Trying To Make Sense

Of The Spin

To the Editor:

Do you often scratch your head in reaction to how the media puts their spin on the news reports so that they can influence and eventually control your ability to think critically? Maybe some of us do not care because we do not bother with news reports. But some of us who are trying to be objective in our assessment of what is happening in terms of how recent overseas events are impacting the future direction of our country may realize that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the real facts since this would prove to disadvantage to the current administration in face the upcoming election.

As we try to make sense out of all this “spin reporting,” we then get the results of the latest polling by Gallup, Marist, networks, newspapers, all of which try to show how voters feel about the candidates. But is it important to gauge how people feel? Is it not obvious that many of us think and know that the current situation is “a disaster” that becomes obvious when we see gas prices at over $4, the cost of food and services, our local/state taxes on the increase, our savings and equity in peril, our ability to compete in the global market diminished because we have lost the great manufacturing position to outsourcing and emerging industrial countries.

And some of these emerging countries like Singapore, South Korea, and others have an educational system that gives good return of the investment they make in education. We who spend close to $11,000 per student find our students perform poorly on these international tests that compare reading, math, science scores. A recent report out of Harvard concludes that many of our high school students who enter college have not developed the necessary language skills. The increase incidents of students cheating at even prestigious colleges may be a poor solution to a larger deficiency in the current model of education. But at a certain point we have to make a calculation of what all this means at this point in our history. Do not take all this for granted. Think before you vote.

Rudy Magnan

60 Watkins Drive, Sandy Hook                           September 18, 2012