Letters to the Editor

Editor,

The December 23 editorial regarding potential names for the City’s new middle school made its point about your preference, but it was also dismissive of an integral and vocal part of our community: parents.

After deeming the names George Mason and Tripps Run unsuitable, the editorial went on to strike down two other options: “As for Anne Mason, wife of George Mason, and Dolley Madison, they are held up as exemplary for being, with all due respect, veritable doormats by modern standards. Anne Mason was stuck at home to raise 11 kids ... [h]ardly what today's young women need to emulate in order to use their education for a positive impact on today's world.”

Just where is that “due respect,” when your words clearly denigrate parents who don't work outside of the home? Our prosperous and politically active City boasts a fair number of well-educated and thoughtful residents who have chosen to focus on parenting full-time, even with so many other options available to them. To be so judgmental of a lady whose life's work seems to have been childrearing is both harsh and unfair. I would wager that Mrs. Mason spent a good amount of her time educating her 11 children and/or making decisions regarding their schooling and character -- just as so many City parents today (whether they work outside of the home or not) are vocal proponents of our children's education. As members and administrators of the PTA and cooperative preschools, volunteers at all three public schools, and supporters of Community Center programs, their "positive impact on today's world" is readily apparent within our City. George Washington, a close friend of the Mason family, put it best: “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”

Nancy Gast Romps Falls Church

Editor,

While I am a strong supporter of the Falls Church News-Press and of its strong pro-Falls Church and “pro-American as part of the world not apart from the world” philosophical- and reality-based stance, I feel compelled to just as strongly take exception with its editorial stance on the naming of the new Middle School. Eleanor Roosevelt, while a great American, is just not the Falls Church-centric name that the new Middle School needs to be distinctive in the world and for its students.

The only name of the final list that the school needs and deserves is precisely the one that the editorial off-handedly dismissed as trivial. Wow, what a misguided opinion for a Falls Church home-grown newspaper to have, in my opinion. I urged naming the school Pearson Branch Middle School, which I learned is not the branch of Tripps Run where the middle school is rising.

Now, I very strongly advocate the moniker of Tripps Run Middle School, for precisely the same reason I proposed to name it Pearson's Branch. I will have four children eventually pass through the school and as a parent I believe this is the only rational name the school should have.

While all the choices are outstanding, Tripps Run Middle School is the only one that really speaks to the base of Falls Church and sending out the students to a larger world.

Steve Zullo Falls Church

Editor,

Bob Herbert's column (“Shopping for War”) in the December 30 News-Press should be required reading for all voting-age Americans. He warns of a scheme being devised by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his fellow Neo-Conservatives that will provide a new excuse to wage pre-emptive wars on countries that displease the current administration.

Past U.S. wars have been fought primarily when our nation or allies have been under direct attack or when our security has been threatened by enemy forces. Even with the war in Iraq, the U.S. attacked under the pretense that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and had plotted with al-Qaida, two false assertions that the administration claimed were backed up by solid intelligence.

But, according to Herbert, Rumsfeld's latest plan doesn't require any hard evidence or even false assertions. All we need is the suspicion of a threat - an excuse to send in the military for the purpose of intelligence-gathering. This new focus on “fighting for intelligence” may seem like a minor change in the way we gather intelligence. The ramifications, however, are staggering. We could go to war any place, any time, solely to ferret out information.

The last thing we need is a new excuse to launch other armed conflicts. Yet, such schemes are a logical “next step” in the plan by Rumsfeld and other Neo-Cons in the administration to ensure U.S. domination of the globe, as outlined in the “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC, www.newamericancentury.org) that they wrote in the mid-1990s.

We need to encourage Congress, particularly true conservatives, to reject the internationally-destabilizing policies of those in this administration who subscribe to PNAC. Thanks to independent journalists like Herbert, we can remain alert and ask the right questions, such as: Do we really want to spill the blood of Americans and others around the globe simply to investigate the professed hunches of extremist, self-serving powerbrokers in Washington?

Annette Mills Falls Church