Illustration by Arnulfo

I have to admit all of this talk about revitalizing the economy, rebuilding Iraq, anti-porn sentiment and idiots charging onto baseball fields has made my head hurt.

Not much going on has been making sense to me. I openly wonder why pissing off most of the world and sending Islamic fundamentalist groups more recruits than ever ÷ while neglecting homeland security ÷ makes us safer? I also wonder how, in the age of corporate malfeasance, giving rich crooks even more money that they will never spend helps create more jobs for the average American?

Every time I turn around it seems like our terror alert status has been updated from fuchsia to bloodshot or some other color designed to hold Americans in fear.

I'm looking for a little bit of that so-called "moral clarity" I've been hearing so much about this last year.

Bill Wetzel

Well, I would like to thank our Democratic local Congressman Raul Grijalva for helping me regain at least some faith in our nation's elected officials. In yesterday's Tucson Citizen, Grijalva wrote a guest column detailing his involvement in the American Parity Act, which is a bill put together by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). The basic premise of this bill is to match on the domestic front the funding President Bush has allotted to rebuilding Iraq. This will give an infusion of life to our country's floundering domestic programs and, unlike those tax cuts that never work, will help resuscitate the economy.

As of now, this will impact four major areas: housing, health care, major infrastructure and education. For the purposes of this column, I'm going to focus on education.

In Iraq, Bush has promised to provide books and supplies for 12,500 schools and money to renovate or rebuild 25,000 schools. Bush funding will allow for resources to enroll 4 million Iraqi children. This is all good news and a wonderful concept for the people of Iraq, but, by contrast, Americans are going in the wrong direction. The lack of Bush funding will eliminate 28,000 children from Head Start programs. There will be no funds for school modernization and teacher-quality programs will undergo a 10 percent reduction.

This brings to mind two major concerns for Arizona citizens. First, as part of the Arizona universities' "Changing Directions" campaign, UA will likely be granted more control when selecting students for admission down the road. In return, UA promises to back up the criteria with a world-class education. The idea is that through all our program mergers and streamlining, the end result will be a stronger academic institution and a better community to be actively involved in.

Now, none of this could ever truly come into fruition if Arizona public education does not reciprocate that same dedication to young students coming up through their school systems. Without the funding to do so, they will not be able to honor that commitment.

Another major concern comes in the form of racial and ethnic education.

As I mentioned in my Jan. 31 column, the Tucson Unified School District has implemented four discernible ethnic studies departments, including African-American, Pan-Asian-American, Native American and Mexican-American/Raza.

These programs are necessary to not only help minority students gain self-enrichment and academic success, but to raise public awareness as well. There hasn't been a true attack on racial injustice since the activist movements of the 1960s. With lack of proper funding, fledgling minority programs are the first to be weakened or axed by desperate administrators who have no choice but get rid of whatever they can in order to balance a paltry budget.

The last thing our country needs is more misinformed and ignorant people running around our streets, that's for sure.

So with the American Parity Act, Congressman Grijalva and the other sponsors are looking to help the people who voted for them while also fulfilling the obligations we have in Iraq. This is not a case of greed, hidden agendas and treachery, but one of entitlement. The American public should not be less entitled than the Iraqi people when it comes to housing, health care, infrastructure and education.

We should be outraged at the lack of respect our administration has shown us.