This article reported the decision of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to try to trap and ultimately, with few exceptions, kill all cats found on conservation land. They make it a felony to trap, neuter (vaccinate etc.) and release homeless cats that are now fed and carefully monitored by volunteers at no cost to taxpayers! All kittens and suitable cats are adopted and new cats altered to prevent any reproduction. These healthy, well-fed cats do little harm to wildlife.
The trapping and disposing (killing) of these outdoor cats will likely capture the tame cats in nonreproducing colonies first! Even if all homeless cats were destroyed, more reproducing cats would be deserted. Each adult female can have up to four litters of up to six kittens annually. Therefore, you would have to continue the killing forever.
The FFWCC was unwilling to evaluate this new policy as to cost and efficacy. Elsewhere, cats have been trapped at a cost of about $200 per cat. How many millions of our tax dollars do we want spent on this ineffective way to control the outdoor cat population? Why not spend a small part of that money to do other things, like:
1. Helping to expand the trap, neuter, release program.
2. Educating the public to neuter their cats and keep them indoors for safety unless on a leash. If cats can't be kept, take them to a shelter, never abandon them.
3. Offering low-cost and free spay/neuter services to everyone.
These programs would be much less expensive, much more effective, and, of course, more humane. If you don't want your tax dollars used on this unnecessary, ineffective and cruel FFWCC program, contact your legislators in Tallahassee. You can learn their names and address from the supervisor of elections, your local political club, or the League of Women Voters.
-- Dr. D.K. Cinquemani, Largo
Wildlife threat is elsewhere
Re: Trap, neuter, return practice banned, May 30.
This move by the wildlife commission is a bad idea. It smells with the aroma of cat haters! This should be tabled until all the facts are in. I believe, and many people I know belive, that the biggest threat we have to wildlife in Florida is the bulldozer.
-- Harold Mierkey, Largo
A poorly aimed tax cut
-- Re: Tax cut overlooks low-income families, May 30.
President Bush has signed a tax cut bill to help the economy by putting more money into the hands of people. Sounds good, except, again, the poor who pay little or no taxes will get the least or nothing at all. But if you are a millionaire you will get up to a $93,000 tax cut. Are millionaires suffering in our economy so that they need a tax cut? I do not think so.
Will millionaires who get this huge bonus spend it to help the economy? I do not think so. It would have been better to give the poor more child credit monies and limit the tax cut to everyone that earns less than $100,000 per year. Now that would help the people and also the economy. If he would have done that, the people would praise the president . . . but alas, he did not, and he gets no kudos.
-- V. Paradis, Seminole
Low wages the biggest problem
Re: War, tax cuts: Do you believe it all? May 26.
No, I don't! William Raspberry did a great job exposing the hypocrisy of the $350-billion tax cut that the president recently signed.
I believe our biggest economic problem is low wages. Real wages of nonsupervisory workers (about 80 percent of all workers) have been falling for about 30 years. In recent years, even when working more hours, many of those workers had to reduce their spending. Thus, the recession has spread to business owners. Nonrich Americans need more money so they can buy more, but they will get very little from this tax cut!
-- Jack Gregg, Largo
Sliding toward mediocrity
Why do you keep foisting the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on your readers when you already have a more than ample supply of your own liberal columnists? In his May 28 column (Radicals are cooking up a fiscal crisis), Krugman again shows a visceral hatred of President Bush and his administration; he writes, "Yet by pushing through another huge tax cut in the face of record deficits, the administration clearly demonstrates that it is completely feckless, or that it actually wants a fiscal crisis. (Maybe both)."
Later in the column he writes, "But the people now running America aren't conservatives: They're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need."
In my view, Krugman needs a long rest, or else the men in white coats will hustle him off to the funny farm. However, with the Jayson Blair fabrication scandal, with his colleague Chris Hedges almost being booed off the stage during his anti-American commencement address at Rockford College, another reporter quit after being suspended for not crediting a sub-source for a story, and with R.W. Apple still looking for that "quagmire" he predicted in Iraq, the New York Times appears to be on a long, steady slide toward mediocrity.
-- C. Wiley Gilstrap, Palm Harbor
Selective compassion
George W. Bush's tax cut is vintage GOP class warfare. Those rich enough to clip coupons for a living will do quite well, thank you, while minimum wage families have been cut out of the tax relief picture. There will be no expanded child credits for these working poor. As usual, compassionate conservatism seems to work well for the rich, but kicks to the curb those really in need. Good job, George!
-- Ron Teunis, Brooksville
The old double standard
Re: Washington under hyperpartisan rule, May 31.
This article by E.J. Dionne Jr. states that "Democratic unity was impressive... " and "only two Democrats - Zell Miller of Georgia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska - supported Bush's tax bill on final passage." In other words, it's a good thing to have Democratic unity.
Later in the article he writes "Bush promised to change the ways of Washington. He has succeeded brilliantly, but not by creating the "new tone of respect and bipartisanship' he promised in 2000. The new tone in Washington is not bipartisan but hyperpartisan."
So it's hyperpartisan when Republicans stick together but no problem when the Democrats have unity.
-- M.A. Elliott, St. Petersburg
It's not about religious freedom
Re: Muslim woman sues to wear veil for license.
Driving in the state of Florida, as with all of the 50 states, is a privilege, not a right. Contrary to Sultaana Freeman's attorney's assertion, this is not about "religious liberty" or "religious diversity." Ms. Freeman has the right to practice her religion any way she chooses. She does not have a right to a driver's license without complying with the applicable rules and laws. The fact that the Department of Motor Vehicles issued her a license originally with her face covered in the photo seems to me to be a breech of the rules that should be corrected and investigated.
-- Len Keller, Seminole
Law is meant to protect us
Re. Sultaana Freeman driver's license trial.
The former Sandra Kellar, now Sultaana Freeman, who has converted to Islam, says she cannot be photographed for her driver's license because it is against her religion. If she is allowed to violate Florida state law or any law in this country because of religion, it will set a precedent to change other laws to acquiesce to religious beliefs.
Laws are made to protect us. Anyone who cannot abide by our laws should find a country that is suited to his or her particular needs.
-- John D'Aluisio, Hudson
Deflecting blame for bias
Re: Lawyer says choice plan shows bias, May 30.
Enrique Escarraz III attempts to have it both ways in placing blame with the ill-fated choice plan. As the lead negotiator for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund relative to the choice plan settlement, he was the person who insisted on limiting opportunities for black students at their neighborhood schools by capping the black population of any given school at 42 percent. Because of the uproar he is facing in the black community (and in all parts of Pinellas), he is now attempting to save face by suggesting that the plan is biased against black students when, in fact, he is the one who demanded the bias!
Escarraz and the Legal Defense Fund, the School Board and the arbiters involved need to stop using our students - black and white - as pawns for their agendas. While certain efforts at social engineering are admirable, I challenge them, as well as all adults and citizens in Pinellas County, to take stock of ourselves in order to change so we can move away from old patterns of hate and prejudice. Effective and lasting desegregation will not occur until the hearts and minds of men and women are willing to change. That requires self-examination by all of us.
-- James M. Hammond, Dunedin
Later is better for older students
Re: Board approves new school start times, May 29.
The decision of the Pinellas County School Board to shift times has good reasoning but is a poor one for a simple reason. School start times should become later as children age. It has been proven in countless studies that teens learn better later in the day, because the teenage body does not truly wake up until between 9 and 10 a.m. A later start time also means a later dismissal time, keeping teens off the streets and under supervision during the after-school period that leaves them open to negative influences (such as crime and drugs). As a recent high school graduate, I wish my school had started later, since my first two classes were often a blur from sleep-filled eyes.
-- Lauren Adriaansen, Temple Terrace
What about academics?
I was one of very few individuals advocating for a later start time for high school students at the Pinellas School Board meeting last week. This position was based on the substantial body of research regarding adolescent sleep cycles and their relationship to learning.
Of the many arguments I heard for maintaining the present 7:20 a.m. start time, none had anything to do with improving academic achievement. The rationales included everything from making sure there was time for sports, extracurricular activities, part-time jobs and volunteer work to teacher convenience, convenience of parent volunteers, convenience of school personnel, babysitting and transportation of younger siblings, and avoidance of student drivers adding to rush hour traffic.
In the face of such opposition to a later start time, it is hardly surprising that the School Board would vote to have high school students start even earlier, at 7:05 a.m. This ensures that high school students will sleep not only through their first period class but also their second one as well. Oh well, at least they won't sleep through football practice.
-- Lynda Gurvitz, Clearwater
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