Wading In

Death finally brings war home to me By Kelvin Wade August 26, 2010 Last week, as Cathi was getting ready for work, we were talking about a former co-worker of hers who had a son in the military in Afghanistan. He'd been on multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. We talked about the transition to civilian life for him when he comes home after being there for so long and so many tours. Ten minutes after Cathi left for work, my phone rang. It was Cathi calling to tell me her co-worker's son had been killed in Afghanistan. It was eerie that we'd just been talking about him. Chief Special Warfare Operator Collin Thomas, 33, was a Navy Seal killed in combat operations in eastern Afghanistan. This fallen war hero had earned three Bronze Stars with combat 'V,' a Purple Heart, and numerous other medals and commendations. I was surprised how hard his death hit me. I didn't know him and never met Cathi's co-worker. What was bothering me crystallized when I poste...

Shhh . . . don't talk to strangers By Kelvin Wade August 19, 2010 In 2006, Matthew Snatchko was arrested at the Roseville Galleria Mall for engaging three women in a discussion of faith. The pastor violated a mall rule that activities that had a 'political, religious or other noncommercial purpose' were to be only practiced in designated areas and then, only after an application was submitted four days in advance. Snatchko was released when the prosecutor found him innocent of any charges. The pastor sued and a Placer County superior court judge sided with the mall. Snatchko appealed and last week a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal said the rule instituted by Westfield LLC, which owns the Roseville Galleria as well as our mall, was unconstitutional. According to the decision, Westfield's rule prohibited 'peaceful, consensual, spontaneous conversations between strangers in common areas' on topics unrelated to the mall. Can you imagine this? ...

Traditional marriage still intact By Kelvin Wade August 12, 2010 7:06PM Last week's decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturning Proposition 8 provided the handwriting on the wall in the gay marriage debate. I think more and more people will realize the inevitability of gay marriage and will grudgingly accept it over time. Judging by the muted reaction to the decision last week, the struggling economy has worked to gay marriage supporters' advantage. There are simply more pressing concerns for most people than whether Adam and Steve tie the knot. Judge Walker dealt with the case in the way it should've been handled: as a secular function of government and not a religious morality play. While it's legitimate for peoples' religious beliefs to guide their political judgments, the government shouldn't function as an arm of any religion. That separates us from the Taliban. A wise teacher once explained it this way: Render to Caesar the things that...

Fixing schools right from the kitchen table By Kelvin Wade August 05, 2010 My granddaughter, Lauryn, has been studying with me this summer in hopes of excelling in the eighth grade. I'm a tough teacher. Lauryn thought I was kidding when I gave her vocabulary words like mononucleosis, portmanteau, malapropism, onomatopoeia, soliloquy, vinaigrette, loquacious and heterogeneous. These are 10th- and 11th-grade words that had this 13-year-old eyeing the exits of my house. But aside from one B, she's scored all A's on her spelling tests. This past week she had to define 100 of these difficult words. She scored an astonishing 87 out of 100. It made me want to check her palms to see if she'd Palin-ized the answers. She hadn't. Now she sees she's capable of accomplishing things she didn't think were possible. She read William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.' Then she read Paul Zindal's 'The Pigman' in half the time of the first book. She just f...