Todays Letters: A callous attitude
Letters to the EditorPublished December 28, 2007
Sudden siblings
As a mother of a son and daughter-in-law who have birthed two premature sons (23 weeks) who were unable to survive longer than five days because of "failure to thrive in the womb," I take exception to the caustic remarks by the writers of the letters criticizing your placing this article front and center. My son and his wife feel that in a perfect world children are supposed to be born and grow up and annoy their parents one minute and then make them the proudest parents on the face of the Earth the next. They were robbed of this.
Attempts at adoption were equally heartbreaking for them as they ran into costly and paper-filled legal snares and out of hard-earned and hard-to-come-by money.
I can only conclude the critical persons writing those letters have never hoped for, or most importantly lost, a single child. I suggest their callous attitudes show a lack of the ability to love and nurture and, instead, convey a total disregard for the true miracle of birth that our family is so very aware of.
Charlaine Ralston, St. Petersburg
N.H. press broadsides Romney Dec. 24, story
Romney's ignorance
Two months ago in a campaign speech, Mitt Romney made the following statement: "If Saddam Hussein had allowed the U.N. inspectors in, it would not have been necessary for us to invade Iraq, but he didn't, and so we invaded." The fact is, of course, that Hans Blix and his inspectors had been on the ground in Iraq for months, searching for - and not finding - WMDs, and they would have remained there if George Bush had not told them to get out ahead of his "shock and awe" bombardment of Baghdad.
Anybody in public life who could be so ignorant of the origins of the Iraq war - without doubt the biggest self-inflicted disaster in the history of this country - has no business running for president.
R.G. Wheeler, St. Petersburg
Risky investments demand explanation Dec. 23, editorial
An expensive lesson
Some 40 years ago, during a turbulent period in the stock market, I decided to pull all my money out and wait for better times. I parked my modest capital in U.S. Treasury Bills which paid low interest rates (less than the rate of inflation at the time) but which offered safety of my capital.
A few weeks later, while out of the country, I was contacted by my broker, who recommended some municipal bonds paying a better rate of return. I accepted his advice because I had made it clear to him that my primary concern was the safety of my capital.
On my return to the States, I discovered that those bonds had lost about 50 percent of their value in a short time. When I confronted my broker about his lousy advice, he just smiled and made some lame excuses, but he couldn't or wouldn't give me the literature I needed to realize what investment he had put me into. I learned from another brokerage house that those bonds were extremely volatile and risky. I decided to dump them at once and salvage what I could of my money.
When that broker resisted handing over the certificates to handle the sale, I contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission and also threatened him with a lawsuit, and that put a stop to his stalling tactics.
I got about 50 percent of my original investment and a painful lesson about stockbrokers. I have never been able to trust any stockbroker after that incident. But that was me, a little, inexperienced, unsophisticated investor. The brokerage houses can run rings around us, but when the same thing is done to an important client like the state of Florida, it leaves me wondering about the quality of people hired to oversee and protect the state's investments.
Humberto Calderon, Tampa
What's not on a resume Dec. 24, commentary
Lessons from history
David Shribman's advice to his readers to look up Abraham Lincoln's resume when considering the necessary qualifications for the presidency might lead them to the following statement in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln:
"There was little to lead one (in 1860) to suppose that Abraham Lincoln ... who had served but a single term in Congress, twice lost bids for the Senate, and had no administrative experience whatsoever, would become the greatest historical figure of the nineteenth century."
Does Lincoln's resume remind us of any one of the current Democratic presidential candidates?
William C. Wilbur, St. Petersburg
As boomers bristle, twentysomethings chat on Dec. 23, story
Mind your manners
The problem isn't the twentysomethings, it's the fact that manners seem to have gone by the wayside.
My own twentysomethings have manners and were taught to be polite. As a teacher, I do my best with eighth graders to try to teach some semblance of respect and gratitude, but I can't do it alone, and by 14 years of age it is sometimes too little, too late.
Character education is taught in schools, but if it isn't reinforced at home or, as in this case, the workplace, where will children and twentysomethings learn how to be respectful, productive citizens?
Carol A. Hess, Hudson
Escape of zoo tiger
Tigers are not meant to be caged for our amusement
Many people are missing the point that should be taken from the horrific situation at the San Francisco Zoo, where the Siberian tiger seriously injured two people and killed one park visitor. These are wild animals that were not created to be caged for human entertainment, and somehow we are surprised that a tiger has acted like a tiger.
The circle of life isn't supposed to happen in a zoo. It is still undetermined whether or not the tiger escaped on its own, whether it had help, or if it was even being taunted by the visitors who ultimately felt the power of the animal. Perhaps finally people will start to rethink, and most of all respect that these animals are not just cute, cuddly creatures, but wild animals who should be in the wild and not in a cage for our amusement.
Alexis Monique Escalante, Oldsmar
Escape of zoo tiger
Animals pay the price
Another zoo animal has been shot to death due to human negligence. Animals always pay with their lives.
Tigers do not ask to live in a cage for human entertainment or commercial greed. Why is it any surprise when they want to be free and consequently kill from fear or the need to escape?
Wild animals belong in their natural habitat. The whole zoo experience is simply not natural for any animal.
Until human beings figure this simple truth out, more of these beautiful animals will be gunned down like outlaws in zoos and circuses.
Louise Kahle, St. Petersburg