Letters

Inaugural address was on the mark

Carl Heintze's Presidential Inaugural Address, which ran in the Nov. 22 issue of the Saratoga News, is indeed the one the country wishes it could hear on Jan. 20, 2001!

Two hundred plus years ago, the framers of the Constitution saddled us with the electoral college. It seemed like a good idea at the time--a compromise between those who wanted a straight democracy and those who felt that the general population was too ignorant to make an informed decision about the candidates (no TV, no Internet, no spin doctors--how did they survive?) and that it was better to have the House of Representatives select someone as President. My, how times have changed! Not only are we better informed on a minute-by-minute basis, which Alexander Hamilton and company didn't have imaginations wild enough to envision, but the electorate now includes an enormous bunch of people who, at the time and for a variety of reasons, were not considered "fit" or "worthy" to vote. That compromise has now come back to bite us on our collective butt.

This is the first time in living memory that the popular vote will go to one candidate and the electoral vote, in all likelihood, will go to another. Whoever eventually wins (and I use the term loosely), half of the voters who bothered to vote will feel cheated--wronged-- "hey, we been had!" Although I voted for Gore, I am now beginning to think that perhaps, under these circumstances, Bush might be the better man for the job, after all.

For months now, "W" has been telling anyone who would listen that he is absolutely marvelous at building bipartisan cooperation. Well, it looks as if he is going to have to put his governing ability where his mouth is. This is one campaign promise he cannot afford to break if he ever hopes to achieve even a modicum of success as president.

Yes, George W. Bush will probably receive the majority of the winner-take-all electoral votes, but he will make a grave mistake if he reads into that any kind of mandate. He has been described as arrogant--that he was born on third base and acts like he hit a triple. I hope he can rise above that arrogance. I hope he's really as smart as the GOP and his mother have been telling us. I hope he really is capable of being his own man, and won't simply do as his "handlers" tell him to do.

He will need humility, intelligence and independence if he is to govern well. I pray he can dig down and find all three. The first sign that he has found them will come on Jan. 20 when he faces us all and we hear, for the first time, what our president has to say for himself.

Jerri Olivari
Butano Terrace

Bottom line remains in campaign show dispute

In response to a recent letter of mine in the Nov. 15 issue of the Saratoga News ("KSAR board member says sorry for credits slip-up"), Mayor Stan Bogosian delivered a letter from him and West Valley College Trustee Jeff Schwartz demanding a retraction "or we will seek formal redress." After discussion, I find there is an error and a misinterpretable phrase in the sentence, "When the Mayor of Saratoga and a member of the WVC Board of Trustees, his employers, asked [the new Community Access Director] to help make this show, and let him believe that the Trustee was a neutral moderator, he went ahead on very short notice and helped create, and air, the show, without insisting that the trustee or either council member sign as, and be shown in the credits as, the 'responsible producer.'"

The error is that Trustee Schwartz did not ask the access director to help make the show, indeed, they first met at the taping session. I did not mean to say that anyone put any improper pressure on the new access director to help make the show. Indeed, the access director knew campaign fora are important and timely and had already attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrange a League of Women Voters moderated candidate forum show.

The bottom line, that a one-sided campaign show was aired seemingly as an unbiased KSAR production, remains. KSAR policy is that all shows have a producer who takes moral and legal responsibility. KSAR itself is only to produce unbiased shows. This is an old KSAR policy and it is regrettable that it was not carefully followed in this case. I sincerely hope it won't happen again.

Tom Moran
Member, KSAR Board of Directors Farwell Avenue

Being mammogram duo has incredible benefits

Today my friend Guyonna and I drove the 50 minutes to South San Francisco from San Jose to have our yearly mammograms. We've been going there together for several years and doing this potentially gruesome task as a twosome is fabulous.

With my concern and sense of responsibility for my friend's well being, I won't cancel. Neither would Guyonna, who just returned last night from being away for six days in Arkansas. Her desk at work is calling loudly to her but she wouldn't consider letting me down.

We rendezvoused and cheerfully talked nonstop until we arrived--the 50-minute ride truly felt like 10 minutes! The usual pre-mammogram fear that others tell me about is absent, completely dissolved in our pleasure at having time together. We're good friends who are so busy and active as to almost never see each other and this is a guarantee of at least a once-per-year visit.

Besides the wonderful opportunity for talk, there is the support of a dear friend as we wait for the mammo-technologist to say that the doctor is satisfied with the film and--yippee--we can get dressed to leave. Were it necessary to repeat the film, which has happened, we each have a friend to support, sustain and distract us during the worry period. Most screening mammograms are negative and gratefully, we have not had a positive reading. But were this the outcome, I know, without any doubt, that we'd see it through together.

When we are dressed once again, a crucial topic must be discussed: where will we eat lunch? I don't "do lunch" very often and this lunch is fun! It is almost celebratory. We both feel good for each other and ourselves that we are healthy, at least so far as the mammogram can tell. And we are delighted to have this time together.

Having a mammo-partner has incredible benefits, none of which we realized when we started our unusual alliance. Our partnership provides healthy distraction, support, renewal, connection and assurance of a yearly mammogram that includes laughter and sharing. Instead of dreading the exam, we both anticipate the fun of having time together!

Dorothy Dorsay
Saraglen Drive

Sheriff's Report

Monta Vista High School student Oaz Nir wins Advanced Placement award

Home sale listings

Obituary: Kathryn Williams

Pavia Day Spa

Saratoga Sampler

Sports Briefs

Saratoga finishes third at Cupertino Shootout basketball tournamnet

34th Annual Westmont Invitational Basketball Tournament

CCSA Clinic of Champions