Haulers trash Glenn Highway

I suppose everyone has noticed how much trash, especially plastic etc., is seen along the Glenn Highway as you leave town for Eagle River. Doubtless people also note that when you get to Eagle River there is very little roadside litter.

Now I always thought that was because the folks in Eagle River are neater. But as I recently followed a trash-hauling truck, many pieces of lightweight garbage were blown out of the truck through good-sized gaps between the box and screen cover. I hate to give up my favorable view of my neighbors, but the evidence is pretty good that the majority of the garbage uncovered by the melting snow actually came from trash trucks.

How about asking the trash haulers to volunteer as litter pickers for the first five miles of the Glenn Highway.

-- George S. Rhyneer

Eagle River

Bear control is common sense

I'd love a return to the common sense practice of putting people's safety over bears as advocated by Larry Kaniut (" 'Los Anchorage' is too soft on bears," April 20). And I have similar anecdotal evidence.

Bear sightings have increased dramatically and dangerously in the neighborhood that lies one-third of a mile from the Seward Highway where I've lived since the 1960s. Please get rid of some of the bears and some of the moose that attract them.

-- Kathy Burgoyne

Anchorage

King salmon burden is unequal

The Sportfish Division of ADF&G has closed the Deshka River to the retention of kings all but three days a week. What should the commercial department do to share the burden of conservation?

By their own admission before the Board of Fish, commercial fishing is the most effective means of harvesting large numbers of salmon. It seems logical to me that if the less effective means of harvesting salmon (sport fishing) has been heavily restricted due to concerns over not making the escapement, then the most efficient means should also be restricted.

The best available science shows that roughly 30 percent of the Northern District chinook catch is Deshka-bound kings. That is the science to use in management of the fishery.

The Board of Fish reiterated at the April meeting in Anchorage that ADF&G has an expanded emergency order authority to prevent overharvest of weak runs. It is now time to make that call, ADF&G. As it stands now, sport fishermen are shouldering the entire burden.

-- Steve Runyan

Willow

School statistics misleading

The Thomas Friedman column of April 24 ("School failures hit us all in the wallet") contains a major error that has been repeated for 20 or 30 years. He states that U.S. high school students place 24th worldwide in science, and 25th in math behind such countries as Canada, Netherlands, Korea and Australia. But it's apples to oranges.

Except for the U.S. and Canada, other nations in the world don't have a school system structured as K-12. Denmark has a K-6 structure. Based on tests, a chunk of the graduating 6th graders get two more years and are then out, becoming unskilled labor. Another large chunk get four more years at a technical school, becoming skilled labor, technicians and the like. A minority (possibly 10 percent) get six more years, including four at a "gymnasium," where the focus is exclusively college-prep.

So when we compare U.S. high school students with Denmark, it's 100 percent versus top 10 percent.

Which tells me 24th in science and 25th in math is pretty darn good.

-- Bonnie Williams

Fairbanks

Officials need to represent

Most Americans are neither right-wing Republican conservatives, nor are we left- wing Democratic liberals. We are conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Most Americans fall in the middle and we need to start electing people to represent us and not their political parties.

As a representative of the people you are hired from the neck down. Your job is to go to the government, (city, county, state, or federal) and represent what the majority of the people want on any given issue. We do not want you to vote your conscience; we want you to vote our conscience.

I know what you are thinking -- based on this anybody could be a representative of the people in our government. Guess what, that is exactly how our country was meant to be run. Let us take it back.

-- Jack E. Miller