MAILBAG - July 5, 2001

Thank you for your piece on Jeanette Lawrence and her campaign to help

Haitian children, (“Resident’s mission is to help Haitian children,” June

21).

We get so caught up in our own day-to-day existence, we forget that we

are so lucky to live in a country where we have so many opportunities

available to us. I salute Lawrence for her efforts and hope that her

story inspired others to do more to help others less fortunate.

SUSAN R. DRAVO

Fountain Valley

Reader shares environmentalists’ perspective

While I was on the Independent Web site looking for a way to send a

letter to the Community Forum, I read Vic Leipzig and Louann Murray’s

article on the energy crisis and sacrificing the environment for energy

in the short-term (“Don’t shortchange our environment,” June 7).

I also read with interest their call for alternative and renewable

energy. I share their perspective.

The city of Huntington Beach is also looking at fuel cells and

approaching it in such a way that it will be a win for the taxpayers as

well.

I would hope that they would mention the fact that good work is being

done to logically approach the energy situation in spite of the federal

and state government’s apparent willingness to sacrifice the environment

for energy.

Good column. Keep up the good work.

MIKE MERLO

Huntington Beach

DARE program proven ineffective in the classroom

DARE has been ineffective at every school that I have worked at since

my first experience with it in San Diego in the early 1990s. I know the

reason. Children that are raised in a society that is continuously

passing new laws and regulations see exactly how their parents react and

it causes them to have little respect for the law weather the parents are

law abiding or not.

I have been a counselor at three different schools since DARE came on

the scene and I can tell you from direct contact with the students and

parents that it does not work. Children are no longer raised to respect

law enforcement because most American parents are frustrated with laws

that restrict personal choices in private homes. Lawmakers pass new laws

every year that restrict personal choice, a concept the founding fathers

did their best to prevent with our Constitution.

Police every year become more removed from the rest of society as

average Americans feel that the police have too much power and the

ability to manipulate situations to make good people feel unjustly

persecuted for actions that used to be a matter of personal choice.

The numerous counts of officers breaking the law as they are also

being paid by taxpayers to uphold the law does not help the situation.

Why should children take to heart the words of a person in a uniform that

makes their parents nervous at best. I have had numerous conversations

with young children and their parents on the subject of drugs and almost

all agree that if anything the DARE program causes curiosity in children.

MATT JERGE

Huntington Beach