Seniors share the pain, not the gain

OK, they built those monstrous houses on which they can 't make the payments, pay the taxes or pay for heat.

Then they looked at us old folks with our two-bedroom ranches as a bunch of losers.

So why is the Fed beating up on us old folks by halving the interest rates on the CDs we saved up for when we need the interest to survive?

-- Richard Brandt, Fort Atkinson

Thank you, Madison School Board, for choosing to honor Paul J. Olson by naming the new school for him.

It says a lot about Olson as a teacher that, at age 75, I still recall lessons from his science class when I was a student at West Junior High School in the 1940s. His influence impacted lives.

Now he will be remembered forever, as students at the new school can, for years to come, learn about the life of this great man.

-- Doris M. Montague, Madison

Illegals prove dream not for whites only

Each year illegal alien workers under the age of 30 earn and send more than $30 billion to Mexico, their homeland.

They are able to earn this much because of their reliability and the quality and speed of their work.

Sen. Barack Obama speaks of hope. If he could create an ethic among underemployed or unemployed blacks to proudly and successfully compete with aliens as a matter of national pride in America, and convince them that the "American dream " isn 't exclusively for Caucasians, it will be seen as an example of leadership with a capital "L, " not to mention keeping that $30 billion-plus inside the United States each year.

-- Jon Holtzman, Cambridge

Child-care resources are critically needed

Leighanne Dockerty 's March 20 guest column about the efforts of child-care workers defended those who care for and teach our youngest children with little financial or professional recognition.

Dockerty identified the basic conundrum faced by child-care providers and our society, that the only interaction the state has with child care is punitive. Instead of support and resources, care providers deal with inspections, fines and the expectation that they will cover expenses when the state inexplicably drops a parent 's W2 payments.

This is not a recipe for quality care. Yet there are centers with problems, and something has to be done to fix them.

There are few resources available to early childhood educators. In January, Little City Kids decided to open-source our early childhood curriculum, our online teacher training programs and our operations manual. We did this without announcement, just to see what would happen.

Our Web site (www.littlecitykids.com) was overwhelmed. Hundreds of early childhood educators access the site each day. This amazing response made it clear how desperate the need is, and that educators want to provide better care for our youngest citizens, if only given the resources.

The Little City Kids Foundation will continue to provide resources to early childhood educators. It 's a drop in the bucket, but it 's a start, and a statement that our children are worth it.

-- Robin Stearns, executive director, Little City Kids Educational Services, Waunakee

No balance in polar bear predictions

Regarding the March 16 article "Polar bear predictions, " combining slanted journalism and scientific research is reprehensible. Both the climatologist cited and the reporter made assumptions regarding carbon dioxide emissions and the cause of "global warming " with no challenges cited. Computer modeling requires assumptions. Reporting of these modeling assumptions as "factoids " is irresponsible journalism.

Nobody wants polar bears to suffer hardship from man-made contributions, so why make your readers suffer from the same?

-- John Wardour, Mount Horeb

Keep court selection with voters, not elite

Regarding "There has to be a better way, " Bill Wineke 's Monday column on the State Journal 's Opinion page, his criticism of how Wisconsin chooses Supreme Court judges through a general election should be rejected.

First, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows political parties to point out defects, differences, dislikes or whatever about their opponents. Pointing out such differences can be sleazy, but what 's the alternative -- secrecy?

And let 's face reality -- judges are political. Wineke admits he has no idea whether Butler is a good or a mediocre justice, or if Gableman would be better or worse. Do you think Gov. Jim Doyle knew the difference?

Butler lost to Diane Sykes in the 2000 Supreme Court election by a large margin, but Doyle appointed him in 2004 when Sykes ' seat became vacant. Should the rest of Wisconsin "respect " the court by not having an election process that allows voters to know the difference?

Of course elections are "sleazy " when opponents differentiate themselves, but that 's what democracy is all about. It 's not about the "ruling class " appointing judges who 've been soundly defeated by the electorate.

-- Ray Unger, Madison

Media not to blame for Abu Ghraib

Last week a story regarding the torture at Abu Ghraib ran under the headline "Abu Ghraib regrets. " Lynndie England is quoted as saying "If the media hadn 't exposed the pictures to that extent, then thousands of lives would have been saved. "

This is the same illogic being employed by sports stars (and emulated by our children), that the only reason to be sorry for something is because you got caught. The whistle blower is to blame when there are negative effects from exposed abuse or illegal action. By this logic, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are responsible for a general loss of faith in politics.

This is not the case. The media are not to blame. The soldiers ' actions, the supervisors who approved them and the system that allowed it to continue are to blame.

Those thousands of lives are on Lynndie England 's shoulders, and those of other guilty soldiers, the CIA and the commanders and generals who stood by watching Iraqi, American and international laws being violated.

Anybody committing those atrocities needs to be psychologically examined, and anybody approving or standing by needs to be incarcerated.

The soldiers may have been "just following orders, " but that defense didn 't work so well at Nuremberg either.

-- Jonathan J. Miner, Madison