Concussion testing
EDITOR: I appreciate the concern expressed in Wednesday's letters by a student that the Santa Rosa school district's recently enacted concussion awareness and prevention program would only be accessible to students playing sports such as football ("Sports and concussions"). In fact, the program is specifically designed to capture all student athletes in all sports.
We are obtaining 500 baseline tests per high school per year, with up to 150 follow-up tests to be administered after a potential concussion injury. We will buy more if needed.
Regardless of what sport you play, your baseline will be established and tracked through potential injuries. As the student noted, concussion-like injuries can come from other than person-to-person contact, such that we worry about the volleyball players who hit the floor, the track and field players who can sustain any number of head injuries and the diver who can occasionally hit a diving board. We will test them all.
BILL CARLE
President, Santa Rosa Board of Education
Silly laws
EDITOR: George F. Will's Sunday column ("Panic over a 7-year-old boy's Pop-Tart pistol") was very entertaining. It brought me back to my happy childhood days when the Fourth of July finally came. Oh how I loved to strap on my cap gun holsters and shoot caps at my friends. We would pick sides and have shoot-outs like we were cowboys. Those were the days - none of this politically correct nonsense. Government doesn't need to pass these silly laws; only one law is needed - treat everyone as you would like to be treated. I guess that would be too easy.
CONSTANCE LEARY
Santa Rosa
Vasa's responsibility
EDITOR: Let's suppose that I work as a salesman at a Chrysler dealership. Suppose further that instead of encouraging my customers to buy Chrysler products, I tell them how wonderful Toyotas are. How long would I last before being disciplined by my sales manager, or even fired?
Yet when Bishop Robert Vasa issued a requirement for teachers at Catholic schools in the Santa Rosa Diocese to sign a statement saying that they will abide by and teach the Catholic faith, liberals went into hysterics. The Inquisition! Freedom of thought banned!
What is wrong or outrageous about a Chrysler sales manager insisting that salespeople market Chryslers instead of Toyotas? By the same token, isn't it high time that Vasa steps forward and insists that teachers at Catholic schools under his jurisdiction actually teach core Catholic principles instead of those advocated by the California Teachers Association?
I give the bishop my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for taking seriously the responsibility of shepherding the people of his diocese. He understands that steering Catholics and others to God, and exhorting them to seek His salvation is far more important than winning popularity contests with the New York Times, Cosmopolitan magazine and obsequious Barack Obama voters.
ERIC LINDENBUSCH
Santa Rosa
Right to bear arms
EDITOR: I am writing this due to reading so much about the need for gun control and seeing the same on many news shows.
Our federal Constitution provides that no law shall forbid us from keeping and bearing arms because of the necessity for a militia. Our greatest strength lies in the fact that so many of us not only possess weapons but also understand their use, and, above all, are willing and prepared to defend themselves and others against an attack by any of our enemies.
You will remember that we won our freedom because we were armed. We were not just a simple peasantry unused to weapons. The men who wrote our Constitution knew we would be safe as long as we were armed.
It looks to me as if our forefathers were very wise men and that we should leave the Second Amendment alone.
WILLIAM MILLARD
Santa Rosa
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