Netanyahu snub raises question about priorities

I must be missing something somewhere.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is coming to the U.S. Obama says that he will not have time to meet with him to discuss the Islamic terrorist threat that is facing the world today.

How did he find the time to give an interview to a woman with green lips who eats cereal out of the bathtub?

It seems to me that he is thumbing his nose at one of our greatest allies. Of course this is nothing new, is it?

— Danny Benfield

China Grove

Puzzling pomposity

Is Commissioner Craig Pierce as pompous in real life as he is reported to be, or is this just the Salisbury Post’s slant? Or did he attend Obama’s mental health clinic? Just asking …

— Larry Craver

Salisbury

Wrong education focus

With last year’s school report cards coming in, and most of the schools making below a C, it seems obvious that the Rowan-Salisbury School system needs to focus more on teaching the students.

Instead the Board of Education is too busy trying to decide on a name for their new office building. Doesn’t the school system realize its one and only job is to educate the students?

This school year’s report cards will be even worse with the hectic technology boost being pushed on students and teachers. Most of the teachers don’t know how to use their new technology, and it does not work right most of the time. I have a teacher who has been scolded because she was not using the technology when an administrator walked into class, but she did not know how to use it, and it was broken.

Why should teachers, who are already the underpaid and have some of the toughest jobs in the country, be forced to put in more work to include technology in their lesson plans, or face being reprimanded?

Along with everything else drug use has drastically increased, with students being even being wheeled out of class on gurneys.

Does the school system bother to even look into it? No, they would rather look at new curtains for their new offices.

Just this last week the Board of Education admits lying about using the 10 minutes (more for some schools) added to each school day for make-up days.

The members of the Board of Education should fire-up their resumes because unless they start focusing on the students, they won’t be coming back next election cycle.

— Daniel Troutman

Salisbury

Less meat, better health  

The U.S. Advisory Panel on Dietary Guidelines has finally mustered the courage to recommend that Americans eat less meat and dairy products.

And not just to lower our risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and obesity, but also because it slows the rate of climate changes, with its own devastating consequences.

The 572 page report released on Thursday notes that half of all Americans have preventable diet-related chronic diseases and that two-thirds of adults and one-third of children are overweight. It concludes that a dietary pattern higher in plant-based foods and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and associated with lesser environmental impact than the current U.S. diet.

The 1977 recommendation that Americans eat less meat by the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs was quashed by the meat industry, and subsequent dietary guidelines panels have been very cautious. The 2010 dietary guidelines panel merely shoved meat and dairy off the official MyPlate icon, representing the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

Though the experts have now told the truth, our family’s health is still up to us. Fortunately, local supermarkets offer a variety of meat and dairy-free options and the Internet has lots of advice on vegan recipes and transition tips.

— Shane Papadopolous

Salisbury

About that first marriage

I am feeling pretty good today. I am going to tell something I don’t think I ever told my wife. She was not my first wife. I was married once a long time ago. A girl named Sue.

We had known each other several years before the wedding. All of our friends were there. It was an outdoor wedding! As we stood there facing each other and I slipped the Crackerjack ring on her finger and she did the same for me. … We kissed just as the recess is over bell rang and we ran into our fifth-grade class. As it was back then, she divorced me by the end of the day chasing after my best friend. Just think, if that bell had not rung, if Keith had not been my best friend, we might still be married today.

I finally have that off of me, out in the open now. Hope the wife isn’t hurt to know she was not really my first wife.

— Art Liles

China Grove

Benefits gone wild

Driving down the road one morning,  I heard it! There is a federal “program” that permits one’s government college loan to be “zeroed.” Are we stupid or what?

As I see it, congresspersons have a trick up their collective sleeves. Once they get elected by “promising the world,” they go about providing the electorate the world by devising new giveaway programs that will ensure they get re-elected. Are we stupid or what?

One might say the 1935 Social Security Act was necessary given the times. SS is not too bad, because one has to pay into it to benefit from it. I paid into it for 50 years. Then came lowering the age requirement from 65 to 62. Thank you; you get my vote.

Then there is welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and other “noble” programs. I believe in helping those who are unable to help themselves, but many such programs have “loopholes” that allow fraud and ways to live off the systems.

Bill Clinton “robbed” the SS fund, a so-called “hands off” fund, to balance one year’s federal budget. That fund is now gone, and our old pal, China, now loans us money to pay SS and other giveaway programs.

The government is “teaching a course” in how to be a “responsible citizen.” Borrow money and in a couple of years, the loaner will just zero your legal responsibility. By the way, no need to worry, the rich or China or Germany will pick up the tab for you.

We must find congresspersons who will stop this insanity and set the ship of state on a financial course that will not leave our grandchildren (and now their children) with a debt they did not okay. Pray you find one who truly cares about our future.

— Ty Cobb Jr.

Salisbury