“Pantytime,” American Apparel ad, 11/30
Your panties are showing
I consider myself a hip, open-minded, liberal, sex-positive intellectual stripper (I graduated from UC Berkeley in 1999 with a degree in English literature and currently work as a dancer at Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theater in San Francisco). Seeing the latest American Apparel “Pantytime” ad on the back cover of the November 30 Express gave me an identity crisis. Was I really as open-minded as I fancied myself to be? For some reason, seeing the ad’s close-up photo of a nymphlike woman’s ass bothered me. Seeing her red and white trimmed panties hiked up her ass exposing most of her buttocks and some shading that looks suspiciously like her outer labia made me feel as though I were staring at the cover of one of the “ass fucker” porno videos for sale in the lobby of my work.
That, I realized, was the problem. There is a time and a place for everything, and porno photos of rear ends belong in the porno section. If that sleazy lothario who runs American Apparel wants to photograph all his hot salesgirls in their underwear, fine, but put the ad where kids can’t see them! These ads are pornographic, fine, but put them inside the Express. The fact that the guys who runs American Apparel is a PR ace hipster who pays his employees fairly and all that does not justify running his ads everywhere. I don’t strip on street corners.
Rebecca Wilson, Oakland
“Endangered Species,” Feature, 11/30
Drugs are not the answer
Poultry susceptibility to disease is strongly dependent on genetics. In the long run, requiring poultry to be raised indoors will exacerbate the very problem it seeks to solve.
Around 1980, I visited a Bob Clark’s pigeon farm in Livermore, California. Like chickens, pigeons for human consumption (squabs) are raised in large buildings with poultry-wire sides that sparrows can fly through. Wild birds bring in diseases which can run rampant in a building housing 10,000-plus birds. Bob bred his birds for high production, genetic diversity, and good health. He did not medicate, but ruthlessly culled from his breeding program birds that got sick, or whose babies got sick. Meanwhile, neighboring squab farmers medicated against disease. When Newcastle disease swept through Livermore in 1971, Bob’s neighbors lost thousands of pigeons, while Bob lost only dozens. Although his birds had no specific resistance to Newcastle, which was new to the area, they were bred for healthy immune systems.
Forcing poultry indoors will most affect small poultry growers who are preserving the genetic diversity that has already been bred out of commercial chickens and turkeys. Confinement growing increases disease problems, which increases growers’ tendency to medicate, which ultimately decreases their birds’ immunity to disease. In the long run, a successful program to minimize disease transmission between poultry and humans must work with nature, by breeding birds that are too healthy to get sick in the first place.
Wilma Keppel, Albany
“The Case Against Tenure,” Feature, 12/7
It’s a distraction
Isn’t it putting the cart before the horse to make such a big deal about getting rid of bad teachers when we’re doing such a poor job of getting, and keeping, good ones? When almost 50 percent of teachers nationally will leave the profession within the first five years of entering it, the priority by the media and by those who put initiatives on the California ballot should be about offering training, salaries, and a work environment that will induce good teachers to stay. Of course, bad teachers should be shown the door, but this issue does not deserve top billing among educational issues or on the ballot. It’s a distraction from the issues that can make a difference, and some intend it to be.
Chris Gilbert, Berkeley
Teachers against tenure
Thanks for such a thorough and right-on article. As a former teacher and the wife of a current teacher, we often lament that tenure is a major factor in rendering the school system so ineffective at serving students. The unions allow mediocrity to perpetuate. It maddens me to know they spend millions of teachers’ hard-earned money in campaigns to defeat anything that threatens their protection of mediocrity. Thanks for your willingness to raise an issue that some may fear as being anti-education. In reality, eliminating teacher tenure is about as pro-education for the CHILDREN as it gets.
Jeanette Nelson, Oakland
On the other hand
I look forward to reading your next cover story — “The Case for Tenure.”
Sara Faith Jacobsen, Oakland
About that editorial
On behalf of over three thousand members of the Oakland Education Association/CTA/NEA, I am writing to express our outrage with the cover on your December 7 issue and the article by Robert Gammon. Your portrayal of a teacher with training wheels pointing to a chalkboard with wrong answers to basic math problems was insulting to the thousands of excellent tenured and nontenured teachers in Oakland and across the East Bay. Mr. Gammon’s article was more appropriate as an editorial, not as a balanced journalistic endeavor.
Since he never contacted us for the union side of the story, please allow me to respond at length in this letter:
In any profession, there are a few individuals who have chosen the wrong career. Tenure, or more accurately “permanent status” in the K-12 lexicon, provides due process for those individuals under the concept of innocent until proven guilty. In Oakland alone, permanent teachers are uncontestedly fired or forced to resign every year before the legal process described in Mr. Gammon’s diatribe even occurs! Due to confidentiality, neither the district or union advertises this reality to the press.
Permanent status is also designed to protect seasoned teachers who principals believe are not “team players” because they ask tough questions at faculty meetings, exercise their academic freedom in the classroom, or are active in the union. Believe me, hundreds of fine Oakland teachers would have been terminated long ago if permanent status was not in the education code! The voters of California realized this on November 8. They know, even if Mr. Gammon has forgotten, that there are vindictive and unethical bosses in the real world of work who do not hesitate to stifle and/or punish dissent.
Finally, the Oakland USD terminates over a hundred probationary and temporary teachers without cause every year. Many of them leave our city and become good teachers in neighboring districts. The main problem in urban California is not removing incompetents. It is retaining excellent teachers. As far as charter schools are concerned, they suffer from this same instability. That is why many teachers in those schools are now contacting OEA and CTA for representation.
Ben Visnick, president, Oakland Education Association
Zero-sum game
As a single parent of a third-grader in the California public schools, and a lifelong Democrat who was aghast when Schwarzenegger was elected but nevertheless supported all of his recent propositions, I applaud Robert Gammon’s article. The CTA is the state’s most powerful union. As long as what’s good for the teachers’ union is good for the state’s students, all is well. Increasingly, however, that is not the case.
California schools rank near bottom in every measure including per-pupil spending, save one — we have the highest-paid teachers in the country. It was telling that in their last rounds of protest their placards read not “save our students” or “save our schools,” but “save our teachers.” It’s not that California’s teachers don’t deserve their salaries: they do. But instead of focusing efforts on increasing overall funding for schools, say by repealing Prop. 13, the CTA has focused on fighting for scraps with other underfunded programs. On the state/county level, mandatory school spending takes money away from programs with less powerful advocates such as Medi-Cal or homeless shelters. On the school level, high teachers’ salaries mean less money for books and buildings. Ironically, what schools need most is what CTA’s greedy strategy has made prohibitively expensive — more teachers.
Dan Abbott, Albany
It’s the money
The reason some teachers burn out in their profession is that K-12 teaching is a physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding job that is woefully undercompensated. If you really want teachers to effectively help more children, this is how it should be done: First, reduce each teacher’s workload by reducing the number of classes they have to teach or the number of students per class. This will allow teachers to devote more time and energy to each child. Second, increase teacher salaries so they don’t have to expend so much energy working overtime or working second jobs to support themselves and their families. Third, improve the support for students and teachers by funding more counselors, librarians, tutors, mentors, and other folks who can help students with academic and personal problems outside the classroom. As a teacher, I would gladly give up my right to tenure in exchange for the implementation of these policies.
Mark Lewis, Pleasant Hill
Consider the ironies
Thank you for handling this issue with such deftness. Hopefully you’ve managed to get people informed about the dangers of the tenure track without them thinking you’re a hater.
Emeryville’s school board should be commended for their work to turn the school around. But having had my kids in the school, there were a number of frustrations that could all be traced back to the inability of the school to remove bad teachers. So, not having the cash laying around for private school, we’re home schooling and loving it.
I hope you see the irony in your comment about the Oakland school you mentioned being squeezed by the No Child Left Behind act. The irony is that this program forced the school to take drastic measures — measures it needed desperately. That is precisely the point of the No Child Left Behind act! It pulls the carpet out from under these defenders of the status quo and forces them to scramble into action or get run over.
The other irony, of course, is that the “conservative” party is acting like the progressives on this issue.
Joe Pemberton, Emeryville
“Touchy Feely,” Feature, 10/5
Bringing people together
I just read your article. This past weekend, I attended my first cuddle party. It was hosted by Suz Strasburger. Your observations and ability to convey what happened were very much in line with what I experienced, though I’m sure my group dynamics was different from yours. For one thing, I didn’t have the impression that anyone had arrived as a couple. We had a great time; there were even two people who had physical/environmental limitations. One person had asthma and wasn’t able to snuggle or be close to anyone who was wearing any kind of scent, including hair gel, deodorant, or even strong fabric softener. Another person was severely limited physically due to his recovery from Lyme disease. I’ll close by thanking you for what you wrote and helping to inform all of us about the cuddle party experience.
M.C., San Francisco
Clarification
Last week’s cover story (“Ghost Town”) stated that a transit village project had been approved at Ashby BART. Although a transit-village-related center for disability advocacy and services was indeed approved by BART for the station’s east side, and has received a use permit from Berkeley’s Planning and Development Department, the transit village proper proposed for the station’s west side has not yet gotten the green light.
