Dear Sheldon
There is so much in your Opinion piece that I hardly know where to start. I guess your equivalency between your middle school wandering, off the path, toward stupid that was never perpetrated and only involved two teachers in a simple context of “exercising boredom” and the perpetration by two equally stupid youngsters that “exercised racism” in the context of Black Lives Matter and an alarming hate movement nationwide is most disturbing.
I certainly am not asking that these kids be prosecuted for a hate crime and, to my knowledge, they have not. But in this staid and peaceful community, largely white I might add, most of us are shocked and more than annoyed by the images celebrating the lynching of several African American men.
My granddaughters attend Buena and although they didn’t know the boys they were tearful when they saw the images and discussed it with friends. Apropos of the hurt that can be inflicted, my one Hispanic granddaughter is the VP of the Black Student Union and she felt a wave of nausea about the whole thing.
The comment regarding the “maturating brain” seems, in your context, to rely entirely on biology which is about half the story. Since the act carried out by the boys is a multiplicity worse than a torn up blackmail letter, I am hopeful that there will not be a grandmother around to soothe them very much in the punishment that will and should be applied. That is the compliment of biology that will help in maturing their brains.
In friendly critique,
Karen Helen Szatkowski
Please read my response to this in my column on page 5. This is very important stuff.
Sheldon
Breeze:
Thank you so much for your recent article with the picture of my painting and the notice that Buenaventura Art Assoc. was having a donation request during the month. Our back mirror is just full of hearts from people who have donated. I know we would not have had such a good response without your helpful column. We at BAA all thank you, Mr. Brown and “The Breeze” for helping make this so special.
Karen Wu
Hi Sheldon,
Just picked up my copy of the Breeze at the Ojai Library. I prefer the paper version to read through … accompanied by my early morning coffee. Thanks so much for including Guy Webster even in the Ojai News! And also thanks for keeping your publication so healthy with lots to read. As the local Ventura paper (VC Star)gets smaller and smaller I rely on publications like yours for news and events – Kudos!
Warm Regards,
Myrna Cambianica Education Chair:
Ojai Photography Club
Happiness doesn’t depend on what we have, it depends on how we feel towards what we have.
We can be happy with little and miserable with much.
~ W.D. Hoard
In our last issue we had a GUEST COLUMN regarding Buddy Nation credited to Debra Reeves. Even though Debra is very involved with Buddy Nation this article was written by Cappi Patterson (now they are both famous).
