Cancellation of Nutcracker Suite

Dear Ms. Slap,
I understand from the Internet that you are the chair lady of the School Committee for Belmont. I also suspect that a School Committee Is equivalent to a School Board, which oversees the operations of the local school system, including appointments of the superintendent of schools and advising him of appropriate policies.
Fox News reports that the PTA at Belmont has canceled a field trip for the students to see Nutcracker Suite. The cancellation is said to be based upon the fact that the Nutcracker Suite has religious connotations. I find that ridiculous. I have watched the Nutcracker Suite for many years and have never thought that it was promoting religion.
Even if it had, I would like to know from you what's wrong with that? We were founded as a Christian society. Do you personally have some reason that it should be changed? It has been said that the cancellation was based upon the fact that other religious groups were offended by it. So what? I'm sure that you are well aware that in every decision that any executive makes there will always be some kind of an objection. Some of these objections are worth addressing. In this case, we need to go ahead with the field trip in spite of the fact that other groups are offended. If they need to voice their opinions or propose field trips to other extravaganzas, that can also be considered.
In spite of the above, my main issue is who is running the school system in Belmont? Is that the school board or as you call it the School Committee or is it the PTA? In my continued experience through the years the PTA has been of some value in working with the public school system, but they have always been considered to be advisors and not in charge of the system. Who's the boss? You or the PTA?

Gave Up Geography for Diversity Training?

Writing for Publius Forum, Warner Todd Houston reports that the California El Rancho Verde Unified School District will stop requiring its high-school students to take geography and instead require them to take a class on diversity and inclusion.
98% of the school district students are Hispanic. The School District President, Aurora Villon, said the class is necessary because minority students “need to feel validated. When you negate their culture, they feel less than other students.”
What hogwash! According to President Villon's standard, one can ignore the practicalities of how the rest of the world operates as long as one feels good about himself.
Apparently it will make no difference to the newly educated Hispanics that all fighting in the Middle East is primarily based on land grabbing, that voting blocs in the US are established by geographical boundaries, and that oil and gas rights are similarly defined by geographical boundaries.
All of those practical aspects are apparently insignificant and should not bother to be recognized, providing one feels good about himself.
Instead of teaching diversity, would it not be better to teach character development? In order to do that, it should not be necessary to give up geography. When I attended PS 13 in New York, the physical education coach did that as part of his PE teaching program.

There is Satisfaction in Beauty and Accomplishment

            Right after the close of World War II, I was pursuing a PhD in Organic Chemistry at Cornell University. My major professor was A. T. Blomquist, whose specialty at that time was large ring molecules.

            In the field of organic chemistry, carbon atoms can align themselves in chains called acyclics, or in rings called cyclics. In the case of cyclics, the preferred ring size is six carbon atoms, with such common compounds as benzene, toluene and cyclohexane. Blomquist's questions were: can we make compounds with more than six carbons in a ring: if so, how; and will the compounds have any special properties?

            Several graduate students, including me, were involved in this project. Suffice to say that I was successful, finding also that the large ring compounds had few special properties, other than odor.

            Toward the close of my graduate program, I had a job interview with Dr. Ralph Connor of the Rohm & Haas Company. I told Dr. Connor that I was tired of research which seem to have no significant basis for practicality. He told me he had just the job for me in a development laboratory where I would be m involved in developing new products of commercial use, and I started my Rohm & Haas career.

            It is now 65 years later, and I've had no regrets in pursuing my career based on the practicality of chemistry.

            However, I recently read an article by Sam Kean entitled, "Tiny Productions" in the Spring 2014 issue of Chemical Heritage. Kean's  article looks at the other side of the picture. Rather than summarize what he had to say, it seems more appropriate to quote him directly.

            "Whenever I give talks about the periodic table, the most common questions I get asked is why scientists bother. What good is making ultra-heavy elements?"

            "Most people who ask are genuinely curious. Every so often, though, someone starts to sputter, bordering on anger. Their question is really a challenge. Sometimes it's the money that bothers them: they see science is a zero-sum game, and every dime not spent on, say. medical cures is a dime wasted. But even when I explain the trickle-down effects of such research (it could lead to new ways of producing medical isotopes), they're not placated. Really, it's the willful disregard for practicality that eats at them. The idea that scientists might dedicate their lives to creating something that does not have, and will never have, any practical value almost offends them.".

            "In the end I usually smile and say we need to embrace the uselessness of these elements, even celebrate it. In a utilitarian calculus you can't justify the production of ultraheavy, ultrarare elements -- except to say that they add to the sum of human knowledge and happiness, which is no small thing. Even more than that, the creation of them satisfies a human need to push beyond our natural boundaries, to explore as much of our little pocket of the universe as possible. It takes all types to make a periodic table, and if some of those elements are as rare and as fleeting as an ivory billed woodpecker, they're all the more beautiful for it."