Todays Letters: Campus tragedies then and now

The mind is a funny thing. Some images are burned into memory, soldered by emotional significance. I can still see curtains flapping in the breeze out a broken window. I was a freshman during the spring term at Northern Illinois University. I returned from classes to find emergency vehicles circling around one of the high-rise dorms. There was an ominous energy among my floor mates. I soon learned a student jumped out that window, committing suicide.

I heard he was a small-town boy searching for significance on the vast campus. His current academic standing paled in comparison to a stellar high school record. Upset over poor grades, he decided to take his own life.

We talked long into the evening that night. Our resident assistant made the rounds making sure none of her charges were becoming unglued. We were young. First time away from home. Trying to figure out what life was all about. Trying to find our place in the world.

I was lucky. I roomed with my best friend from high school. Battered by heavy workloads, term paper deadlines and exam dates, I returned to a room where someone knew my name, knew the street where I grew up, knew my mother who loved me.

I awaken 30 years later to see the familiar dorms and buildings of Northern Illinois University on the news. Someone has opened fire on my former campus, killing five and injuring many. I see the ribboned memorials. Recognize the school color and mascot. My eyes fill with tears. My lips tremble. Young people, their lives ahead of them, full of questions: Who will I marry? What will I become? What is life all about?

How is it that some come up with the wrong answers?

Ruth Ellen Jones, Tampa

Gunman kills five Feb. 15, story

Crack down on guns

Another drive-by shooting! Another school massacre! These events have become almost commonplace. Why?

Violent video games and movies, fluctuating hormones, easy accessibility to guns, all contribute to the disturbing frequency of fatal shootings. Many factors can influence the instability of young people. Teenage brains are still maturing and not always able to make rational judgments. Peer pressure, drugs, feelings of inadequacy and lack of understanding of consequences or of the finality of death are other considerations. Certainly, watching for signs of emotional problems and getting appropriate help would be useful in eliminating violent behavior.

An even bigger difference could be made, however, by the enactment and enforcement of gun control laws. Instead of allowing arms in schools with the excuse they would be used for protection, as some have suggested, we should have stronger laws about the purchase of guns, more education in the proper use and care of weapons and their dangers, and strict punishment of adults who allow guns to fall into the hands of children.

The National Rifle Association should not combat laws that protect the public. Lives and emotional damage to those who witness such violence cannot be measured against hunting pleasures or lost dollars.

Renee G. Salzer, Seminole

Stand up to the NRA

These mass murders of students that have been occurring recently could have been prevented if those killers had not able to obtain their firearms. Give me a candidate who has the guts to stand up to the NRA by campaigning to abolish the private ownership of firearms and I'll vote for him regardless of party affiliation.

TV horror stories that we see every night portray shootings as a way of life. Guns are shown as adult toys. No wonder we have so many killings.

If we were not able to buy guns legally, those poor dead students would still be alive today.

Morris Grossman, Sun City Center

Protect us first

Many proud and concerned Americans were shocked when CIA director Michael Hayden confirmed that waterboarding was used on three al-Qaida members. Our concern was that it appears to have been limited to just three confirmed terrorists. The information obtained in this fashion saved many innocent lives while doing no physical damage to these fanatics.

Everyone should take a breath (unless you are being waterboarded), draw a very clear line between beheadings and simulating drowning, and then let our intelligence community make the decisions - case by case - on what methods are necessary to protect our country.

Tom Kelly, Clearwater

Gotcha politics

Rather than pass legislation that will protect America, Democrats in Congress are still trying to pull the plug on George W. Bush. He only has 10 months left in office, can't run again, yet Democrats in Congress are still going after him and anyone who is or was an important part of his administration.

Rather than take up extending the law allowing intelligence agencies to monitor phone calls from suspected terrorists into the United States from other countries, these dolts voted to hold two former White House staffers in contempt for refusing to testify in the firing of U.S. attorneys. That issue has been off the front pages for months. Get over it!

This deep-seated hatred for the 43rd president has resulted in this feckless body playing a childish game of gotcha politics while terrorists look for ways to kill our people.

It is as if the president is the condemned and Democrats are the executioners standing in a circular firing squad blasting themselves into irrelevance.

Dennis Roper, Clearwater

Bush warns of wiretap need Feb. 14, story

Stop the scare tactics

"President" Bush has hit yet another new low! His scare tactics using al-Qaida, yet again, to frighten the majority of Congress into supporting his illegal wiretapping FISA bill, were cheap. Thank God a grown-up will be in the White House by this time next year.

Every time Congress doesn't vote his way, Bush uses the terror card, as if it's going out of style. And this administration has cried wolf so often that, thanks to them, we probably won't be prepared if another terrorist attack occurs. I pray to God that I'm wrong on this.

Thanks to this administration, our military is stretched way too thin because of Bush's foolhardy invasion of Iraq, a country that was never a threat to us. If Bush really cares about this country's citizens, he should can the fear-mongering.

Lowell C. Johnson, Lutz

Flawed academics Feb. 14, letter

Plane geometry

The letter writer stated that the Earth was once thought to be flat, and that one only needed to read Isaiah 40:22, "He sits above the circle of the earth," to discover the world was not flat.

Not to get all "math and science" on this, but a circle is flat.

Gerard Meyn, Dunnellon

[Last modified February 18, 2008, 20:30:23]