Reading the article about a local mother’s efforts to make sure her son is safe at school really made me irate. We are hearing more and more about assaults, rapes and other crimes at colleges and schools. Comments are made on how the schools are investigating and handling discipline of alleged offenders. When did schools become responsible for prosecuting felony crimes instead of law enforcement and the courts? Schools certainly are not qualified to do so. Local law enforcement needs to take charge in these cases.
Mary Caddell
Dayton
Respect our world; curb your butts
As I sat in line at the Hardee’s Restaurant in East Brainerd, I watched a woman behind me in a black Nissan pick-up truck toss her used cigarette into the parking lot.
I just want to thank her for adding to the garbage we deal with at our city’s businesses, and in the city of Chattanooga, Hamilton County and the United States as a whole.
There must be innumerable cigarette butts thrown out on a daily basis. No one is responsible for this planet anymore; we are all living in our own little world. But I wonder how many people would ignore people tossing cigarette butts into your home? Have a little respect for the world. Our children do not want to grow up in piles of stinking cigarette butts.
Robert Hall
We are exceptional, but also dangerous
To the letter writer who trumpets our human exceptionalism: You’re right, we are our planet’s dominant species. But he also says that because chimps don’t have the capacity to teach a language skill to their offspring, they can’t be compared to humans. The writer claims we are not on any evolutionary ladder but a ladder all our own. This misdirection implies we homo sapiens are separate, detached and therefore above other living things. It’s an assumption that raises idiocy to the level of virtue.
How do dolphins communicate? Can crickets feel pain as we understand it? How do bees work so well together? We one day may know those answers, but until then it is folly to assume other life forms are not as “exceptional” as we are and every bit as vital to the common thread of life we share.
Yes, we do dominate. We contain the awesome ability to dam rivers, still fish, make insects fall from trees and wipe out untold millions in the flash of a mushroom cloud. We’ve come to this brink of self-destruction, ironically, through our intelligence coupled with the delusional self-importance evidenced by the writer I cite.
Denny Pistoll
Rising Fawn, Ga
Tongue-in-cheek ad slogan suggested
I understand legislation is being proposed in the General Assembly to require all used-car dealers to adopt a uniform ad slogan that is to be posted on the premises of every car lot. It would read as follows, “We will take you for a ride.”
John Turnipseed