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Letters
Knot shown in picture incorrectly identified
In the Saratoga News July 11 issue article "Smooth Sailing," there was a caption that read, "Instructor Chris May shows Rhiannon Sanders of Los Gatos the correct way to make a figure 8 knot during the Vasona Sailing Program." The knot being shown in the picture is not a figure 8; it is a bowline. The way to tie three commonly used knots is:
Left: Figure 8 -- Right: Bowline
The United States Navy publishes a book called The Bluejackets Manual that illustrates how to tie, splice, etc., rope or line. I think the Navy knows how to tie knots.
Marvin Becker
Mellowood Drive
Tax law changes should not restrict use of options
I read with interest the cover story in the Aug. 1 Saratoga News. First of all, I felt sympathy for those who, wittingly or not, took and lost a high-risk, high-stakes gamble with the IRS. I was also struck by the opportunity for genuine good fortune bestowed on employees by many of the employers mentioned.
Some of the stories include getting and following advice aimed at shifting tax treatment of what was, at the time of exercise, a huge and potentially pocketable windfall. The Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, is in this case essentially a tax that applies to the pocketable profits, whether or not you choose to "pocket" anything. Yes, it seems odd, but it's not a secret; it's been around for quite awhile and tax advisors know it well.
Essentially, before these people could shave a couple of percent off their income tax bill by holding the stock long enough to qualify for a lower tax on the profit, the profit evaporated, but not the AMT obligation. It was a combination of one or more decisions freely chosen that was the turning point, taking the stories from notable successes to tragedies: to exercise the options; not to sell some of the stock to pocket some of the windfall; and not to allocate enough of the proceeds toward taxes.
I hope, as high-profile arm-twisting is done to try to rewrite the tax laws, legislatures do not end up making it more onerous for companies to offer the opportunities in the first place. As sad as these stories are--here the people ended up worse off from their mishandled options--it would be a shame to see option grants restricted. I suspect there are an equal or greater number of stories where option profits contributed significantly to employees' families.
I hope also that readers who are fortunate enough to have the AMT potentially apply for these reasons and in this magnitude get the best possible advice on alternatives and risks before they make decisions. And I also hope that the IRS finds some way to give the folks mentioned in your article a break.
Joel Mattox
Chalet Lane
Gay-Straight Alliance club has a legal right to exist
I have been reading the opinion page in the Saratoga News in the past few weeks, and I have noticed that there seem to be a few mutual complaints made by everyone supporting Elaine Hocker's viewpoint. They don't want Saratoga High School students to be "indoctrinated" into any "gay" viewpoints and say that the homosexual lifestyle is "immoral."
First off let me say that a club where membership is voluntary does not "indoctrinate" students. But coming onto a school campus and shoving propaganda into students cars does. So is it OK to indoctrinate students into one viewpoint as long as it is a "moral" one?
Also, someone who wrote in two weeks ago saying that homosexuality is immoral was actually a substitute who was asked to take a leave of absence from our school because he was heard by many students to have made not only derogatory comments toward gays, but against Asians and African-Americans as well. Are those the kind of "morals" that we want taught at Saratoga?
No one is asking anyone to change their beliefs on what they think is moral and right. Many members of the club have the same viewpoints as Ms. Hocker, but also think that hate crimes are wrong. The club has open debates in which everyone's opinions are heard, whether or not they think homosexuality is wrong or right, voluntary or something that one is born with, and discuss what the students want done in response to anti-gay behavior and comments.
All people has the right to their own opinions. It is only when those opinions take form in large, red letters on a teacher's wall that those opinions become wrong, immoral and illegal. I don't think that anyone can argue for the morality of a personal attack on a teacher.
In response to all the debate about the GSA: we have the legal right to have the club. This means that no matter how much you fight it or disagree, you can't do anything about it.
We as a society have ended slavery and Jim Crow laws, gotten over the Red Scare, and freed the Japanese from the concentration camps that we put them in. This is just another obstacle that we are overcoming to really make this a country of equal opportunity.
Ms. Hocker can give her opinions all she wants. As long as she keeps them off of school campuses. If the 250 people who showed up to the first GSA meeting came to her house, blocked her traffic and harassed her family members with our "gay viewpoints," then I imagine that no one would call that "free speech," and there would be a lot more outraged citizens.
Bigotry isn't only racism; it's any prejudice against any group. People who attack homosexuals in the same way that Ms. Hocker has may just find themselves in the history books alongside Joe McCarthy and Hitler.
Live and let live. It is a sad thing when someone would use the Bible as a weapon of hate and prejudice instead of an instrument to teach love, acceptance and forgiveness.
Megan Donohoe
Oak Place
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
