Novel ideas
Telling stories is as old as the human race. Parents tell them to children, elders to youngsters, novelists to readers, even doctors to patients and judges to defendants. It’s a way of reaching deep inside the other person — getting through those emotional filters like fear or ignorance or stereotyping that can all stand in the way.
The earliest stories I can recall are about a God who loves me, but at the same time keeps an attentive eye on me. But as the years and the books accumulate, simple stories seem to require more complex elaborations. As to this God thing, our scientists have been working ever harder ever since about the 17th century to add some important empirical footnotes to the old Judaic-Christian stories, which makes perfectly good sense. As we assemble more historical, archaeological and psychological expertise, it’s time to revisit our simple stories with our new advantages. And so the seekers among us read new studies, attend new seminars and pore over the increasingly popular magazine pages and TV hours devoted to what modern science can tell us about our actual origins and purposes on this planet.
But here’s the snag: Saying that empirical evidence is what is required to justify this term “actual” seems to be saying only the what-is-here-and-testable natural can verify the what-is-unseen supernatural. This almost sounds like the child has to be a parent to understand what the parent’s stories are saying to him.
Instead, how about this? How about a God (creative-force, higher-power, cosmic-energy, whatever) trying to communicate the staggering realities associated with an all-powerful cosmic entity to mortals who have barely any idea about the cosmic? Say like Dad trying to explain to 10-year-old Suzie the facts-of-life.
Where do you begin? With a story . . .
— Jack Spatafora, Park Ridge
Legalize the drugs
This is in response to “In search of peace: How can we stop the mayhem?” (Commentary, July 28), by Tribune columnists Dennis Byrne and Eric Zorn. This piece about stopping the violence should have emphasized ending the war on drugs as the logical solution to a large part of the violence.
Drugs are dangerous substances and that is the very reason that the government should regulate and control them, not simply make them illegal and let criminals control the market. The war on drugs has wasted more taxpayers’ dollars and ruined more lives than alcohol prohibition, yet ending this conspicuous infringement on numerous civil rights is still not even on the table as a solution to curtailing the violence plaguing Chicago.
Legalize the drugs and the gangs can’t make as much money. Legalize the drugs and gangs can’t fight over drug-dealing turf wars. Legalize the drugs and children won’t be able to get them because sellers will be asking for age verification. Legalize the drugs and purity and potency levels will be measured, thus preventing many overdoses. Legalize the drugs and allow responsible citizens to do what they want with their minds and bodies.
— Dan Linn, Chicago
Treatment options for autism
This is in response to the recent Chicago Tribune news article “Supplement to come off the market; Product FDA called ‘unapproved drug’ is popular in autism cases” (News, July 27).
You have once again provided a vital public service by informing readers about the shortcomings of pseudo-scientific treatments for autism, in this case OSR#1.
Parents of children with autism are bombarded with treatment options, often to the point of confusion.
There is an urgent need to promote effective, science-based autism treatment.
And we commend the Tribune for taking a watchdog role against unproven and potentially dangerous interventions.
We agree that for parents, pseudo-scientific claims about these treatments raise false hopes, deplete limited financial resources and divert attention from treatments with a scientific record of effectiveness.
Thank you again for your commitment to raising awareness about autism interventions.
— Hannah Hoch, Media Review Committee
— Daniel W. Mruzek, board member
— Association for Science in Autism Treatment, Flushing, N.Y.
Discrimination in school sports
Kudos to the Chicago Park District, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and their staffs who provided the opportunity for eight athletes with visual impairments and eight athletes with physical disabilities to train and qualify for and compete in the 26th Annual National Junior Disability Championships recently at Deerfield and Lake Forest High Schools with strong support from World Sport Chicago, the title sponsor of the event.
NJDC consists of competitions in the Paralympic sports of track and field, archery, table tennis, weightlifting and swimming for boys and girls ages 6 to 21 with a variety of causes and manifestations of visual and physical disabilities.
Most of the older competitors are college students while many of the high-school-age competitors have college in their futures.
More than 300 young people from 34 states competed in the weeklong event.
The 16 CPD and RIC competitors are Chicago Public Schools students who vividly demonstrate to the community that given the opportunity to train and compete in sport, they can be among the best in the country and possibly earn the opportunity to represent the U.S. in world championships or Paralympic Games in the future.
One can only imagine how much more credit these CPS students could bring to CPS and Chicago if CPS, through its coaches, would aggressively recruit them to train and compete with their home high schools during the Illinois High School Association sports seasons and urge them to train and compete with the CPD and RIC teams during the off-season just like they do for these athletes’ peers.
There are hundreds of boys and girls in the Chicago Public Schools with physical disabilities or visual impairments whose athletic abilities are waiting to be tapped by coaches who are truly dedicated to young people regardless of the students’ socioeconomic status and presence or absence of a disability and to the sports they want everyone to benefit from.
Ultimately we want all of our CPS students to become independent, self-determined, taxpaying adults.
Let’s continue to make Chicago the most accessible city in the country by aggressively recruiting potential Paralympians to CPS sports programs.
The last vestiges of institutionalized and socially acceptable discrimination toward people with disabilities are present in high school and elementary school sports programs.
Let’s destroy these attitudinal barriers and get these boys and girls involved for their sakes and ours as a society.
— Robert J. Szyman, assistant professor, Chicago State University
