letters to the editor

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 18, 2008

England, like N.C., has an immigration problem
As an occasional visitor to Salisbury, N.C., from Salisbury, England, I read the Post daily on the Web. Contrary to the figures suggested by your correspondent Thomas Keegan (Jan. 18 letter, Cal Thomas’ article correctly identifies the Muslim community in Birmingham, England. The Muslim Council of Britain’s own Web site states that “Birmingham ó 150,000 ( in a total population of 1 million) ó this includes the world’s biggest ex-patriate Kashmiri population.”
The essence of the article was concern over the formation of ghettoes and no-go areas. The government report on the Birmingham primary school that I attended some 50 years ago shows that in a school of 600-plus pupils, less than 1 percent are white, 4 percent Indian, 88 percent Pakistani/Bangladeshi and 4 percent black. Such high concentrations of a single ethnic group at school level do nothing to encourage real integration into a truly multi-cultural society.
To put England’s immigration concerns into perspective, North Carolina, in an area of 48,710 square miles, has a population of 165 people per square mile. England, in an area of 50,352 square miles, has a population of 998 people per square mile and rising daily, encouraged by our generous welfare system. That’s equivalent to North Carolina having a population approaching 50 million.
Ask yourself, do we have an immigration problem?
ó David Law
Salisbury, England
No place for tigers
I agree with previous letters regarding county commissioners allowing someone a permit to fence 30 large tigers and lions in Rowan County. My parents live on property that joins the back of this “zoo,” and they have many neighbors. Someone is playing Russian Roulette with these people’s lives. The adjoining neighbors in all directions have children and pets who are in direct line with these cages.
Who made the trip to inspect this situation? Obviously no one audited it for years under the previous owner ó suspended now for cruelty and neglect of these poor animals. How does a person qualify for a permit in a residential area when they were denied a permit in South Carolina? We need to know ó what emergency procedures she has to notify neighbors when an animal escapes? How will they be communicated to when it is safe to go outside?
This is outrageous. I think there should be a thorough investigation into how this permit was allowed to happen.
ó Leesa Dawson
Richmond, Va.