Proposed education cuts are a wager on children’s futures
I am at a total loss and sick to my gut about what is occurring today in our state regarding cuts to education funding.
While the state is deep in the midst of a budget crisis after inheriting the same mess as our president with the eight wasted years of lack of oversight by the Bush administration, Gov. Perdue has not only dropped the ball on education, but in essence destroyed a major portion of her reputation in the eyes of a cornerstone of our society.
Over the last several years, unfunded mandates from state and federal governments greatly affected the morale of our educators. Now a mandate to cut the very soul of a workers’ prosperity? In my study of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, what Gov. Perdue has essentially done here has not only stolen what was left of our teachers’ moral but rubbed their faces in the red clay mud of our state.
That’s only a small part of this equation! In a lesson of math taught commonly in today’s schools, take the sum of what I just discussed and multiply it 100,000 times. Then you will appreciate the true gravity of the state government’s action to cut our education funding. That gravity is the immeasurable effect of the very children’s futures you have wagered on cutting this education budget.
Gov. Perdue, how can you claim to be an educator in your campaign and then stab the backs of the very persons who will be responsible for our nation’s future?
Make your cuts elsewhere. Our great nation cannot afford an undereducated generation in these times of challenge for all the world. Don’t rob our kids’ futures.
ó Dave Lannon
Salisbury
Open minds, civil debate
I was happy that Mary James in her Sunday letter called for open minds and registered comments about rigid ideologues who resist new ideas.
I was raised in a family and at a time when differences of opinion were more expected and respected in discussing politics, religion and other sensitive topics. I find the current polarization and anger appalling. I like Leonard Pitts and usually agree with him. I like and respect Kathleen Parker even though I am more liberal than she.
Some readers not only disagree with Leonard Pitts but seem to be angry and hateful in their remarks, in the style of Rush Limbaugh. These critics project heat, but no light. Much of cable news thrives on such controversy, treating the differences between left and right as a form of entertainment while reducing complex problems facing our nation to contact sport, gouging, punching and biting.
Much of this anger, I believe, comes from seniors like me who find a changing world to be anxiety provoking. We are frustrated that we cannot turn back the clock to a time when we felt more in control.
Let me suggest that readers and media callers ask themselves, before weighing in with letters to the editor: Do they really have something to say, or are they looking for a forum to vent their anger and frustration? We old folks need to consider and adapt to change, like it or not. People of all ages can try to add something constructive to the discussions and to our very needy world. If we can’t adapt, it might be better to just shut up and throw something at the wall.
ó Karen C. Young
Salisbury
Gas prices don’t add up
Take notice ó we are still getting shafted.
Last year, when crude oil was $148 a barrel, gas ranged from $3.99 to $4.19 a gallon. Now, crude oil is $65 a barrel, and we are paying $2.35 to $2.49? You do the math.
As has been said many times, the far left sucks us dry, and the far right steals us dry! (Pray for them and each other.) Lord bless each of you staunch independents.
ó Joey Spry
Faith