Care with chickens
I am of the old school. I would love to see chickens in the backyards, wake up in the morning to the crowing of a rooster, etc. ("Minding the chickens," April 8). But there are a few things to be considered.
Any place in the city where there is a wooded area and a creek, you will find raccoons and other wild animals. Chickens running wild in a fenced yard will be a magnet for the wild animals to catch and eat. Included in the category of wild animals are the cats and dogs that are pets of the neighbors. Raccoons and cats can climb. If you have coyotes in the area, chickens will attract them as well.
Stipulation should be made as to the way the chickens are protected. The lot protecting the chickens should be fenced in and the chicken house should be animal-proof so that animals cannot get in to the chickens.
Many years ago my neighbor had a fenced-in area and a chicken house inside of the large fenced-in yard. My little Dachshund got in one night and killed one of the chickens. That caused a lot of discord with my neighbor.
I would like to buy some of those fresh eggs.
CATHERINE W. PITTS
Winston-Salem
False indignation
As I read the April 7 letter "Require voter ID," I couldn't help but think, please spare me the false indignation. Voter fraud in the U.S. is insignificantly small — but there is a history of conservatives trying to keep people from voting, and that's exactly what these voter-ID bills are intended to do.
The letter writer says, "The only reason anyone would object to a fair and legal vote, and I mean the only reason, is to impose their will by any means necessary." I agree. Who wouldn't? But voter ID is more likely to eliminate fair and legal votes than ensure them. So you bet I'm upset about the conservatives who are objecting to a fair and legal vote and trying to impose their will by any means necessary.
"Many people have given their very lives for the precious right to vote," he writes, and that's exactly why I don't want voting rights limited. There have already been reports in the media about old people and veterans who have been turned away from voting booths because they didn't have picture IDs, even though they were well-known in their communities.
The writer wonders how many elections have been stolen in the past. There was one in 2000, but I don't suppose he would complain about that.
This is how I know his outrage is fake: If he really thought the right to vote was sacred, he'd be fighting to keep Americans from being deprived of that right.
HANK BOLES
Winston-Salem
The same people
Conservatives use traditional marriage to oppose gay marriage in the same way they used race purity to oppose interracial marriage and polygamy to support male privilege.
They affirm a principle for life to condemn responsible parental choice. In the same way, they denounce fair labor conditions to oppose unions and promote the regimentation of workers to uphold management determinism.
These are the same people who have discriminated against the "colored" or the foreign because of purported national solidarity or security. As they erected slavery, segregation and minority abuse to protect their wealth and power.
Clearly, these American master-racists have misconstrued the philosophic and humanistic fairness of civilized government — for their own gain. The ultimate interest and care of people and their families rests in the responsibility they take to support their mates, children and communities.
History has shown that the Muslim and Catholic traditions of keeping their women and girls "barefoot and pregnant" has financed both the Muslim Brotherhood and Catholic dynasty. This fascist partisanship of wealth and power is no longer countenanced under humane democracy.
Unequivocally, we know now that conservatism means radical right-wing Republicanism. We do not wish to return either to the Inquisition or the Joe McCarthy versions of it in the mid-20th century.
MARCIALITO CAM
Winston-Salem
Finish the Thought
Briefly complete the sentence below and send it to us at letters@wsjournal.com. We'll print some of the results in a few days. Only signed entries, please, no anonymous ones.
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Election Deadline
Letters about the primary election must be received at the Journal by 5 p.m. April 26 to be considered for publication. Campaign workers and family members should please acknowledge their relationship when they write.
I wonder how many people will be turning off their electricity now that the CEO of Duke Power, Jim Rogers, has come out strongly against Amendment One. I wonder which will be stronger, convictions or the meter box? And Easter Maynard, Executive Director, ChildTrust Foundation and Head of Charitable Giving, Golden Corral (Will the Forsyth R Party be looking for a new place to hold it's meetings now?)
ReplyDeleteThought for the day: In hoc forum ignorantia neglecta optimum est
ReplyDelete. . . I'm still thinking about it . . .
DeleteVoter ID folks need to realize they're being used by a GOP elite that is trying to exploit the fear of a browner America to limit the voting rights of D leaning groups. It's as simple as that.
ReplyDeleteIt has backfired in PA where the Amish refuse to have their picture taken on religious grounds and also tend to vote heavily Republican. Hehe, serves 'em right.
Delete@Arthur: "Voter ID folks need to realize they're being used by a GOP elite that is trying to exploit the fear of a browner America . . ."
DeleteExploit - - - agreed, fear - - - disagree. I am utterly disgustingly OUTRAGED that the "voter ID folks" are exploiting their own folk by spreading outright lies about illegal aliens voting.
This is just from my own perspective, but I don't think brown America fears the Voter ID push; the VOTING brown Americans, anyway.
One of my theories is that there's some white anxiety out there about not being in the majority in the near future. Nobody will admit to it for obvious reasons, but it's there.
DeleteIt was part of the freak-out at Obama's election, and it's part of the anti-immigrant movement.
I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.
I can't imagine being in a country illegally and wanting to come anywhere near it's national election.
Delete@Arthur: We've known for at least 2 decades that the Hispanic population was growing, the predictions gave it till about 2025. The predictions probably didn't allow for as much ofthe flow of illegal immigration before, during and after the 1996 Olympics so that prediction was surpassed by about 1.5 decades.
DeleteRe White anxiety, while I myself probably wouldn't see it that way, I have to admit that I see your point.
Good evening, folks!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments re voter ID and intimidation, but note again it is no different from intimidating employees to sign union check cards. Obama is trying to institute such intimidation by bureaucratic fiat. I remain at the intelligent folks on this site forgiving the cynical hypocrisy.
Hi Stab,
ReplyDeleteThe professor wrote on the board A ∪ B and asked if anyone knew what it meant. I, of course, knew that the ∪ is a join, or union, symbol, but didn't feel like answering. Later, I was relaxing in the Student Union trying not to scratch the itch caused by my union suit and trying to decide if I would have time that night to watch the State of the Union speech, but realized that I had to finish my paper on the union of the English and Scottish crowns in 1603.
As I was walking to my political science class, I paused to watch some workers using unions to connect a new sewer line. In class, we had an exciting discussion about the creation of the Union of South Africa.
As I headed home, singing "The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!" I was thinking about last nights sexual union with my girlfriend. She wants to turn our relationship into a civil union, but I don't think I am ready for that.
I arrived home just in time to catch the Western Union messenger. He handed me a telegram which informed me that I had been accepted for grad study at the Union Theological Seminary.
A nearby radio was playing James Taylor and I thought "Well, Jimmy, you may have Carolina on your mind, but mine is filled with nothing but union"
Clever, cuz, but doesn't address the intimidation issue.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is clever. But it does address the issue, which is not card check, but an obsession with a single issue, which in the greater scheme of things, is meaningless. A single issue voter is an uninformed voter.
DeleteYour argument is a basic dyscalculus.
ReplyDeleteApples ≠ oranges
as
"card check" ≠ "voter ID"
In the first case, because of a significant variety of botanical differences.
In the second case because "voter ID" affects constitutionally protected rights, while "card check" affects private business, just as prayer in government meetings is different than prayer in ones private or business life.
If one is interested in regulating private business, there are many areas that desperately need attention, ranging from fishy investment instruments promoted by banks and financial companies to the ridiculous tax benefits enjoyed by big oil. Card check would rank about #1273 on the list.
The government is sanctioning the intimidation, while proclaiming Freedom of Choice, so it's not just a business issue. And the employees are then compelled to pay dues that are handed to a particular political party, a bit cynical. Most hypocritically, the pols who support this extortion were elected by secret ballot. That brings up the question of why unions fear secret ballots. Oh, they lose most of the elections. It works a lot better when goons hand out check cards.
DeleteIt is a business issue because it affects only union activities. After 80 years plus of all out war on unions, financed by the 10% (who control 70% of the wealth) vs the 90%, unions have been reduced to joke status, representing about 15 million people, or about 12% of all US employees.
DeleteIn contrast, "voter ID" affects over 200 million potential US voters. To make the comparison is absurd.
The reason that the 10% controls so much of the wealth is exactly proportionate to the manner in which the 10% has been able to propagandize the 90%. I worked briefly as an executive trainee for a textile company in the 1960s which was facing a union organizing attempt and watched with fascination as management was able to con the white collar workers into backing them, even though they made less than many of the actual mill workers who the management was preying upon. I guess the fools thought that because they worked in the office instead of the mill itself, that someday they would make as much as the 10%. What a bunch of deluded imbeciles.
One of the most interesting aspects of that campaign was that company spies reported daily on any office worker seen having any conversation with any mill worker. Typical divide and conquer tactics.
To be anti-union, despite the many problems with union management today, reveals a lack of understanding of how unions came to be and why your white collar or blue collar life is better today because of it.
That still ducks the issue of the government sanctioning intimidation.
DeleteAlso, your reference to the influence of the very wealthy overlooks the similar situation where the current union model allows a very few unproductive people, who are generally undemocratically in positions of power, to have access to vast sums of money to use for political purposes. They use that money to gain influence far disproportionate to unions' size in the economy.
As for being single-issue, generally if someone favors allowing unions to pressgangs membership, that pretty much lets me know how they stand on other issues, and I will disagree on most, but not all, of them. So, I must frequently hold my nose when voting. But, depriving people of economic self- determination, a phrase often misused by the left, is to me a fundamental rights violation. Again, you ignore that, and it's support by pols you support.
Rush doesn't do logical reasoning Stab.
Delete