Catholics are talking about it
Kathleen Parker’s Dec. 17 column titled “Why isn’t anyone talking about our broken families?” certainly caught my attention. Parker quotes studies from “The State of Our Unions”, The Moynihan Reports of 1965 and author Elizabeth Marquardt.
If the title wasn’t so absurd, I could almost laugh. But it isn’t funny anymore. Why? Because the news media totally ignores the Catholic Bishops conferences and the Pope’s messages on the effects broken family relationships have played in the breakdown of our society.
The Catholic Church is talking about it. The Catholic priests and bishops are talking about it and the concerned laity. But — who is listening?
Eileen M. McAlister
Colorado Springs
Set aside partisan politics
The fiscal cliff situation is an example of why Congress can’t get things done. It appears, partisan politics is playing a major role and it shouldn’t. The only thing they should be considering is the needs of the country. The need to reach across partisan walls and compromise for a balanced deficit reduction plan. The middle class will be carrying most of the burden if they fail. This plan should also increase job growth and therefore strengthen our economy.
I agree with my senator, Mark Udall, that we need to set aside our partisan differences and get back to work, now.
Charles Plumb
Peyton
The problem is not guns
I am tired of hearing how bad guns are. I am also tired of hearing how some people want to ban guns.
What I have not heard is how criminals are not afraid to commit a crime in this country.
It seems that it is better to take rights away from law abiding citizens instead of taking rights away from criminals. I guess the jails, which are money making entities for the state are too full, and some criminals must be released. Most of these released criminals engage in crimes again. So how is taking my rights to own a gun, any type of gun, away from me going to help?
I say bring back the death penalty. If a person is caught in a place like a school, and attempts to kill or injure a person on school premises he then earns the death penalty, and not six years later — he has to go in 30 days. Why am I going to support a criminal for six years?
The problem in this country is not guns; it’s the law that allows criminals to commit a crime and get away with it; they are released 90 days later. Criminals are not afraid of the law … some people have several life sentences … why am I going to support this?
I want the right to own and purchase any gun I want, any time, anywhere; I am a law abiding citizen. Criminals are taking this right away from me.
You want a solution? OK, here’s an idea: If you or your kin are mentally unstable, you cannot own or have a gun in the same premises or allow this person access to a weapon. If somebody takes anti-depressant; the doctor has to report it to the Feds, and any guns must be confiscated until the person is given a good bill of health.
These are the rights that criminals are leaving us with … but nobody is taking my guns from me.
Martin Morales
Colorado Springs
Useless, distracting scrolls
Tip #1027 for use of duct tape: Cut strip of tape to width of television screen and place over annoying, usually useless, breaking alert scroll at bottom of screen.
As I write this KKTV has been scrolling that the street is closed at Oro Blanco and Carefree while police and a hazmat team investigate a couple of bottles with an unknown substance found near an apartment complex for at least five hours now. Is the street still closed after five hours? Can the hazmat team not remove these bottles and find out what is in them in less than five hours? Really?
Along with this scroll we have been informed of several other breaking items throughout the day that they say they have no information about, but are still scrolling the stories. A school was locked down in Pueblo but they don’t know why, a pipe bomb was found somewhere else, every auto accident in town has been scrolled.
The school lockdown lasted only for about 15 minutes before they started scrolling that the lockdown was over. What did this scroll do other than freak out parents of the students attending the school, especially after what just happened in Newtown? It now says they are trying to find out why the school was locked down. Well when they find out why they can tell us on the next news program. What is the point of a scroll that says there is a story but they don’t know what it is?
Every time it snows during the school year, they scroll the closings and two hour delays all day long until I see kids walking home from school. What is the point of continuing to scroll this info after the scheduled start of school. If a parent doesn’t now already by the scheduled start of their child’s school that it is closed for the day or starting two hours late, let alone by noon or two o’clock in the afternoon, it’s too late. Their kids are already at a closed school.
They scroll during the summer that it is raining somewhere, complete with a state map showing where. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t need a scroll to tell me when it’s raining. And in the winter, I don’t need a scroll to tell me it’s snowing.
I understand sometimes this info may actually be urgent, but 99 percent of it could wait for the next news broadcast and not present an annoying distraction from the actual programming someone is paying them to broadcast.
Bill Schaffner
Colorado Springs
How about Annie Oakley?
Outlawing guns will not solve our massacre problem in schools, theaters and other public places. That has been tried before. Attack rifles were outlawed once before but it did not work. Trying to control psychotic behavior at the source will not work because we do not recognize the bad ones.
So the way to address this serious problem is to arm and train the school and other personnel to stop the perpetrator at the outset. If the school principal, her assistant and any other capable adults had had the M1 Carbine (with a 15 round magazine) that I carried during World War II, that massacre would not have occurred. Women can learn to shoot as well as men...how about Annie Oakley?
Jim Edwards
Colorado Springs