Debate goes beyond dissection to how pets were treated when alive

It is certainly an unusual Tucson business – one that sells vacuum-packed dead cats: $44 for one or 10 for $415.

The company, which doesn’t kill the cats but buys them from shelters where the felines were euthanized, supplies the animals to be dissected by medical students.

And although the business tries to keep a low profile, a recent report by a national animal rights group criticized its operations and has led to death threats against the firm’s president.

The company is Delta Biological, which is based in Tucson and operates out of a couple of unsigned buildings in an industrial area on Tucson’s South Side.

Peter Reinthal, president of the company, said Delta does everything possible to ensure the dead cats it buys were treated and euthanized humanely.

But a new report “Dying to Learn” by the American Anti-Vivisection Society on the use of live and dead dogs and cats in classrooms, says that because Delta buys dead cats from Mexican pounds, it can’t be sure how they were treated or killed.

It wouldn’t be necessary to bring dead cats in from Mexico if the Pima Animal Care Center would sell the cats it euthanizes instead of burying them, says Reinthal.

He won’t say how many dead cats his company sells, but says the 6,000 stray and unwanted ones that Pima County euthanized last year would more than supply the company’s annual needs.

“They would rather have them go into the landfill than use them for educational purposes,” Reinthal said.

It’s not a very pleasant debate and it’s based almost entirely on emotion. The cats already are dead, so why not use them to teach medical students?

The Anti-Vivisection Society says there are alternatives to using live and dead dogs and cats for teaching – alternatives used by almost half of the nation’s medical schools.

And Delta’s “practice of obtaining cats from Mexico for sale in the United States is questionable,” according to the Dying to Learn report.

American animal shelters hold stray cats longer before euthanizing them than shelters in Mexico, said Laura Ducceschi, director of Animalearn, the educational division of the Anti-Vivisection Society.

And Mexican euthanasia methods are often “a lot more inhumane,” she said.

Ducceschi said she has “significant concerns” about Delta’s operations, adding, “The average student doesn’t really know they are dissecting a cat that may have been treated inhumanely in Mexico.”

Not so, responds Reinthal. All of the dead cats sold by Delta “are obtained legally and euthanized under guidelines of the American Veterinary Council,” he said. “We make sure our sources are 100 percent legal and ethical.”

But the issue is far larger than how the cats were cared for and how they were euthanized.

“They have a definite biased slant,” Reinthal said of the Anti-Vivisection Society. “They are out to promote their political agenda.”

Ducceschi doesn’t disagree, saying her group is opposed to “trading animal cadavers for profit.”

In addition to cats, Delta sells dead pigeons, fish, grasshoppers, mink, rabbits, rats and fetal pigs as well as various invertebrates such as jellyfish and sponges.

Reinthal says he doesn’t want to get involved in the political discussion about whether dissecting such creatures is necessary to properly train students.

“I’m not pro-dissection or anti-dissection,” he said, adding that students should have the option of not taking part in dissections.

But because the issue is so politically charged, Delta doesn’t advertise its location. Its plain white building has only a small “Office” sign on the door. In a compound enclosed by a fence topped with barbed wire, there are scores of drums of chemicals. A keypad is required to enter.

After Delta was identified in the Dying to Learn report, Reinthal received a half-dozen e-mailed threats. One, filled with obscenities, threatened to “cut you open and see what you look like and peel your skin off. . . . I wish I could send people to kill you hurting animals is wrong.”

Reinthal turned the threats over to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, but it’s not clear if anything will be done.

When I first heard about Delta’s business, I was shocked. I hesitate to kill bugs and I carry spiders outside, so selling dead cats seemed disgusting.

But is it less disgusting to throw those dead cats in a landfill when a medical student may be able to learn something from it?

I wish there was an easy answer.

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. He may be reached by e-mail at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or by calling 573-4662.

The New York Yankees were reported to be embarrassed about the empty $2,000-per-seat section. It’s been a rude awakening. When the tickets were priced last year, the Yankees had no idea the New Yorkers who could afford them were running Ponzi schemes from laptop computers in their home offices.

The President slashed Chrysler’s ad budget in half. This is his area of expertise. Barack Obama told the automaker it didn’t need $100 million in advertising if the company can just run a few negative ads in Iowa and get Chris Matthews on its side.

President Obama will address the Arab world from Egypt in two weeks. He thinks coexisting with the Muslim world depends on communication. In case he’s wrong, he will speak from behind bulletproof glass and hire local kids to start his car.

The White House released photos of Air Force One flying low over New York City. Cell phone videos showed people running through the streets in panic. The Air Force One flyover project has been renamed the President’s Project on Physical Fitness.

Roger Clemens (right) hired a publicist to battle steroid charges. Athletes have a new angle for public sympathy. Doctors say steroids will shorten your life by 30 years, but the players say they are just doing their part to keep Social Security solvent.

Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. E-mail: argus@argushamilton.com

The next time you see several Sonora license plates in the parking lot of a Tucson store, you’re seeing your taxes being cut.

The Tucson area reaped $968.7 million in direct economic benefits from July 2007 through June 2008. That’s up from $280.2 million in 2001, according to a University of Arizona study released this week.

Dollars that Mexicans spend in Tucson boost our economy and are responsible for employing many Tucsonans.

Sales and other taxes paid by those shoppers are taxes that don’t have to be collected from the rest of us.

Many complain about the problems of living close to the international border. But there is a substantial upside.

Board members and administrators of Tucson Unified School District have made a valuable discovery: When you ask for ideas on how to save money, people can be very creative.

And there is another lesson: One size definitely does not fit all. What is best for one school is not right for another – and the only way to know that is to ask people closest to the students.

Faced with the likelihood of having to make massive budget cuts, TUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen tried something very different. Instead of working with the TUSD board and her top aides to make the cuts, Fagen turned the responsibility over to individual schools.

Site councils – consisting of parents, teachers, principals and staff – were asked to propose ways of dealing with cuts of 10 percent and 18 percent. Because the Legislature is dawdling on adopting a state budget, it is not yet known how deep the education cuts will be.

There is no easy way to deal with the “smaller” cuts of “only” 10 percent. But the site councils came up with a range of ideas that show those working closest to the schools have a deep understanding of what can be eliminated if worst comes to worst.

Two schools that now share a principal with two other schools, decided they didn’t need a principal at all. The site councils at Holladay Intermediate Magnet and Richey Elementary schools decided the best way for them to cut costs was to let lower-paid assistant principals be in charge.

Other schools had other priorities. Alice Vail Middle School opted to make deep cuts to its supply budget. Counselors, librarians and monitors were endangered at all schools – yet some schools felt it was important to keep them and others did not.

Many high schools said they would do away with campus monitors and funding for fine arts.

Some cuts are troubling, such as the possible elimination of arts classes. But as long as site councils are representative of all parents and the cuts don’t eliminate programs required by the state, individual schools should be given as much latitude as possible to best meet the needs of their students.

This marks the first time that site councils have been able to make budget decisions for their own schools. And even though most of the decisions will be grim, those choices are better made by the people in the trenches, not by administrators at 1010 E. 10th St.

We hope legislators will come to their collective senses and find ways to mitigate the cuts to schools. Education must be in the top echelon of state spending responsibilities – and that can happen if lawmakers are willing to get as creative as the site councils did.

Fagen took a risk in turning such critical budget decisions over to site councils. But her confidence in those parents and teachers has been rewarded with laudable creativity.

‘How dare the Border Patrol do the job they are paid for (protecting Americans)? Just who do they think they are? I call them patriots. Keep up the good fight, BP!’ – Mr. Guillermo

The story: Business owners say a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 19 north of Tubac is killing tourism and costing millions of dollars in home sales.

Your take: Too bad.

The checkpoint is needed “to slow down the invasion,” 2161 said, adding, “Either get used to the idea or move somewhere else.”

A more-sympathetic noah 1 said, “That checkpoint should be before Rio Rico, and the Border Patrol should concentrate more on these alternate routes most of which are not even on a map.”

Added leftfield, “Let’s just blame the drug mules instead of looking at ourselves and wondering why we as a nation consume monumental quantities of drugs.”

Spirit of Zenger didn’t buy the claims that real estate sales are hurt by the checkpoint: “Lazy Realtors cannot sell houses like they did in the hot inflated market, and second, the market still stinks and will for some time.”

As to claims that the checkpoint is hurting Tubac businesses, some members of the Tucson Citizen’s online community had different thoughts.

“Maybe it’s the overpriced artwork that keeps some of us from actually stopping,” postulated RocketSmoke.

And JazzCruise wrote, “People are buying food for their families instead of the wind chimes and coyote statues offered in Tubac shops.”

MOST-VIEWED LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Tuesday, May 12

1 Cats turn to Cowboys to boost Gronkowski’s yield.

2 Tucson home prices fall 20 percent.

3 2 TUSD schools opt to go without principals to meet state budget cuts.

Billie Stanton’s column will return next Wednesday.

The L.A. Dodgers drew a giant crowd to its stadium Mother’s Day. They gave away free female fertility drugs to the first 10,000 moms. As long as they had to clean out Manny Ramirez’s locker, it seemed a shame to throw it away.

President Obama stood up at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and told jokes about himself and his family. The press walked out. They will not tolerate anyone telling jokes about Obama. They think it’s racist.

Mexico declared an end to the swine flu epidemic. People already forgot about it. When Americans realized that the Taliban were just an hour’s drive from Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, germ warfare seemed manageable.

Joan Rivers won Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” The final scene was held in the American Museum of Natural History. She and Trump had a big fight at the fossil exhibition about which one was forming a better oil pool.

Pope Benedict (right) made his first visit to Israel guarded by 80,000 officers. He told Israelis and Palestinians to find a way to get along. Next he’s going to settle that Roadrunner-Coyote thing.

The Postal Service raised stamp prices to 44 cents. It also threatened to end Saturday service if business doesn’t pick up. The government just announced that unless everyone buys a GM car, they’re going to sell them for $100,000 and they’ll only have two tires.

Keifer Sutherland faced assault charges and jail after he head-butted a fashion designer in New York. Americans love barfights. It reminds us what baseball players were like before steroid use made them too rich to interact with others.

Manny Ramirez was suspected by endocrinologists to have taken female fertility drugs to restore his testosterone level after cycling off steroids. At least that makes sense. Up till now, the L.A. Dodger’s only maternal instinct was nursing a Corona.

Argus Hamilton is host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. E-mail: argus@argushamilton.com

Questions linger on detainees who cannot be tried but are too dangerous to release

Mike Morice (center) and other members of World Can't Wait group perform a live waterboarding demonstration outside the Spanish Consulate in Manhattan last month to urge prosecution in Spain of the alleged involvement of Bush administration officials in the torture of terror suspects.

When President Obama declassified and released legal memoranda from the Department of Justice, he opened the door to a drawn-out battle over the Bush administration’s use of coercive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.

We believe that any subsequent attempts to subject those who provided such legal advice to prosecutions are a mistake. They will have a chilling effect on the candor with which future government officials provide their best counsel.

The country must move on from debates about the past, because pressing questions about U.S. detention policy in the war on terror requires us to make difficult choices – and to make them soon.

In January, the president announced via executive order that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will close within a year. The announcement was easy – but it left unanswered the hardest questions about detainee policy for the future.

How do we prosecute detainees suspected of committing war crimes now that military commissions have been suspended? How should we handle those detainees who cannot be tried, but who are too dangerous to release? Where will we house them?

How should we deal with detainees who, if released, would return to the fight against us? How do we deal with prisoners held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where some detainees captured outside Afghanistan are being held?

There are no easy answers. As senators who have struggled with these issues for years, we believe some basic principles can help us find a common path forward.

• First, do not confuse war with common criminality. The majority of detainees held at Guantanamo are not common criminals, but warriors fundamentally committed to the destruction of our way of life.

The appropriate legal foundation upon which detainee policy should be built is the law of war, along with procedures adapted from our military justice system.

• Second, military commissions remain the appropriate trial venue for these individuals. We would strenuously oppose any effort to try enemy combatants in our civilian courts.

By an overwhelming bipartisan vote in 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which set forth procedures for trying enemy combatants for war crimes.

Our domestic criminal laws – including their treatment of classified information – are ill-suited for the complex national security issues inherent in the trial of enemy combatants. We have great faith in our military justice system – appropriately modified for war crimes trials – and we believe that military judges and lawyers render fair and impartial justice not only for our troops, but for enemy combatants as well.

• Third, preventive detention will continue to have a place in the war on terror. Under the law of war, the idea an enemy combatant has to be tried or released is a false choice. Rather, it is well-established that combatants can be held off the battlefield as long as they present a military threat.

While there is little doubt that we initially cast the net too broadly in determining who merited enemy combatant status, the Department of Defense estimates nearly 1 in 10 detainees released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield.

This includes Said Ali al-Shihri (second in command of al-Qaida in Yemen), and Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, who reportedly now serves as the Taliban’s operational commander in southern Afghanistan.

We cannot let this continue.

A significant group of detainees still in custody at Guantanamo may be too dangerous to release, but they are not suitable for war crimes trials.

In these cases, a system needs to be devised in which a designated national security court, with a uniform set of standards and procedures administered by a civilian judge, hears the petitions for habeas corpus authorized by the Supreme Court, and an annual interagency review is conducted to determine whether the detainee remains a security threat to the United States.

• Fourth, we must address the detainee situation at Bagram in Afghanistan. An improved system for reviewing the need for further detention of detainees is required at Bagram – but we must not lose sight that Afghanistan is still an active theater of war and we cannot impede the ability of our Armed Forces to fight the enemy.

We are encouraged that the Department of Justice has appealed a ruling by the D.C. district court that extended habeas corpus rights to detainees held on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

In its motion, the Department of Justice argued that allowing the ruling to stand would harm our military’s ability to win the war.

• Finally, Congress must be involved in crafting detainee policy. It is critical for all branches of government to work together to develop solutions to the complex legal problems presented by this war.

We believe that the time has come to focus on these urgent issues, rather than spend the nation’s energy on the debates of the past.

We stand ready to work with President Obama to develop an enemy-combatant detention process that is transparent, provides robust due process consistent with the law of war, involves an independent judiciary, and protects us against a dangerous enemy.

The American people and the international community will see such a system not as an arbitrary exercise of power, but as an intelligent balance of due process and national security.”

John McCain is a Republican senator from Arizona. Lindsey Graham is a Republican senator from South Carolina.

Sen. John McCain

Sen. Lindsey Graham

By John McCain, Lindsey Graham

HEATHER ANNE ORDOVER

You remember – or maybe you don’t – when Fort Lowell Road took a strange jog and pretty much became a dirt strip.

When high school kids held bonfire parties at the end of Sunset Road because it was in the middle of nowhere.

When Rosita’s was open and you had to bring your own beer just to sit among buckets catching the monsoon water that trickled into the swamp-cooled, adobe restaurant.

When artist Ted De Grazia was still alive.

When driving up Mount Lemmon or over Gate’s Pass meant you were taking your life into your hands.

This is the Tucson I discovered when I moved here in 1980.

Full disclosure (don’t hate): I’m a fifth-generation Californian. Yep, there are covered wagons checkering my past.

Being a descendant of old-timers, I grew up not so much California Girl as Desert Rat. But Tucson? Tucson is special. There were hidden gems everywhere back then in this natural amphitheater of ours.

One of the worst “you’re not a kid anymore” moments for me was coming home from university to find a gas station on top of Rosita’s.

Losing that restaurant with its charmingly goofy margarine-lid frames around the (spectacular) Rosita in various costumes – all with crocheted lace edging – well, that just did me in.

For a long time, I expected Tucson would go the way of every other ‘burb and become a haven for concrete and asphalt, with no room for the Charming, the Odd or the Other.

In 2006, I moved back to Tucson permanently with my family. We’d been living in Brooklyn until some crazy people tried to drop a building (or two) on the school where I was teaching.

We moved out of the city and lasted a few more years, then decided to head west, near the grandparents and let’s face it – more security than we felt living 10 miles from a nuclear power plant.

While the kids were thrilled to be close to their grandparents, and my husband loved the desert (he tans beautifully; I only burn), I was lonely.

Oh sure, I had my family, who I get along with ridiculously well, but I had grown to adore the quirky little village (minuscule, actually) where we’d lived after escaping Brooklyn. And worse, I thought those rough edges of Tucson were all gone.

I was wrong.

One of the things I enjoyed most in New York was public transit. You can get anywhere easily, cheaply and (nowadays) safely at any time of the day or night.

One of the byproducts of that system is that you meet people you never (ever!) would have talked to otherwise.

I’m a writer and teacher – I loved that. I missed that. In fact, since I work at home, I missed speaking to adults of any kind.

And then slowly, as I found my way around again – got used to Fort Lowell being an actual road, made sense of the River/Dodge/Alvernon Master Plan and dealt with the shock of actual storm drains (rather than roads to canoe down during a monsoon), I learned two things.

First, there are still some amazingly, wonderfully quirky places here in the Old Pueblo. And second, they are populated by spectacularly interesting people who have stories to tell – and are happy to tell them to you.

Heather Anne Ordover contributes to Cast-On with Brenda Dayne, to Weavezine.com and to Spin-Off magazine, and she is the host of the long-running podcast Craftlit: A Podcast for Crafters Who Love Books. She lives, teaches, crafts, blogs and writes in her corner of the Sonoran Desert with her extremely tolerant and supportive husband, two goofball sons, their two playful dogs, and a single, mournful, blue-tongued skink. E-mail: HOrdover@mac.com

When budgets are cut, it’s easy to focus on the dollars and cents and forget that real people are affected.

That may explain why the state Legislature is moving ahead with cuts to the state Department of Economic Security – cuts that will deeply affect the lives of developmentally and mentally disabled people.

Even if legislators brush aside the human toll and look only at the finances, these are cuts that should be reversed. In the long run, Arizona taxpayers will end up spending far more if the DES budget is cut than if spending levels are maintained.

Legislators are in an unenviable position, with state spending needing to be cut by at least $3 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Some of the cuts could be avoided if lawmakers embraced a proposal by Gov. Jan Brewer to ask voters for a temporary tax increase.

Brewer seems to have backed away from the idea, but it makes sense. The alternative is eviscerating cuts that would return crucial state services to levels not seem in decades.

That’s what DES is facing.

The current budget proposal would cut about $41 million from state-funded disability programs and an additional $50 million to $60 million for long-term care for the most severely disabled.

And those cuts would come on top of a 10 percent cut to DES to balance the current year’s budget.

In a story published Tuesday in the Tucson Citizen, Jim Walsh of The Arizona Republic wrote about how the cuts would hurt 2-year-old Gabriel Saucedo, who was born without hands. With the help of a therapist from a state-funded program, the boy has learned how to feed himself, fasten his shoes and hold a pencil in his mouth to draw.

Without the program, Gabriel and 2,000 other children would require full-time care for the rest of their lives. That’s not only unconscionable, it would be a far larger financial burden for taxpayers than eliminating the proposed cuts.

One Arizonan who works with disabled residents says the cuts were proposed because his clients are an easy target.

“I believe it was a convenient decision . . . to make because it’s a vulnerable population and they can’t speak for themselves,” said Randy Gray, president and CEO of Marc Center in Mesa.

Gray said the proposed cuts would revert “our entire system of quality care back to the early 1970s.”

That must not be allowed to happen. The state must stand up for the most needy among us – even in the toughest of times. The cuts to DES must be re-evaluated.

If we can’t look out for the most vulnerable, who is safe?

Nine students from southern Arizona high schools are headed to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair – and most of them share a single teacher.

Margaret Wilch, a science teacher at Tucson High Magnet School, will have six of her students at the fair: Angela Schlegel, Mahwish Khalid, Negin Nematollahi, Michael Wallace, Emily Derks and Alice Glasser.

Also attending this week’s fair in Reno, Nev., are Ebaa Al-Obeidi from Canyon del Oro High School, and Martin Lopez and Mario Valdez, both from Rio Rico High School.

The nine students are the most to ever represent southern Arizona in the world’s largest precollege science contest.

Congratulations to all of them. They are among those who will lead us into the next generation of scientific exploration.

‘Another reminder of how broke and broken the city of Tucson leadership is. Only here could competition for services result in an increase in cost.’ – Spirit of Zenger

The story: Tucson officials estimate a transfer station opened by Waste Management will siphon 100,000 tons of trash and $3 million in revenue from the city. So city trash fees may have to be increased.

Your take: Everything the city touches turns into a mess. Let private companies who know trash handle it.

“Government shouldn’t be in the trash business,” proclaims eman (who adds, “The Citizen is also in the tank for the lying, cheating City Council.” OK, then.)

massmonster says, “These people are running this city to the ground and all they want is more taxpayers’ money for every little thing that goes wrong.”

But Music One calls Waste Management “the Titans Of Trash” and say costs will climb higher if it takes over the city business.

Purist has another money-saving proposal: “I see no discussion of eliminating the recycle program. This is the real drag on the cost of garbage pickup. I know, I know, it makes some feel good!”

However, Anony says trash fees are reasonable, compared with what other cities charge. “I’m not happy about paying it either, but in comparison, it’s a good deal. . . . Get a grip on reality, people.”

Finally, Bugmenot confidently predicts, “Tony Soprano will fix it.”

MOST-VIEWED LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Monday, May 11

1 City trash fees likely increasing due to competition.

2 3 killed, including 1 Tucsonan, in head-on crash near Florence.

3 Our Opinion: Obama move halts pointless, devastating border fence.

Lack of leadership is clearly apparent as educational funding gets sidetracked

ANDY MORALES

“We’re looking for a leader, someone walks among us and I hope he hears the call.”

- Neil Young

It’s as mysterious as Rio Nuevo and as elusive as a chupacabra. A responsible and fair state budget is nowhere to be seen, and there seems to be no leadership to get one done.

The conservatives who control our Legislature have taken a position of delay and political cowardice, knowing their budget will not be kind to public education or to poor families.

If you think the $140-per-year rental tax will hurt working-class Tucsonans, then wait till families lose full-day kindergarten.

Lawmakers’ inaction has forced governing boards and superintendents to do the right thing and plan for a shortfall.

How could they not? They are responsible to the taxpayers in their school districts, and they must do what’s right by their employees as stated in law.

They do not have the luxury of stalling to prevent political opposition.

The governing boards have faltered in their responsibility to their teachers in one major area, however.

They attempted to get legislation passed to extend the deadline to issue nonrenewal notices to June 15 instead of April 15 for new teachers. This earlier deadline was put in place to prevent inaction by governing boards – the kind now displayed by the Legislature.

The failure to move that deadline was a small victory for teachers. Many are now without jobs or waiting to be placed in other schools because there is no workable budget in place.

A little known clause gives three years’ recall rights to teachers who are let go due to the economy. That means a district cannot hire someone else for three years until they rehire those let go first if qualified for the jobs advertised – even if they get a job in another school district.

This is another provision in law that might be attacked by conservatives and governing boards.

But there would be fewer suspicious mass layoffs in the private sector, in the name of maintaining high profits, if this clause were in place for them.

Many of my colleagues have asked about the burden school administrators are carrying throughout all of this or, rather, the lack of it.

It’s a tricky question. Bad administrators are an easy target. Some of the grief they are receiving may not be fair. Then again, much of it is.

When districts say their administration has been cut, they are not talking about vice principals, principals or associate superintendents. They are talking about other budget items under “administration.”

Teachers know this. It’s time the public did, too.

If, by a long shot, a principal is let go, then he has immediate recall rights as a continuing teacher unless he gave up those rights in writing, which is highly unlikely.

They have more job security than teachers in good times and bad.

I applaud the decision by Vicki Balentine, superintendent of Amphitheater Public Schools, to take a five-day furlough without pay next year. It was an example of good leadership – the kind we have become accustomed to with her.

I also had the pleasure of exchanging e-mails recently with Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, superintendent of Tucson Unified School District. She is impressive and reachable.

The issue of the importance of administrators over teachers is always a topic superintendents like to stay away from.

The educational pay system tells us a person making as much as four times more than someone else signifies a degree of higher importance – though we all know classroom teachers work much harder.

Let’s face it: A teacher attempting to teach 25 to 30 6-year-olds how to read and write is a more difficult job day in and day out, but you will hardly find an administrator who would agree.

That’s why my exchange with Fagen was refreshing. She spelled out to me that teachers are of higher importance and severely underpaid. She became an administrator because she was frustrated with bad leadership.

But even though teachers are important, she added, leadership matters, too. And it does.

I only wish our legislators heard her call.

Andy Morales was born in Tucson, received a master’s degree in special education from the University of Arizona and has been teaching in Amphitheater for 20 years. E-mail: amoralesmytucson@yahoo.com

L.A. Dodgers superstar Manny Ramirez admitted he took a banned substance but was careful to point out he didn’t take steroids. That’s illegal. If convicted of steroids use, he could get four to eight years as governor of California.

Manny Ramirez admitted taking a female fertility drug that was put on the banned substance list last year. This gave him a range of explanations. No one believed his first story that he and the Octomom got their prescriptions mixed up.

President Obama went to a Virginia hamburger stand for lunch and ordered a burger with Dijon mustard. He got puzzled looks. If you ask the average Virginian in a restaurant for Dijon they give directions to the men’s room.

Lady Liberty’s crown, closed since the World Trade Center attack, will be reopened by the Interior Department. Things have changed since then. When tourists thought they might be hit by a hijacked airliner, they were afraid to go up the Statue of Liberty. But now that they could be hit by Air Force One, it is an honor.

Jeb Bush (right) began giving political interviews, spurring rumors he may run for president. Conservatives were overjoyed on talk radio. Conservatives are like alcoholics in their persistent delusion that with the next Bush, it’s going to be different.

Argus Hamilton is host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. E-mail: argus@argushamilton.com

Congratulations to the University of Arizona softball team, which is headed to its 23rd consecutive postseason tournament.

Unfortunately, the Wildcats – seeded ninth nationally – won’t be playing at home in the first round of the NCAA championship tournament. The team was inexplicably sent to Louisville, Ky., as lower seeds won the right to host regionals.

But no matter. The Cats are used to winning the first game of the tournament regardless of where it is played. UA has won 20 of the 22 first-round games in its current streak.

The Wildcats have made it to the College World Series 20 times under coach Mike Candrea. And they have come home with the national title eight times.

We wish them the best as they go after No. 9.