Letters, 4/27: Statistics mean little

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Once again, Roger Conrad has attempted to justify the U.S. presence in Iraq (Community Column, LJS, April 19). This time he spouts numbers as if he got them on sale at Wal-Mart. Something interesting about all those numbers, though. If you add them and divide by 47 you get 4,475. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing, just like his 4,600 people who died from choking. (I was almost victim 4,601 trying to absorb the meaning of all that!) This diversionary maneuver is a smokescreen that clouds, not clarifies.

He does give passing acknowledgment to the 4,000-plus who have lost their lives. However, he fails to mention that for those lives there are mothers, fathers, wives, children, brothers and sisters who also have been permanently affected. Put those numbers “into perspective.”

According to Conrad, the average monthly number of military deaths decreased, ostensibly because of the surge, from 92.25 to 38.75. I’m sure that provides only average comfort to the families of those who died during this period.

He blithely dismisses the obscene monetary cost of the war as, “unfortunately, in the billions” (didn’t have space for all those zeros, I guess). But this is justified as the “price … of a freely elected … democracy in the heart of the Islamic world.” Good luck keeping that church/state separation intact!

I commend Conrad for his service to our country. His repeated attempts to justify our current presence in Iraq, especially with cold, irrelevant statistics, are contrary to this service.

Larry McClung, Lincoln

Benefits of flood control

In response to Roy E. Swanson’s letter (LJS, April 21), we wanted to provide some additional information on flood control benefits of the project. The Natural Resources District’s Stevens Creek Project includes 10 flood control dams east of Lincoln. For each dam, the NRD purchased easements for flood control only, leaving land-use decisions to the landowner and zoning regulations.

The nine completed dams are far enough away from Lincoln’s future growth area that most have no development and only a couple of them have acreage development occurring at this time. The 10th dam, now called Waterford Estates Dam, is nearing completion northeast of 98th and O.

Because of annexation just prior to the NRD acquiring land rights, the landowners negotiated to redesign the dam and create an “urban lake” that also provides flood control benefits. At the NRD’s insistence, all additional costs were paid by the landowners, and the redesigned dam provides the same amount of flood control benefits.

Flooding has been a problem in the watershed, and the capacity of the Waterford Estates Dam was increased from a 100-year design to be able to handle a 500-year runoff event, similar to Holmes Lake Dam. After a 100-year rainfall, the lake level will rise 7.5 feet and then slowly recede after the flooding has subsided, reducing flooding downstream.

The NRD operates and maintains the Waterford Estates Dam, while the landowners will maintain the lake, shoreline, silt removal and determine if they pump their wells to keep their lake full during dry conditions.

The NRD is also concerned about how pumping of these wells or other irrigation wells in the vicinity might impact the local groundwater resources and the many domestic wells on Lincoln’s edge. We are hopeful that pumping will be managed properly by all well owners, including those at Waterford Estates.

Ron Case, Lincoln, chairman, Lower Platte South Natural Resources District

Felons in the military?

I read the news brief in the April 22 edition of the Journal Star stating: “The Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions. Data released by a congressional committee show the numbers of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.” 

My question is: With all of the trouble being attributed to sex/murder crimes being committed by our service personnel in foreign countries such as Japan and Iraq, how can the services enlist these felons? In most states, sex offenders cannot live/work/relax within 1,000 to 2,000 feet of schools,  parks, etc. Does being a member of the military allow these exceptions?

If our country is so pressed for personnel, maybe it would be prudent to return to a national draft rather than to continue what they are doing in an escalating manner.

Robert D. Crampton, Lincoln

Don’t unionize UNL faculty

As a full-time University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor who worked previously at a unionized university in California, I find that I must disagree with the union advocacy position expressed recently by Professor Steve Bradford in the April 23 Lincoln Journal Star.

The Lincoln Journal Star article compares faculty raise percentages for the four NU campuses but does not compare the faculty averages or workloads at each campus. For example, most faculty members at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and at Omaha still earn less than their average peers at UNL, and they teach more classes with fewer resources.

UNL faculty members bring in significantly more external research funds than these those at other campuses, which has allowed UNL to build world-class research facilities that generate more grant funding. Faculty members are rewarded for their performance and initiative, not for their seniority and union membership. For these reasons, no major research university in the United States has a unionized faculty.

The Journal Star reports that the average UNL faculty salary is $83,000. Practically no professors in the humanities or arts will ever earn this annual amount. Engineering, science, medicine and business faculty earn much more. The irony of the article is that Professor Bradford is a member of the College of Law faculty. The average law school salary in 2004 was $115,000 annually.

Unions have had a devastating effect on the quality of university education. In California, New Jersey and other states, unionized universities are forced to cut operating and instructional budgets just to pay higher salaries to fewer employees.

Student tuition in California has close to doubled in the past few years. And just look at what public employee union contracts have done to the budget of the city of Lincoln.

For the quality of our students’ education, and for the respect of the taxpayers of Nebraska, please do not support this very destructive position.

Ed Forde, Lincoln

Half isn’t good enough

Good grief! Government officials “justifiably were pleased” that a tiny bit over half the respondents to a poll say they are “satisfied” with local government and  “think officials can be trusted.”

What business would be pleased with half of its customers being trusting and satisfied? This is a fair question, because most public and private organizations have been convinced they should act as businesses these days.  

I agree that it’s a good idea to seek our input and that there were questions whose answer options were silly and useless. I hope respondents didn’t think the poll was taking a vote to determine what the city will do. Of course, many respondents select “other options” over paying more taxes to have the services we need.

Let’s hope that our decision-makers consider the information they get and then have the guts to do what they were elected or appointed to do. I expect them to make decisions in the best interest of all of us for the short- and long-term, whether that means tax increases or not. (I expect that it will, don’t you?)

Judith M. Gibson, Lincoln