As a 25-year employee of Applied Materials Inc. there have been many times I have been proud to be part of my company but never more so than this week. Applied Materials has offered to match employee donations to the tsunami relief efforts up to $1,000. My family has taken full advantage of this generous proposal from our company and it pleases me to know that I am leveraging our family giving.

I would like to suggest to residents who plan to give to the relief efforts to check with their employers to see if they have a similar program at their place of work or if their company is considering setting up a matching plan. We need to encourage our employers to follow Applied Materials lead; matching donations do make a big difference and make their employees proud to be part of a company that cares.

Kathleen King

Mayor, Saratoga
Canyon View Drive

'A year to remember
at 'Oak Street School'

I hear Saratoga Elementary School is celebrating its 150th anniversary this school year. I attended "Oak Street School" in sixth grade in 1970­71. It was one of my most memorable years in school.

Marv Steinberg was the principal and what a wonderful human being he was (I'd love to get a hold of him and thank him myself). What a caring and patient mentor he was. I also have fond memories of childhood friends like Dave Marino, Steve Geiszler, Jan Smith and Steve Swanson.

I remember the manzanita bushes we planted as part of the Ecology Club that year. Every time I come back home to Saratoga to visit my mother, Harriet Johnson, I drag my wife and daughters past the school to point them out. Of course, I was saddened to hear that the manzanita bushes were taken out recently. Not to worry. I'll keep boring my family with the story of where the manzanita bushes used to be.

Anyway, congratulations to Saratoga School for its 150 years. I was there for just one year, but it has remained with me my whole life.

Scott Johnson

Boulder, Col.

Letter writer's beliefs
have caused problems

Apparently, Elaine Hocker believes that a double standard exists in our "liberal" public education system, and she uses the following argument to make her case: Redwood Middle School students are being educated about the Islamic faith, while a fundamentalist Christian—masquerading as an educator in the Cupertino Union School District—was told to stop reading George Washington's prayer journal to his students.

Ms. Hocker proposes that the best solution to this problem would be for the good citizens of Cupertino to take matters into their own hands and grab their torches and pitchforks and head straight for City Hall. Ms. Hocker adds:

"Assuming there are still some Cupertino churches that have not progressed to the Pagan state of having sexual orgies on their altars or casting their babies into the red hot arms of some stone idol, then these church members should immediately take action to recall all of the Cupertino school board trustees, and have the superintendent and school principal dismissed."

One wonders (winces?) at just exactly what Ms. Hocker would be teaching our students were she given the chance to do so.

I can only assure Ms. Hocker that we "liberal teachers" don't want to "blot-out" her conservative viewpoints as she so accuses us of doing. Quite the contrary, we educators always endeavor to shed the full light of day on such viewpoints so that our students can see and understand them for what they really are: Dangerously bogus ideologies based on ancient and dilapidated fairy tales.

We teachers explain to our students, for example, that it was Ms. Hocker's brand of Christian fundamentalism—like all other fundamentalist facile beliefs in the unexplained and unresearched—which have, over the last few millennia, brought the world nothing but incalculable misery, grief and woe. We explain to our students that it was Ms. Hocker's brand of Christian fundamentalism which brought us the Salem witch trials, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, centuries of institutionalized slavery, the Ku Klux Klan (not to mention David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh).

We explain to our students—wherever and whenever appropriate and/or necessary—that what Ms. Hocker and her born-again friends share with other fundamentalists is their boundless capacity to hate. Just like fundamentalist Islamic ideologues who doggedly adhere to religious misinterpretations every bit as silly and dangerous as Ms. Hocker's, Christian fundamentalists are blinded by their own bigotry and hatred. Just like Christian fundamentalists, Muslim fundamentalists long to impose their own unrealistic and intolerant pseudo-Calvinist morality on the rest of the world.

The fact of the matter is, Ms. Hocker and the rest of America's right-wing religious fanatics have much more in common with Al Qaeda than they are willing to admit. Just like Al Qaeda, Christian fundamentalists hate the same things and the same people: homosexuality, pacifists, Jews, educators, uppity women, art, enlightenment, short skirts, gangsta rap, tattoos, infidels, OB-GYN doctors, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, etc. Just like Muslim fundamentalist fanatics, Christian fundamentalist fanatics believe that they are right, and everyone else is wrong. Just like fundamentalist Muslim religious fanatics, fundamentalist Christian religious fanatics have just enough religion to hate, but not enough to love.

Fortunately, not all Christians are psychotic, and not all Muslims are as seriously whacked as Osama bin Laden.

Bart Giamatti, former president of Yale University, had this to say on the matter of how our children are educated: "A liberal education is at the heart of a civil society, and at the heart of a liberal education is the act of teaching." The reason why "Let there be light" is so boldly displayed on the great seal of the University of California and "Veritas" (meaning "truth" in Latin) is emblazoned so prominently on the seal of Harvard University is because knowledge and truth is what a liberal education is all about—not superstition and fairy tales.

Todd Dwyer

Teacher, Saratoga High School