Speak Out 1/29/09

With God's help

THE people on the plane that crashed in the Hudson River also had God with them. If the engines hadn't come off, the plane surely would have sank faster and all passengers probably wouldn't have survived.

Pro-life reaction

WHEN the new president lifted the Bush administration's ban on federal funding for groups promoting and performing abortions in other countries, many of his supporters were elated. Were those who usually vote pro-life but this year voted for hope and change also elated when they heard what Obama had done?

Sports questions

I would love to hear the rationale behind adding sports at the seventh-grade level. Teachers of core classes must buy materials out of their own pocket for class activities and basic classroom functions, yet the district has the money for more extracurricular activities? Weren't the taxpayers told over and over during the past few years how we need to conserve money? What's the point of working on athletics at that level when we're ultimately going to send the students on to the high school level where our three main sports -- football, basketball and baseball -- are poor at best. What a colossal waste of money and resources.

Sports and religion

JON Rust's article about Kurt Warner and Christian faith-based football was interesting. I'm a big fan of Warner as well. However, light-years ahead of what Rust identified as Christian faith, character and core values as seeming keys to winning, I would rank athletic ability, tenacity and fierce competitiveness. I would be ecstatic if the Rams' new coach (also a professed man of God) could improve the team dramatically even though, when it came to religion, he was a self-proclaimed atheist.

FDR history

FOR those who have forgotten or haven't been taught how harmful FDR's policies were, I would suggest reading "The Forgotten Man." FDR's inconsistent fiddling with money policy and consumer price controls, and the prosecution of those businesses and individuals that resisted his socialist experiment, helped turn a recession into a decade-long Great Depression. As to the recent comments in Speak Out about whether FDR expanded government, a person would have to be delusional to argue that the size and power of government did not increase during the Roosevelt years.

Give it a try

AS a teacher, I think that adding sports to seventh grade would be a great motivator for many students. Adding sports would allow many of them to get involved. There would be grade and discipline requirements to play, so sports would probably increase grades and lessen discipline problems. At the very least the school could give it a try and see if it works out. Right now, seventh-graders in the Cape Girardeau School District don't have many sports options, while the eighth-grade and the high school have many. I think it would be great for these students to have the option.

Jet footprints

THERE are more than a few things to ponder regarding the more than 600 private jets descending on Washington, D.C., for President Obama's inauguration. First, it's a carbon footprint that would make any global-warming hypocrite envious. Second, the Obama election story was that the common man had funded his campaign. The 600 jets seem to cast a little doubt on that campaign myth.