Honor motherhood by avoiding dairy products

We all look forward to this Sunday, May 10, when we celebrate Mother’s Day and the cherished bond between mother and child. Ironically, dairy cows – world-wide symbols of motherhood – never get to see their babies.

The newborn calves are torn from their mothers at birth and turned into veal cutlets, so we can drink the milk that nature designed for them. The distraught mothers bellow for days, hoping for their return.

Most cows spend their lives chained on a concrete floor, with no access to the outdoors. Each year, they are impregnated artificially to keep the milk flowing. When their production drops, around four years of age, they are turned into hamburgers.

This Sunday, let’s honor motherhood and our natural compassion by replacing cow’s milk and other dairy products, all laden with fat and cholesterol, with delicious, healthful, cruelty-free nut or soy-based milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. These are available in every supermarket. Mother cows, and our own bodies will be most grateful.

—Shane Papadopolous

Salisbury

It’s mowing time again

Please keep grass off roads and in the lawn where it belongs. People plant grass, seed, lime and fertilizer and spray for weeds for a beautiful lawn. And then, for the first two or three rounds of mowing, they blow grass out in the street. This is messy and trashy looking for their yard but also makes the neighborhood look bad.

All you have to do is mow the first two or three rounds to throw grass back into the yard, where it belongs. You can then mow the rest of the grass any direction you want, or you can after mowing use a blower to blow grass back into your yard.

Of course, be safe and watch for cars.

This is a form of littering. Take price, people.

— Gail Burgess

China Grove.