Speak Out 6/3/08

War propaganda

IN A recent column, David Limbaugh alluded to "propaganda against the war." Thanks to Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary, we now know that the wrongheaded invasion of Iraq (we should have used our military resources against Afghanistan) resulted from a Bush administration-orchestrated propaganda campaign to convince those inside and outside the government that Iraq (there were no weapons of mass destruction or al-Qaida threat in Iraq before the invasion) should be the main target. Needless to say, government-orchestrated propaganda has no place in our society. If Limbaugh is correct in labeling anti-Iraq War efforts as propaganda (and for the most part, I don't believe he is), at least the propaganda has the redeeming quality of being largely true.

Lack of manners

Reading the Jack Nicklaus article [about poor manners on the golf course] made me wonder how many personal thank-you notes or calls will be sent following this year's graduation gifts. We're still waiting for the ones from last year. Jack's right. It's a different day.

Where pets go

I'M CALLING about people who own pets and let them go to the bathroom in everyone else's yards but theirs. I just witnessed a woman pulling her dog away from her yard and bringing it into our yard and letting the dog go to the bathroom. We had to clean it up. We have children that run in the yard. I don't know why people with pets think they can do that. It's a crying shame.

Perfect, but no car

I READ about the teen who got a car for perfect attendance from kindergarten through high school. A Central High School graduate in 2005 did the same. I did it too in 2007, and I wasn't even trying. I didn't get a car either.

Need a bar of soap

WHEN WE were children at home in the 1930s, my mother kept a bar of soap handy. Should we use ugly words, she washed our mouth out with that bar of soap. Need I say more for our elected officials?

Not appropriate

I SEE there are great reviews on the movie "Sex and the City." I used to watch it on television. I kind of liked it, but I'm a woman. I think it's a woman's show. If Jesus was sitting in the same room with me, would I be watching it? The answer is no, so I guess I won't be going to see this.

Church politics

I THINK a church should lose its tax-exempt status and realize that politics is not something that you talk about in church. Church should be about Jesus Christ, the Ten Commandments and anything else that's in the Bible, but it shouldn't be about politics. Something's going to have to be done about churches that aren't practicing this.

Use hydrogen

WHY DO we still run our cars on gasoline when hydrogen can be used? It's 10 times more powerful and 10 times easier to get than oil, and it's practically free. I can show a 5-year-old child how to extract hydrogen from water. Anyone can do it. Could it be that there's not enough profit to be made? This simple process has been around for 70 years, yet no one has shown any interest. Americans are like slot machines. Our government, the auto makers and the oil companies pull down on the lever, and we pay out every time.

Not covered

WHEN I called my insurance agent and told him about the damage done to my vehicle while traveling on Lexington Avenue, he said, "We don't cover storm damage, sewer backup or sinkholes." So be careful out there.