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Vote for November's letter of the month

 
Published Nov. 30, 2015

Editor's note: Letters to the editor offer a significant contribution to the discussion of public policy and life in Tampa Bay. To recognize some of that work by our most engaged readers, the Times will select a letter of the month and the writers will be recognized at the end of the year. We will choose the finalists each month based on relevance on topical issues, persuasiveness and writing style. The writer's opinion does not need to match the editorial board's opinion on the issue to be nominated. But clarity of thinking, brevity and a sense of humor certainly help.

Help us choose the letter of the month for November by reading through the three nominated letters and voting on the ballot at the bottom of the web page.

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Not all comfortable with church as school partner | Nov. 16

Volunteers bring mentoring, love

You recently printed an article on the partnership between Idlewild Baptist Church and the Hillsborough school system, followed by an opinion column. Both suggested that this relationship between church and school may be too close and that the church may be stepping over the line of separation.

Here is what is really going on.

I have been a volunteer at Just Elementary for five years. I am a nonreligious liberal Democrat. Perhaps the only volunteers that Just has are the ones who come from Idlewild and me. I have been with these volunteers when they organize a party for the students. They bring presents — not Bibles and crosses but basketballs and dolls. I have seen the heartfelt letters written by the students to these volunteers thanking them for their gifts, their mentoring and their love. I have seen no instances of religious teaching from these dedicated men and women. I have seen only caring, concern and love.

My challenge to the Hillsborough community is this. If you are so worried about separation of church and school, do something about it. Just Elementary is only one school that had critical needs. Go out and buy sweatshirts, shoes, books. Take them to a school near you. Go into the administration office and sign up to mentor a student. In the meantime, remember to say thank you to those many volunteers from Idlewild who do just that.

Patty Kaptzan, Tampa

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Treatments extend life | Oct. 31, letter

Consult your doctor on treatment

This letter offers a viewpoint that contributes to endless amounts of needless suffering in patients across the country. It presumes to advise innumerable patients with whom the writer has zero experience on how to make end-of-life decisions. The arguments are specious and the conclusions are harmful.

For one thing, no practitioners in the field of hospice and palliative care are "serving utilitarian goals of others" or are "taking hope from tens of thousands of critically ill patients." Rather, they are advising folks to discuss what the patients and the families themselves want by sitting down with (hopefully) their family physicians whom they trust and whom they have known for a long time or, at the least, with a specialist in the disease processes, treatment outcomes and expected side effects of whatever medical condition the patient is suffering from.

Second, while it is true that many lives have been saved from aggressive medical treatment, many lives have not been so prolonged or have been marginally prolonged at a great physical and emotional cost. There are many end-stage medical conditions in which the treatments produce side effects worse than the disease itself and which, in return for that misery, extend life for only a few weeks. As a hospice nurse, I have seen cases in which the patient wanted to stop treatment but did not because the family shamed him (or her) into continuing because otherwise "they wouldn't be fighting strongly enough."

And sometimes, as I have also seen, patients consciously choose, in direct opposition to the letter's advice, to have a few final weeks of alert, pain-free palliative care over the unremitting nausea, constipation, limb swelling and lethargy caused by chemotherapy (as one example), further burdened by daily visits to a doctor, in exchange for the few extra days of existence they might gain.

That's why the advice — "Embrace life; medicine can help you; and make sure your families give you a chance to recover from illness" — can cause untold damage. Medicine cannot always help you. Recovery is not always possible. Please reject the letter's blanket advice and discuss the situation with your own doctors.

Michael Zwerdling, Palm Harbor

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Guns on campus

Emotional powder keg

In response to the pending legislation allowing concealed weapons on college campuses, I have questions for members of the Florida Legislature: Did any of you go to college? If so, did you ever encounter drinking games, childish behavior, verbal exchanges between rival fraternities or visiting athletic teams, and the general angst that comes with being a young, inexperienced adult on your own for the first time?

Now try to imagine the next Florida-Florida State game (or any other rivalry) with students allowed to pack heat at tailgate parties, frat parties, etc. Common sense dictates that such a scenario is a recipe for disaster. In the name of what? Second Amendment rights, or more political contributions?

I have a daughter who's a freshman at USF, and the thought of her having to deal with some drunken idiot allowed to carry a weapon on campus keeps me awake at nights. To my elected officials: How well will you sleep at night after the first student dies as a result of your cowardice?

Gregory Premer, St. Pete Beach