before sending them. As for not censoring kids, I am afraid that I have to disagree there. There are some things that kids say that SHOULD be censored. Kids are hurtful little shts sometimes, and sometimes it is VERY necessary to censor what they say or write for the good of the recipient. Let me ask you this: If you took your kid to work, and he made some derogatory comment about your boss, would you let your boss hear it, or would you tell your kid not to say that again? We censor kids all the time, and rightly so, because kids don't know the bounds of decent behavior... that's why they are kids. This is a clear case where the kids stepped over the line, and someone should have yanked them back into line. This teacher didn't do that. He didn't do his job. I don't know whether the failure was due to his own political beliefs matching those of the kids, or whether he's just stupid. And frankly, I don't care. He shouldn't be teaching if he can have a lapse of judgement that big. And if it wasn't a lapse of judgement but a deliberate political statement, then I wouldn't want my kids learning from him. Either way, he should be out on his a$$. Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 02/23/05 1:33 pm:* Tom, How about Ron Kuby, from Curtis & Kuby n the Morning on WABC. He's got a pretty good following among the liberal crowd. Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 02/23/05 1:41 pm: You Guys, I think the numbers agree with Its' assessment. The intelligencia and their press is larger in terms of numbers. However, in terms of influence, the right wins hands down. I know, I know, it shouldn't be that way, with all the power the libs have. But, to what avail? Remember - you guy's won. Everybody listens to Rush Limprod. Nobody listens to ANY of the other crowd. excon Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 02/23/05 2:41 pm: Hey ex, Finding Nielsen numbers isn't as easy as it sounds...but I found this from an article entitled "The State of the News Media 2004" to put it in context: "In 2003, the median monthly viewership of Fox News was 770,000 daytime viewers and 1.4 million in prime time, 52 and 62 percent more, respectively, than CNN. In December 2003, Fox News averaged 1.4 million viewers in prime time, and 961,000 in daytime, both roughly 60 percent more than CNN. In conventional ratings terms, Fox News is well ahead." But... "If the three nightly network newscast audiences in November 2003 were combined, a total of 29.3 million viewers, it would be more than 12 times the prime time audience for cable, 2.4 million viewers, during the same period." Granted, talk radio is 'conservativeland', and I don't know the numbers, but if most listeners are like me they 'listen' at work and really don't get that much out of it. But, Fox has a looonnnnnnng way to go to catch up with the big 3 networks. With so many more viewers than Fox News, there can only be one explanation if the right is more influential than everyone else. :):) Steve Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 02/23/05 3:31 pm: What? That the right is right? Wrong! excon Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 02/23/05 3:33 pm: ex, I didn't say that...I was just thinking more along the lines of nobody trusts the others. I don't think either side is necessarily 'right'. Fair enough? Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 02/23/05 4:21 pm: Steve, Nah, excon's interpretation was correct. The Right is right. The Left is lost. That's why Talk Radio seems to be so much more influential than MSM these days. No need to be so PC about it... LOL Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 02/24/05 2:56 am: Elliot ;sticking up for a former Kahane follower ? I did not mention Kuby because their show is regional . I think he is a riot . Alan Colmes could use some lessons from Kuby .The libs think Colmes is too tame. Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 02/24/05 9:30 am: Actually, Tom, Meir Kahane had a closer friendship with Curtis Sliwa than with Ron Kuby. Curtis and Kahane did joint patrols together back in the JDL days, and the Angels used to cover our turf for us when the Jewish holidays didn't allow for Jewish patrols. We covered for the Angels on Christmas, New Years and Haloween. It was a good working relationship and a solid friendship, and Kahane and Curtis saw eye-to-eye on a lot of subjects. Kuby is a bulldog... but he's an entertaining bulldog. Much as I hate Kuby's politics, I get a huge kick out of his sense of humor. Colmes IS too tame. I think he feels out of place as the token liberal on a basically conservative network, and so he steps on eggshels most of the time. Kuby has no problem with being the token liberal on WABC... he thrives on it, and he gets off on stepping on conservative toes. Good for him. And the difference in their attitudes shows.

Summary of Answers Received	Answered On	Answered By	Average Rating
1. Hi Its: These kids are in Jr. High. That's 13, 14 and ...	02/23/05	excon
2. Steve, What is wrong with this world is the people in it. ...	02/23/05	kindj
3. I discussed this last night with my wife who is also a teach...	02/23/05	tomder55
4. It is frightening to contemplate what goes on in schools tod...	02/23/05	voiceguy2000
5. Sorry, I meant my clarification to be an answer. Here it is...	02/23/05	ETWolverine
6. Sixth graders are very stupid and easily led by savvy adults...	02/23/05	Choux
7. How can you aviod implicating the teacher? The letters were...	02/23/05	drgade
8. The schools ar teaching (programming) kids to think all the ...	02/23/05	sapphire630
9. That is disgusting! Those kids didn't think this up for ...	02/23/05	purplewings
10. Shows first poor value training of the children at home, P...	02/23/05	Bishop_Chuck

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