Speak Out 10/11/09

Far-reaching bill

WHOOPS. The anti-ACORN law, designed to defund the group, was written so broadly it roped in big defense contractors as well, corporations that have defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars. Still, we've got to fix this. Right?

Schools, parenting

I keep seeing comments from school employees bashing parents for not being involved or not parenting well. As parents, we are involved and try to parent right. Yet every time we try to make sure our daughter is doing right by us, the school says the opposite. We've asked the library to stop checking out the trash the school calls literature to our daughter, and the school refused. We've told the school that our daughter needs a lock on her locker, but the school won't provide one. Yet they expect me to pay if a book gets stolen.

Religious outcomes

RELIGION leads to positive outcomes, wrote Naomi Schaeffer of the Wall Street Journal. Yes. History is replete with examples. Two would be the Crusades and the Thirty Years War as well as (for the fanatical Islamofascists) the successful attack on the World Trade Center.

Good for whom?

IT looks like the forthcoming health care reform bill may be a huge victory for the American people -- if the words "American people" are synonymous with "insurance companies."

Student pickup

REGARDING picking up students after school at West Lane Elementary School in Jackson: Five teachers are on duty daily. The cars parked on both sides of the drive are not teachers' cars. The teachers have been told not to park there in accordance with the posted sign that says "No parking." Darting children? I think not, unless it's a child whose mother honks and the child runs away from the duty teacher.

South Ellis

IT'S a shame that you can't live in the 700 block of South Ellis Street without children hanging out in front of your house. The police need to do something about that. You pay your rent and you can't even sit in your yard. I'm tired of picking up trash. The police need to patrol the 700 block of South Ellis Street more often. Children are hanging out in front of houses, and they don't live here.

Bus captains

WHEN my child was in school, there were bus captains. The school district didn't have to hire monitors. When you work with children, discipline is part of your problem. Children will be children. That's why bus captains are needed, someone who's usually an older student.