The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 90, No. 145, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 22, 2010 Page: 4 of 12
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Thui'sdav luh 22.2010
■
TEXAS VOICES
I
Buenos dias, y’all
with lawmakers to gel the legislation English, then Spanish. What a gift to be
EpSTtINiNK. COM
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I'lihlisliiT Eincriliis
Cake for rich,
not even
crumbs for
the poor
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CONNECTING A
THE POTS IS
NO LONGER
AN ISSUE, j
Doyle Barlow
Managing Editor
Jay Eshbach
Community member
Dave Rogers
Sports Editor
bearing the writer's signature.
An address and phone num-
ber not for publication should
be included. All letters and
guest columns are subject to
the right to refuse to publish any Fl^u”Frida/and^Sundaj^
EDITORIAL BOARD
JANIE HALTER
- I ditor/Publlsher
Jim Finley
Former Managing Editor
M A. Bengtson
Community member
A couple recent experiences provoked
some thoughts about Texans and bilin-
gualism.
The first was seeing a play complete-
ly in Spanish. Granddaughter Stella, 12,
the only Anglo actor, played a tiger. Iler
lone line was "Grrrrrrrr!” which in
English is "Grrrr!"
My Spanish is muy malo (very bad).
Il look live semesters in Adfepe Io pci
the necessary three semesters credit Io
graduate.
u onvir>.
h’s so important to international com-
merce that countries like China and
South Korea now stress the importance
To borrow a phrase from Yogi Berra,
"It's deja vu all river again." Even with
the election just four months away. .
Republicans arc letting their true eco-
nomic stripes show again.
Many readers must have fell caught in
a time warp lo the Bush administration
when Sen. .Ion Kyi of Arizona told l ox
News that he favors extending tax breaks
for big business.
Minority
Milch
<
Time to
revise state
jail system
Has the time come lo rethink lhe
stale jail system for fourth-degree
felons? Many of lhe judges and pros-
ecutors who work in the criminal jus-
tice system day in and day out think
so, and they may make some good
points. The system is just not work-
ing as effectively as it should.
However, changing the current setup
may take a little convincing of some
of the more powerful players who
helped create lhe system back in the
early 1990s.
Established in 1993 as a solution lo
the stale's longtime problems With
prison overcrowding and federal
Court decrees over the issue, the net-
work of slate jails was supposed to
provide a less-expensive incarcera-
tion alternative. Il was intended to
provide a place to send nonviolent
drug offenders, small-time thieves
and first-lime offenders and keep the
state prison beds available for more
serious criminals.
Unfortunately, plans to provide
treatment and rehabilitalion pro-
grams were among the first elements
of the T1"" 4
local taxpayers do not get stuck with
the final hill. Moving prisoners cur- ,,, x jca f ntg wh() k
rently being held in state jails into SpJnish ’ '
Rather than seek to punish or ignore
this situation, a growing number of
Texas school districts arc taking advan- become fluent in Spanish,
tagc of it through dual-language pro-
grams most recently Austin, which is
planning to phase it in in seven elemen-
tary schools.
that many Americans arc fluent only in
English. y^ZU.MIIVUI I., IVIl I, Illi, UIIM UHIIMVU U
But go to Europe, and particularly multi-million dollar surplus to George W.
big business.
........ ... ■ George W. Bush took those taxes off.
speak Danish. Swedish, English, French What was the result? Read carefully, dear
■" reader, livery citizen in the land should
drill the following statistic into his or her
this November:
According to the ( enter on Budget and
Policy Priorities “Two-thirds of the
nation’s total income gains from 2002 to
2007 flowed to the top I percent of U.S.
households, and that (op I percent held a
, larger share of income in 2007 than at
any lime since 1928.” That’s right. The
taxes we removed from the rich, so they
could make money, enabled the nation’s
wealthy I percent of all Americans
to corner two-thirds, of the nation’s .
increased wealth. .
Republicans undertook a massive
redistribution of the nation's wealth,
They robbed from the poor and gave it to
the rich.
Meanwhile, these fiscally responsible
Republicans undertook two wars they
refused to finance.
Republicans say: “Not to worry. These
special tax breaks for the wealthy won’t
hurt government programs.” They still
argue that tax breaks for the rich are nec-
essary for the country to recover eco-
nomically. Fufiny, the last lime they tried
that ended in October 2008 when the
economy nearly cratered for good.
Yet the Republicans refuse to vote for
more benefits for the jobless, because
these folks "just can’t handle the money.”
They refuse to let the wealthy pay the
jobless back some of their own bailout
money in the form of unemployment
benefits.
Let me end with an e-mail sent by a
reader: “I own a home and pay my taxes
and now my son who is married with
three kids can’t get an extension on his
unemployment. Do they want everyone
to go on welfare or have more foreclo-
sures? This is not right!”
Shame on lawmakers for refusing to
do what is morally, if not economically.
Donna Brazilc is a political commen-
tator on CNN, A H(' and NPR; contribut-
ing columnist to Roll ( all, the newspa-
per of Capitol Hill; and former cam
paign manager for Al (lore
Viewpoints
4\ .1. rm inviowxsi x
In dual-language
schools, children are
taught from an early
age in both Spanish and
English. In some cases,
(horning lessons arc
taught in one language
and afternoon lessons
in the other.
This means that both
groups of students are
to both languages and for
I he kids performing (he play wrote it. half the day. lhe Spanish-speaking kids
so it contained few of the words in my “r" ,’“l”
Spanish vocabulary like dos
ccrvczas, por favor (two beers, please), English learn Spanish. And vice
or tienes hielo? (do you have ice?) Th,.«. i. miMttan .t <•
I caught about every eighth word. I’m tanl for people in this state and country
still not sure what the play was about. •<’ he fluent in English. It’s the language
And we wondered, what's it like for a in most legislative and governmental
Spanish speaker with little English to sit bodies. It also years ago replaced
through a play in English? Or a school french as the principal language of
c]ass7 diplomacy. It is the international lan-
A few days later. I was leading a half- gm'ge between pilots and air con-
dozen elected officials from Spain on a (rollers.
brief tour of the fexas ( apitol, before w 'mnnrtimt tn international com*
of the plan scrapped when it came talking to them about Texas and nation-
fitiie for budget crunching. T he state al politics and government. .
jails.have become nothing more than Two Senate committees were meeting °* ’heir kids beginning to study English
warehouse beds for inmates who
have, a recidivism rate as high as 34
percent, compared to 28 percent for
inmates who do lime in a regular
.. prison.
House Corrections Committee
Chairman Jim McReynolds. D-
Lufkin, would like to see changes lo
the state jail system. ... But. already.
Senate ( riminal Justice Committee
('hairman John Whitmire, D-
Houston. who wrote the legislation
that established the state jail .system,
and Williamson -County District
Attorney John Bradley, who worked
passed, arc balking at the idea.
. McReynolds has asked his commit-
tee to poll officials in their communi-,
tics who work in lhe criminal justice
system for their input about changes;
to the state jail system. Proponents
, for change want to consider using the
state jails as intermediate sanction
facilities for parole .violators.
Clearly, some changes to lhe
almost two-dccadcs-old state jail sys-
tem are needed Whatever changes
arc made, care must be taken that the
local taxpayers do not get stuck with
the final hill. Moving prisoners cur-
rently being held in state jails into
county jails is. not a workable solu-
tion.
The state is notorious for passage
of unfunded mandates. Addressing
. the jail system problem cannot result
in yet another one.
San Antonio lx press
HOW TO REACH LS
Janie Halter, Publisher ,
jante, haltertWbaytownsun.com
Angle Pagel, Advertising Director
angie,pageKaibaytownsun.com
Doyle Barlow
Managing Editor
doyle.bariow®baytownsun,corn
Sandy Denson, Business Mgr.
sandyxjenson^ibaytownsun.cofri
Joshua Hart, Circulation Manager
loshua.hart/Wtaytownsun.com
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WRITE TO LS
The Sun welcomes letters of
up to 250 words and guest.
columns of up to 500 words. We editing, and The Sun reserves
publish only original material t‘*/>,n "
addressed to The Baytown Sun submission.
Let’s do it, amigos. It’s time.
Contact McNeely at davcmc-
ncelyl I Hmgmail.com or 512-458-2963.
and German, and often a smattering, of
Russian and Italian. ■ „ -. , .
We should at least be making an effort head before entering the voting booth
l:. ..Li.; .uT....4:.. .iy liMS NOVCDlDCn
with our neighbors to the south a con-
siderable number of whom arc becom-
ing our neighbors down the street.
Many Spanish-spcakcrs are living in
Texas, as legal immigrants, illegal
immigrants, or American-born.
We'll be shorting ourselves and our
children, and missing a great opportuni-
ty, if we fail to do everything we can to
allow our Texas Spanish-spcakcrs to be
fluent in English,
And wc'11 he shortchanging our
English-speaking children if we don’t
enable them, from an early age, to
national security AP(wU|
_____ 2010
BIWK
Senate
Leader
McConnell chimed in
t0 support his friend,
£» insisting on what he
SCC'S as a basic
/■hf? Republican principle:
You never, ever, use
tiixes t0 offset spending.
DONNA he said.
BRAZILE Yet, as Republican
leaders (and virtually
every Republican) were championing
extended tax breaks for big oil, big banks
and Wall Street, they were all working
like crazy to.obstruct. Democrats from
extending benefits for the jobless, foiling
critical vote after critical vote while thou-
sands of Americans lose vital lifelines to
staying afloat.
Why stop unemployment benefits?
Well, Republicans say, the jobless will
become dependent on the money and
stop looking for work.
Yes, they actually said that.
Such nonsense. (Most stale employ-
ment bureaus require the jobless to sub-
mit proof of that week’s job seeking in
order to continue receiving benefits.) 1 ’m
sure that those Americans who found
themselves, jobless in the Great
Recession would tell you that it was cer-
tainly not because. they were seeking
leisure on the government dime.
America's jobless men and women arc
the very same taxpayers whose personal
. paycheck taxes bailed out big business,
haded out Wall Street and bailed out the
banks. Those “handouts” didn't seem to
stop thoke guys from recovering. o
wv.v n.wu.,B . Kyi and McConnell can’t help them- .5-;
that day. We separately bumped into a al 11 y(,ung age. I he country with the selves. They are bound with hoops of
couple senators, who I introduced to the mi,sl Pe,)Ple wll° sP««k l;nRlish before steel to their economic philosophy, one
group, visiting a few American cities on b’-’g could be China, if it isn't already. that helps the rich escape paying thc.r
a State Denartment-snonsored tour l,ul *n Texas, for the next several due and puts he burden on the vast
' When the first senator. Iridic Lucio, if not decades, fluency in Spanish '''Oaiping mm^'ut'isright in
1) Brownsville beuan .talkinc in is also very important to our students lax (Kugtng, as it turns (ut, is ngnt tn
I.nghsh. one of their two translators socially, culturally and commercially. Xmanding.’^fhcy simply^do not
quietly started translating into Spanish Bilingualism has become a valuable, want to bring back the fair share of taxes
into a small microphone, which the vis- sought-after qualification. on (he wealthiest . Americans. It’s un-
itors could hear in earpieces. I asked Most Americans have been Imguisti- American, they say.
Sen. Lucio to speak Spanish, and he ta,|y sP0lleiL Our country ls so lar8c Let’s think back. President Bill
switched without pausing. ,hal inany Americans are fluent only in Clinton, who balanced the huge deficit
The same thing happened later when I nglish. . . . Republicans left him, and handed a
Sen. Leticia Van de I’utte, D-San ,,ul 8° 10 huroPe- ani1 particularly multi-million dollar surplus to George W.
Antonio stepped out of a committee sma*K,r countries, and it is almost the Bush, also taxed Wall Street, big oil and
hearing'to talk for a couple minutes, norm that people speak four or five Ian- big business
. > ■ ..... .. . ini'.Mfnit Ihiiv/H’AMitmuiri lVnmai'L'u/^ (lOOrgC W. Bush tOOK tDOSC tUXCS-O.JI.
DAVE
MCNEELY
exposed
arc the experts, who can help their
classmates whose first language is
" ■ ' ‘ ' '; versa.
T here is no question it is very impor-
tant for people in this state and country
to be fluent in English. It’s the language
Send signed letters to:
Doyle Barlow, The Baytown Sun,
P.O. Box 90, Baytown, TX 77522;
fax them to (281) 427-1880 or
send an e-mail to
sunnews@baytownsun.com.
Items featured on this page
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and do not necessarily reflect
the views Of The Bay-town Sun
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, « . ’till V 1 ZV l/UI III IVI II ZVZI VVI twin,
When the first senator, l.ddie Lucid, years, if not decades, fluency in Spanish
l)-Bn»wnsvillc. began talking in is alSo W important to our students
English, one of their two translators sl,c,al|y- culturally, and commercially.
‘ s.w.vd Bilingualism has become a valuable,
small microphone, which the vis- sought-after qualification.
..>.1 i. ... > .. i i Most Americans have been linguisti-
cally spoiled, Our country is so large
that many Americans are fluent only in
English.
smaller countries, and it is almost the
norm that people speak four or five lan-
guages. I have cousins in Denmark who
able to speak both of the principal lan-
guages of most people in T exas.
Regardless of how the hql political
controversy over Arizona’s new law to , ,,. . ,
have local cops act as immigration law 10 able communicate effectively
enforcers is resolved, we in Texas w.th our nemhbors to the south a con-
should begin to make sure our children
and grandchildren have maximum
opportunity to read, write and speak flu-
ently both English and Spanish.
Most of our neighbors in Mexico and
Central and South America speak
Spanish. Not only do many of them
come to Texas and the United States, a
. considerable number of kids were born
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Halter, Janie. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 90, No. 145, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 22, 2010, newspaper, July 22, 2010; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1193173/m1/4/: accessed July 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.