Kim Robinson of Hopewell Township
Ken Hansen has turned the pages of this newspaper into a courtroom. In his most recent letter, he fancied himself both judge and jury and summarily found me guilty on multiple charges. But I demand a fair trial, so let’s get started. Mr. Hansen’s first charge against me is listing the wrong extension for the Project Lead the Way Web site. I should have written “.org” instead of “.com”. To this point, I must plead no contest; I made a typo. The Web site that Mr. McHugh and I meant to reference was, in fact, pltw.org. I would ask the jury for leniency on this point though, because really, don’t we all make typos now and then? Further, Mr. Hansen clearly knew to which Web site we were referring, making the typo irrelevant, and his statement that Mr. McHugh was referring readers to “some random Web site” still incorrect. But “Mea culpa.” for the error. I will gladly accept my sentence of a year’s supply of White-Out.
The second offense with which I am charged is falsely accusing Mr. Hansen of comparing apples and oranges, and to this, I plead a resounding not guilty. I submit that Mr. McHugh was referring to the PLTW program cost overall (apple), and not simply to the cost of the AutoDesk Inventor software (orange), as Mr. Hansen would have us believe. Now on with my defense. For my first witness, I call Brian McHugh, PhD, to the stand. (Mr. McHugh is my key witness because it was he who actually wrote the two sentences in question, and surely he would know better than anyone else what he meant by them.) “Mr. McHugh, what say you?” “I say that I was referring to the overall program costs, not simply the software costs.” “Thank you, Mr. McHugh; you are excused.”
And now I would like to enter the sentences themselves into the record as Exhibit #1. Mr. Hansen has paraded these sentences around the courtroom so many times, it is inconceivable to me that he has not taken the time to read them carefully; let’s do so now.
”To prepare engineers, HVRSD offers the Project-Lead-the-Way program, which involves AutoDesk Inventor software. … Nonetheless, I’ve never heard of this program for which HVRSD conservatively pays $70K/year.” I certainly hope the members of the jury studied English grammar at HoVal as I did (AP English with Coerte Hutchinson), because in the first sentence, Mr. McHugh’s main clause is “HVRSD offers the Project-Lead-the-Way program”. That’s it. The phrases that come before it and after it (indicated by the commas and the word “which”) are dispensable; they can be removed from the sentence and the main thought remains: “HVRSD offers the Project-Lead-the-Way program.” Therefore, when Mr. McHugh concludes with “Nonetheless, I’ve never heard of this program,” the word “program” is clearly referring to Project-Lead-the-Way, the direct object of the main clause, and not the AutoDesk Inventor software as Mr. Hansen so wishes. Notice also, if you will, the parallel construction Mr. McHugh employs by using the same word “program” in both places so as to make the object of his discourse crystal clear.
And now for some courtroom drama, I would like to call Mr. Hansen himself to the stand! Of course I will need to treat him as a hostile witness, as, you will have to admit, he does seem somewhat hostile. “Mr. Hansen, would you please read for the court this excerpt from your own letter of last week?” “If he (Mr. McHugh) were (discussing the entire PLTW program), the total cost of teachers, lab materials, and quadrennial reviews by R.I.T. would far exceed the $65K/year costs he quotes.” “So Mr. Hansen, if Mr. McHugh was, in fact, referring to the entire PLTW program, his statement that HVRSD conservatively pays $70K/year for it would be accurate, would it not? Would it not, Mr. Hansen?” The defense rests.
Kim Robinson
Hopewell Township