The Star's editorial board is tackling two intensely local subjects on Thursday. One involves the promise of the ACCESS distance-learning program Gov. Bob Riley began in 2005:
But this program will allow connected schools, whether they’re surrounded by the poverty of Greene or Wilcox counties or the high-income areas of Madison, Baldwin or Shelby counties, to offer advanced courses to Alabama students. The program can pay obvious dividends. One only has to listen to Riley speak of the program’s possibilities to understand his excitement. It’s an infectious joy.
The other involves the problem of a lack of regulation of faith-based programs:
But a deeper problem remains. Without tougher laws, a new clinic could open at One Day at a Time’s former site or anywhere else with virtually zero oversight. No inspections for quality of treatment. No safety inspections. Nothing but a “faith-based” label that freezes state regulators in their tracks.
On the op-ed page, columnist Jonathan Last of the Philadelphia Inquirer is putting an interesting spin on a famous World War I battle and its relation to the Iraq War:
Every drop of American blood is a precious treasure; our 3,732 dead (since March 20, 2003) should be revered. But that number is small by historical standards. People are generally familiar with the big wars: 405,399 American dead in World War II; 116,516 dead in World War I; 58,209 dead in Vietnam. But 36,574 of our soldiers died in Korea, and 13,283 died in the Mexican War. Two other wars, the War of 1812 and the Spanish-American War accumulated significant casualties (2,260 and 2,446 dead, respectively) despite involving military forces less than a tenth of the size of our current one. Between 1899 and 1902, 4,324 American soldiers died in the Philippine-American War. Perhaps they no longer teach these things in school.
We'll also have our letters to the editor and our popular Views of the World collection of international editorial cartoons.
