Count Again in Ohio
Widespread reports of voter intimidation and suppression, racial bias and discarded ballots prompted Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb to demand a recount of the Ohio presidential vote. Our goal in seeking a recount is to protect and restore the right to vote and to ensure that all votes are counted fairly and accurately.

In a true bipartisan display of civility and commitment to the democratic process, we've been joined in our demand by Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik. Despite having an army of lawyers and a small fortune set aside for recount efforts, Sen. John Kerry has not requested a recount in Ohio or anywhere else.

A recent Associated Press story about the Ohio recount implies a prominent role for Kerry in the recount process. The truth is that, when it comes to the Ohio recount, he's failed to report for duty.

Don't Let U.S. Be Subverted
The editorial "The Age of Reason?" issue of Dec. 8-14) was right on the mark. We also have wondered where the "sense of rage" has gone.

Perhaps it's time to consider the possibility that, as a society, we have become somewhat delusional. The last century, as we well know, produced several governments that employed illusion/delusion as a means of leading the masses.

With more than 200 years of fighting for individual freedoms in the United States, it would be a historic calamity if we joined all the other civilizations that were subverted by misguided zealots.

Hillbilly to the Core
Concerning the remarks of letter writer Chris Gast ("Intolerant and Stupid Epithet," issue of Dec. 8-14) regarding the use of the word "hillbilly" in the Straw Boss feature (Locals Only, issue of Nov. 24-30), he's right about one thing -- the Appalachian people are a much maligned group of folks. They're the last cultural group yet to be fully insulated in the stifling arms of Political Correctness, and they continue to be the butt of unbridled mockery.

A couple of years ago CBS was scouring the backwoods for an authentic "hillbilly" family to put on a reality TV series called The Real Beverly Hillbillies -- to see how many different ways the country folks could be humiliated, I suppose.

The real problem here isn't the use of the words. It's the hatred, prejudice and carelessness found behind the words and within the people who abuse them that is the problem.

I use the word hillbilly to describe the music I play, and I've been playing it for 34 years. When I started playing music, we didn't have the "benefit" of political correctness, so we had to fall back on what we called "right" and "wrong." It required a bit of extra thinking, but we did the best we could with it.

I created the soundtrack for a documentary of the migration of Appalachians from the South to Cincinnati called When Our Fields Were Streets by Peter Allison. I remember a scene where an elderly Appalachian woman was making an apple pie and she stopped and looked right at the camera and said something like, "They called us hillbillies. Well, I am a hillbilly. I'm proud to be a hillbilly!"

I think Gast is wrong to quote the words "nigger," "wop," "dego," "kike," "kraut," "mick," "muck" and "camel jockey" and declare that all have the same emotive and denotive punch. That's black-and-white thinking. The words must be given meaning based on the context in which they're used, the person using them and the spirit in which they're said. I'm of direct Irish ancestry and I don't mind so much if a guy named O'Riley calls me a mick, but I wouldn't want to hear it from a stranger.

I know the boys in Straw Boss. Similar to the elderly woman in the documentary, they use the word hillbilly as a term of endearment for the music they're proud of. The term likely came about in response to the large numbers of Appalachian mountain settlers/immigrants from England, Scotland and Ireland who were named William. The term "redneck" has been more perverted from the word said to have been originally used to describe the striking miners of the Matewan Massacre. They wore red bandannas on their necks as a sign of their affiliation.

Semantics aside, the leader of Straw Boss was born and raised in Kentucky, and if he wants to call his Rockabilly sound hillbilly music there's no malice there. Let's not add another one to the list of forbidden words. Writers, singers, actors and poets need all the words they can get. The use of some words as destructive tools is what's incorrect.

As far as I'm concerned, the way Straw Boss uses the word is changing the word hillbilly to a badge of honor. Why ban it when you can make it right?

Straw Boss is neither ignorant nor intolerant, as Gast suggests. What I propose to him, since he admits he doesn't know the members of Straw Boss, is that he go out and meet them, hear their music and introduce himself. Perhaps he can learn to be more tolerant of them. They're a good-hearted bunch of boys, and they aren't hurting a fucking thing.

Dumbing Down
Whoa, talk about rubbing salt in the wound ("Kerry Was a Liar," Letters, issue of Nov. 17-23). But it only hurt briefly. Then I remembered the British newspaper headline from Nov. 3 that went something like, "How Can 59 Million People Be So Dumb: Four More Years of Dubya."

As Clouseau used to say, the mystery is sol-ved. You take the dumbing down of America, combine it with the self-righteous dogmatism of evangelical Christendom and the hate-filled propaganda of right-wing talk radio and, presto, you get opinions like, "There were lots of good reasons to invade Iraq" and "Abortion is murder." Never mind the 100,000 or so living, breathing, walking-around human beings who've been slaughtered since the Coalition of the Willing -- pause for guffaws -- invaded Iraq.

Gift of Learning
Last week, we learned that more than half of Ohio's third-graders are already reading at proficient levels expected of them by March of this academic year. Results from the state's third-grade reading achievement test show that 54.5 percent of 127,737 students passed the test in October. While this is encouraging news, it also highlights that Ohio still has work to do to get all children ready to read at the fourth-grade level.

Too often, the students who aren't achieving at high levels are low-income students, minorities and students with disabilities. Ohio's highest priority in education is to improve achievement for all students, and I hope that during this holiday season all families will help their children continue learning and start the new year off on the right foot.

We're all busy over the holidays with festive gatherings and gift-giving. As students take a break from school, I encourage you to give the children in your life the priceless gift of time. When you dedicate your time to helping a child learn something new, you're making a world of difference in that child's future. Something as simple as reading a book, teaching measurement while making cookies or discussing the history of holiday celebrations can help young children apply what they learn in school to their life experiences.

If you want to know what your child needs to learn in every subject at every grade level, from pre-kindergarten to senior year in high school, there are free resources available for families and students on the Ohio Department of Education Web site (www.ode.state.oh.us/ families).

Learning never takes a holiday, so during this special time of year I encourage you give the gift of learning to children.