Don't tase us, bro
I have followed the News-Democrat's articles from 2006 in remembrance of Nick Mamino Jr., who was tasered by Collinsville Police, shortly after which he died.
This is something we can't afford to forget because it could happen to any one of us who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Americans need to put a stop to this kind of tasering before it comes back to bite us again.
Apparently the same public servants who should listen to us and protect us are now tasering us with 50,000 volts or more. What is this, electrocution for all who don't obey? I thought our criminal justice system was so true, just and right, but we are now being stunned with high voltage. Something isn't quite right here. Apparently the system got too much power.
Can someone tell me the total number of people in the United States who have died by law enforcement taserings? I believe the last total reported did not stipulate what percentage was due from police taserings.
If anyone else has an opinion on this, I sure would like to read about it.
Tom Rudy
Caseyville
Patriots' choice
I am convinced there are tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of U.S. patriots who are not willing to go quietly into the dark night of slavery/loss of U.S. sovereignty cautiously called The North American Union.
The controlled media has consistently ignored freedom lovers who were enthusiastically present at the early Republican debates. Their candidate Rep. Ron Paul's answers to the U.S. problems were backed by our Constitution and condoned by a majority of those attending as noted by exit polls. He favors less government bureaucracy, controlled immigration, and a plan to bring our soldiers home to patrol our own borders.
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all funded the controlled rich internationalists who promote deep-sixing U. S. sovereignty. They favor the NAFTA superhighway (now under construction, usurping private property rights in Texas) and the Mexico-United States-Canada North American Union.
Republicans should rebel and demand that Paul be their party candidate for president. Patriots (as opposed to traitors) should have a viable candidate to vote for.
Marry J. Wasson
Equality
Blinded by hate
Pathological hatred displaces, within the human intellectual process, the capability to rationally interpret information even remotely associated with the subject of that hatred. Such diseased minds were surely present, on a frighteningly large scale, in Hitler's Germany. The Jewish death camps were undeniable evidence of such departure from rational humanity.
Similarly, the blind hatred is equally evident in many of the Muslim factions. The sacrifice of their own children becomes preferable to normal, rational thought processes.
Again, and with very serious cause for alarm, even here in the metro-east we find in the letters section similar blind, unthinking, hatred of President Bush. Such hatred appears to be without any semblance of patriotism or national pride in our historical support of defense in response to terrorist attacks on American soil.
What a terrible price we all will have to pay if we, as a nation, fail to rid ourselves of such ignorance in the future. God bless our Christian leaders and military defenders upon whom we are so critically dependent.
Jim Andrews
Freeburg
Terrible timing
The 46 priests who convened recently and signed a written request for Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton to resign ought to be ashamed of themselves. The timing of their stunt, on the eve of Holy Week, was awful.
Because of their well- publicized grievances against the bishop, we were treated to a seemingly endless parade of front-page headlines about an internal Catholic Church conflict at a time when our attention should have been devoted exclusively to the meaning of Holy Week.
I'm told that at least one of the 46 priests even mentioned the issue to his parishioners at Palm Sunday Mass. By contrast, the bishop rose above this soap opera and conducted all Holy Week services with his customary grace, dignity and reverence. And as usual, he challenged us with insightful and thought- provoking homilies.
Shame on the Gang of 46 for holding their Germantown summit on the eve of the most sacred week on the Christian calendar. I don't know whether their complaints against the bishop have any merit, but I do know this: They didn't win any points for style.
Fred Cavese
Belleville
A chance a justice
Thanks for a fair and accurate story about a significant new opportunity for child molestation victims to seek justice, "Court rules sex abuse lawsuit against priest can go forward," by George Pawlaczyk. This decision is a crucial step toward public safety for Illinois' kids.
It's also significant because three Catholic bishops are spending thousands of dollars to evade responsibility for a notorious priest, the Rev. Ken Roberts. Lawyers for St. Louis' Archbishop Raymond Burke, Belleville's Bishop Edward Braxton and Dallas' Bishop Kevin Farrell are all claiming Roberts isn't and wasn't their problem. Yet Roberts was allowed to work in each diocese, despite allegations that he molested children in Texas.
Plaintiff Chris Amenn's bravery and persistence is alerting the public to Roberts and the bishops' legal shenanigans.
Barbara Dorris
National Outreach Director Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests Saint Louis
Give Warfield credit
In a recent article by George Pawlaczyk, Metro East Sanitary District Director Bob Shipley said his predecessors "were guys who didn't go out into the field, they were older gentlemen and ran things solely from the office."
The director before him was Mac Warfield. He was in his 70s, but he didn't look it or show it, and he did go out and check the levees. I don't like it when something is said about him and he's not here to defend himself.
Betty Warfield
Granite City
What a resource
This is just a public thank you to the Answer Man, Roger Schlueter. He not only found what I had been searching for, but did it quickly and sent such a nice note with it. On behalf of his grateful recipients and those to come, I salute him. I hope readers realize what a wonderful resource he is.
James J. Hopper
Wood River
Abortion truths hurt
I read with amusement the offense the pro-abortion crowd expressed over Glenn McCoy's cartoon. Why don't they get
offended when it gets out that abortion providers do
late-term abortions and if they don't kill the baby during the procedure they put it in a corner till it dies? Or they botch an abortion and the woman dies, too? Or they find out so many young people have STDs in spite of Planned Parenthood's guarantee that a condom is safe?
They can't call McCoy a liar, they just get upset when he puts the truth out where they can understand. McCoy should keep up the good work.
Donald Field
Belleville
