Diversity at FUSD
I have taught history/social science for 16 years in high school and middle school. This is my 14th year in Fresno Unified School District (FUSD) as a seventh-grade world history teacher at a school site with one of the highest suspension and expulsion rates in Fresno Unified.
Your article is great (“Professional Diversity Improvement Hits Fresno Unified” by Daren Miller in the August 2021 Community Alliance), but it’s weak in blaming the FUSD school board for the lack of diversity. It’s not the superintendent’s fault, is it?
The FUSD School Board has represented the diversity of the community for over 10 years, and they have yet to improve the diversity of its principals.
But don’t stop there. There have been dismal results for the poorest kids of Fresno Unified.
Accountability? The Fresno Unified School Board has handed out millions in pay raises and promotions. Who’s fault is it? The Fresno Unified School Board.
Angel Gomez
Fresno
About the Sale of the Tower Theatre
I am a practicing church attendee, and nowhere is there more acceptance, welcoming and respect of all thoughts and beliefs. So my question to all those not in favor of the Tower Theatre’s new buyers is “what’s the problem?”
Pat Hull
Clovis
Out of Afghanistan
Russia invades Afghanistan to support the Marxist People’s Party (or whatever they called themselves) against the jihadists. The United States determines that this could be Russia’s Vietnam and decides to support and arm the jihadists. The jihadists rethink themselves into the Taliban.
The United States arms the Taliban to such an extent that they cannot possibly use all the weapons and ammunition given to them. So to supplement their heroin income, they start selling arms and ammo to whoever will buy them. The willing buyers just so happen to be other jihadists around the world.
Soon after, Al-Qaeda forms under the direction of Osama bin Laden and buys up all this ordinance. Now they are able to export their extremism to the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, India and pretty much everywhere else. Russia decides they have had enough of Vietnam—I mean Afghanistan—and go home.
The United States says whoops, we can’t support the “rebels” any longer and decide to invade and put them down. Twenty years later, after trillions of dollars were spent and 2,000 soldiers killed, the United States has had enough and goes home.
All is back to square one. Afghanistan is near the bottom of the list of the poorest and least literate countries in the world. It was and always will be.
My son-in-law is a warrior and did two tours in Afghanistan as the commander of the prison at Bagram, the largest military base in that country. He spent his entire life in the Air Force until his retirement and will be the first to tell you that it was all bull—t from the very beginning. And he will not let his son join the military.
It is a sh–hole of a country fueled by the heroin trade. Ninety-five percent of the world’s supply comes from Afghanistan—400 tons annually.
Bottom line. F-ck em. Count your losses. Don’t let it happen again until next time—and we all know there will be a next time and a next time and a next time. When will poor and working people ever realize that it is not honorable to die in a war that is fought to line the pockets of the rich? Are we really that stupid?
I’m so glad to have known all of you for making the right decisions that honor life and not the almighty dollar. End of rant.
Paul Dunham
Fresno
