I’d like to thank the Bangor Daily News for putting together great op-ed pages like the one on April 26.

In her column, “Columbine lessons left behind,” Margaret McKenna portrays how Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act’s too narrow a focus will actually be counterproductive to nurturing good students and citizens. While the Daniel Ellsberg column, “Wanted: More voices like Vanunu’s,” showed how deeper scrutiny paints the Israeli nuclear weapons worker more appropriately as a heroic whistle blower of a rogue overzealous secret WMD program than the criminal he was imprisoned and abused for.

Lastly, Susan Moeller points out in her column, “How the media managed to fumble the Iraq story,” how the media uncritically parroted the agenda- driven Bush administration.

These pieces were so full of inspiring intellectual insight, big-picture vision and courageous truth-telling that it made me glad to be a BDN subscriber and gave me a bit of hope as well.

Hope is a rare commodity during these dark times when corporate power is replacing our democracy, fascism and fanaticism are creeping into our government, and human needs are routinely sacrificed in a frenzy of militarization and revenge that would make Jesus weep. Thanks and keep up the good work.

Peter Baldwin

Brooks