Regarding the editorial "Adults Only: The Business of Air Traffic Control Isn't Child's Play" (March 10): I'm quite insulted by the quick judgment and uneducated attacks the media blitz find the time to comment on.

The airline/air traffic control industry is multifaceted and extremely complicated to which no news editor should have the gall to freely comment on with such disregard to the system. Flying an airplane is not the same as clearing an airplane to take off, and comparing a crash of a 300,000-pound Russian airliner due to an unsupervised kid at the controls flying over the mountains of Russia in 1994 to an air traffic controller's very specific and focused command of a youth at a slow time of day at a U.S. airport is ridiculous and irresponsible.

"One of America's Great Newspapers" should be offering insight and education about aviation, not instilling your own personal fears and mongering the hype behind this story. I challenge you to find the concern or discomfort in the voices of the pilots on the tape. In the verbal exchange between experts in their field, the well-qualified pilots at low-cost/high-frills JetBlue Airways and global dominating Delta Airlines comment with fun and professional understanding.

The Federal Aviation Administration is reacting to pressure from an uneducated media's perceived danger of the event, not the reality of it. This news item proves to me that education is key to be able to see beyond editors publishing such an extreme opinion and to sensationalize a story in order to sell newspapers or build ratings for their "news" programs.

BRENDAN CONNOLLY
Eighty Four
The writer is a captain for a U.S. airline.

A real distraction

Children in air traffic control towers ... harmless and cute? Were the children in the tower for an entire shift? If so, who was supervising these children for the shift? I don't know any elementary-aged child who would be content to sit on their father's lap for an entire shift.

Children are a distraction, not only to the father who was being paid to give his full attention to the job, but to other air traffic controllers. This practice has been going on for years, and it is time for the FAA to correct this. It is not just this one controller at this one tower on these two days.

It doesn't instill confidence that someone responsible for the safety of others could also be trying to entertain a child at the same time. A bus driver would not be permitted to do this, or a firefighter, or a crossing guard. Even day-care personnel are not permitted to bring their own child to watch while they are caring for other children.

Air traffic controllers shouldn't be permitted to bring a child to work!

ANN MARTIN
Dormont

The criminal element

I would say this to letter writer Bruno Del Signore of Whitehall ("Laws Reflect Times," March 10):

I will give up my right to own guns if he can assure me that all the criminals who own them illegally will also give them up. I am willing to bet that most of the murders committed in 2006 were done by these criminals.

Only a fool would give up his or her right to bear arms.

LARRY COWAN
Murrysville

Solid foundation

At the beginning of each semester and after meeting with my new, bright, motivated and well-mannered university students, I always pause and mentally thank their K-12 teachers.

In light of all their challenges: large classes, reduced budgets, unsupportive administrations and often lack of parental support, I applaud them for their many successful students and their achievements.

Their students arrive in my classroom prepared and eager to work, have excellent communication skills, are polite and realize the importance of high grades and the value of a higher education.

Thank you, teachers, for passing on to me motivated and success-oriented individuals. I will continue your work as these students become our next generation's leaders.

WILLIAM F. REPACK
Professor
Robert Morris University School of Business
Moon

Cobble that hobbles

As a professional woman who has worked in the PPG complex for the last four years, I have observed the previous year's renovation of Market Square and eagerly anticipated the completion of the project this spring. On a recent trip through the still-being-constructed square, I noticed that the horrible, uneven cobblestone that used to line the Square has been replaced with ... even more horrible, uneven cobblestone.

I'm aware that the aesthetic of the renovated square is designed to resemble a European-style plaza, I'm disappointed that practicality didn't play a larger role in choosing materials. The cobblestone is -- and has been -- a source of both inconvenience and danger for women walking on shoes with heels through the square. Ankle-twisting, stuck or broken heels and stumbling or tripping are just a few of the potential landmines that the cobblestone can cause, leaving many women with no choice but to walk around the perimeter of the square (where there is much smoother brick) or change shoes before venturing outside.

With the undoubtedly thousands of professional women who walk through Market Square on a daily basis, it's unfortunate that our needs weren't more carefully considered during the design phase. I'm still looking forward to the completion of the project -- and have high hopes for a new, beautiful Market Square. But it's a shame I'll have to continue adjusting my trips around the square -- or wardrobe -- for safety.

LESLEY SILLAMAN
Monroeville

Mass transit a bust

What are we thinking? Wasn't it just a few years ago we wanted to build a monorail that would go several blocks for millions of dollars? Then we just had to consider a high-speed train to go from Greensburg to the Pittsburgh airport for mega-million dollars.

When will we learn our lesson? Whenever you get into a government project with the federal government, or even the state, they only pick up the starting costs and leave you all the overruns and the operating budgets. If there are unforeseen or unintended consequences you get stuck with the bag and the bill.

Show me a mass transit system that isn't under water profit-wise. I will bet there are fewer than 5 percent of all public mass transit systems that are not broke. I will also bet that any that make a profit cannot pay the losses of the systems that are failing. Let's face it folks, mass transit is a bust.

ARNIE ESPOSITO
Upper St. Clair

For real progress in the inner city, fathers must be part of kids' lives

It is unfortunate that Tony Norman's message in "Police Reform Requires Community Reform" (March 12 column) likely was lost on some readers who disgustedly dismissed his piece as "just one more" liberal harangue against the police. In fact, Mr. Norman makes abundantly clear that random urban violence is "not a problem that typically wears a cop's badge" and that the main culprit lies in the community.

Mr. Norman suggests facetiously that cameras not only be placed in police cars but "in every home to make sure the television is off and homework is getting done."

But even that ignores the elephant in the room that might just be the single greatest threat to our nation's well-being and security: the staggering explosion of fatherless households in the inner city that started in the 1960s. Every serious study conducted on the subject draws an unmistakable correlation between the absence of fathers and a host of social pathologies, including serious criminality, teen pregnancy and poor educational performance.

It is a problem well-intentioned social engineers unwittingly fostered by helping to turn the inner city into a cistern of dependency and hopelessness. President Barack Obama has said that the absence of a father "leaves a hole in a child's heart that government can't fill."

It's time to stop focusing on the peculiarities like the Jordan Miles incident and start figuring out how to correct the real problem. If the median wealth of single black women is, in fact, $5, as recently reported in this newspaper ("Study Finds That Median Wealth for Single Black Women at $5," March 9), no one can plausibly suggest that the War on Poverty, with its billions pumped into social programs, has been anything but a failure for the inner city. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to give fathers incentives to remain part of their children's lives.

TIM MURRAY
Pleasant Hills

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