While I applaud the efforts of Professor Steven Aird and his colleagues ('NSU professor loses job in dispute over grades,' May 4), they must face the facts. Education has changed dramatically in the last decade alone. Students today are different.

Our institutions must adapt or risk extinction. Now, more than ever before, professors must be teachers, not merely judges.

'Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire,' said the poet William Butler Yeats. Schools need to be in the business of lighting more fires in the minds of the students.

That is the true issue at stake, not the dumbing-down of academic standards or what education used to be years ago.

Re 'Efforts to assuage Iraqi killings involving Blackwater hit block' (front page, May 6):

Our hearts go out to Mohammed Hafidh Abdul-Razzaq for the loss of his 10-year-old son and to the other 17 families of Iraqi citizens gunned down in the September 2007, Nisoor Square Massacre in Bagdad.

Many other innocent people were injured in this incident involving Blackwater security agents.

Physician Haitham Rubaie, who lost his wife, a doctor and his son in the massacre, couldn't believe that with the investigation still going on, the State Department would renew the Blackwater contract this past April.

He considers this an abuse of human life. What will it take to make Blackwater accountable?

My husband and I own a home in Bayville Park and like to walk to the stores on Shore Drive using the new sidewalk from Greenwell Road to the Kroger parking lot. The majority of motorists traveling down the ramp onto Shore Drive do not yield as the traffic sign indicates they should. A blinking light above the sign to alert drivers at the bottom of the ramp would help.

Re 'Eight Belles' fall rings public alarm' (editorial, May 6):What happened to Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby was a high-profile freak accident. She galloped out a quarter mile off the rail before collapsing. Dr. Larry Bramlage, an on-call veterinarian, looked at the track where she fell and could not find it at fault.

Why Eight Belles? Why other ill-fated horses such as Charismatic, Demons Begone, Flip Sal, Go for Wand, Landaluce, Ruffian and Exceller?

I agree, there are problems with current breeding programs. Once, horses could not run four times in a month and stay sound.

But the editorial failed to mention how the industry is trying to change the tracks. What about the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, which saves former race horses from slaughter?

Horses carry close to 2,000 pounds on small, spindly legs. Eight Belles was a tragic loss, but not because of ignorance.

Re 'Virginia elections force a descent into madness,' (op-ed columnist Roger Chesley, May 3):

Chesley should live in Florida. Then he would be thankful if elections were held every year. I just got back from spending the winter in the land of hanging chads, unreliable touch-screen voting machines and Democratic delegates who were elected so early that they don't count. Perhaps if Florida had an election every year, they would figure out how to do it properly.

Re 'Man on a Mission,' (Hampton Roads, April 30):I am upset at the forum given Donald Spitz. I find it even more distressing that it took pains to try to humanize the 'Reverend' by showing he enjoys 'gospel shows' and 'crime-solver-type programs,' when he himself has shown so little respect for the humanity of the women he terrorizes.

The Pilot should have instead focused on those brave nurses and doctors who provide women with a choice, who endure Spitz's hateful taunts and threats [at Hillcrest Clinic]on a daily basis to provide compassion and aide to those in need.

Re 'Man on a mission' (Hampton Roads, April 30):

'[Sending anthrax-filled letters] is fine with me,' the article quotes Rev. Donald Spitz saying, then adds: 'My two goals in life is to stop unborn babies from being murdered and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.'

There are many interpretations of the Bible, but most can agree that Jesus Christ did not preach meeting violence with violence. Instead of killing unborn children, Spitz, encourage those who kill them some years later? Will violence against violence make for a better outcome in the end?

A few months ago, when the Obama campaign was first catching fire the country, I was filled with hope that, finally, we would be able to overcome our long, bitter heritage of racial prejudice. That hope was dashed by Fox News and the mainstream media. They generated a nationwide hate campaign at Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, based on a few outrageous comments he made, taken out of context, at the height of flamboyant sermons very much within the African-American homiletic tradition.

And through pernicious guilt by association, this racial hatred stirred has been used to politically lynch Obama despite his dignified response in Philadelphia. Then came Wright's interview with Bill Moyers, widely ignored by the corporate media. It showed this defamed pastor to be a deeply insightful theologian.

We can still elect Barack Obama, and confound the pundits.

Hillary, dillery, Barack The Dems run out the clock The clock struck One Poor Hillary's done 90% block cleaned Clinton's clock!

Bryan Michael Rogers, our grandson, was 14 years old when this war started. He left for Iraq this week.