Friday, January 1, 1904
Clay Bennett's cartoon last week of a drone, pulling a banner, "why do you hate us?" gave me pause for thought. Friends recently returned from Cambodia. While there, their host asked this poignant question, "Why do the American people hate our children?" He continued by explaining that in 2009 the United States government sent $77 million to Cambodia and set up 12 abortion clinics. They also trained numerous midwives who travel to rural areas, performing abortions. Our taxes have funded this, and Cambodia is only one of many countries where we have committed this atrocity.
Last week, our president chided those who are working in our country to lessen the number of abortions through state legislation and asked Planned Parenthood to spread the word about his "health plan." After adopting two of our three children, who now are adults, I can't even imagine if they had never been born!
Only on Judgment Day will our country see the gravity of our national sin. The blood of the innocents, just as in Pol Pot's killing fields of Cambodia, and across the world, cry out for justice.
SANDY HARRIS, Cloudland, Ga.
Officers in schools? Best investment? Average officer's salary: $35,000. The total cost would be $3.5 billion. What do we gain for the money? How do we pay the cost? Add that much taxation? We can't even handle the present budget with politicians in charge and many wishing to limit taxes even more.
One officer per school in buildings with many halls and doors. One officer cannot be near all halls or all doors at once. Which hall is your student on? If a shooter with high-capacity loading is on a first-grade hall and and officer is on a fifth-grade hall, how many first-graders and teachers will die until officer reaches that hall and classroom?
Better idea for $3.5 billion: Install fire doors that open from inside but not from out unless with key pad. Place cameras on all doors. Provide key pads for all doors and bullet-proof glass throughout. Keep codes a secret, with dire warnings and punishments if given out to others than staff and PTA officers.
Finally, take care of mentally ill, background checks and loose guns!
SHARON MCINTOSH
Thank you, David Cook, for many insightful articles, but especially your recent one concerning America's meat production.
If all residents of this nation could see videos of life on a factory farm or death in a slaughterhouse, the majority would be repulsed. The USA has decades-old laws outlawing animal cruelty, yet those laws are largely ignored, and cruelty seems to be the norm. No creature should endure immobility in filthy conditions for a year or two of existence and be beaten with metal rods on top of that! The harsh treatment needs to be brought into the public eye, not hidden.
Agricultural bigwigs tell Americans that low meat prices and vast availability of meat cuts are not possible without factory farms. So why does the richest nation on earth need vast quantities of cheap meat? Most Americans eat way more meat than a body needs and that excess is converted into fat!
The meat industry has duped us into believing that we must eat meat at every meal or we will not thrive ... hogwash!
America needs to see the horror allowed in our present meat systems. And not look away in hopes the cruelty will cease, because it won't.
ANN GARRARD GRINDLE, Sewanee, Tenn.
It is a sad day in the U.S. Senate when threats from Wayne LaPierre and the extreme wing of the NRA have more influence on our senators than the victims of mass shootings or the opinion of 90 percent of the American public.
Unfortunately, both Tennessee senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, caved in to the NRA threats, and the bill requiring background checks for gun purchases did not pass.
How very, very sad.
THE REV. H. HUNTER HUCKABAY JR.