Dalton gun incident is a warning shot
The incident in Dalton proves arming anybody, let alone teachers, is a bad idea with potentially tragic consequences. Anybody with a gun is a potential mass murderer. Life is about percentages. The teacher involved, the “voice” of the Catamounts, should be the clarion call for gun control and should speak loud and clear to the people of Dalton who seem to hold their weapons so closely. Or will they lay their children on the shrine to the NRA – mere Topheth (Jeremiah 7:3 0-34).
David Bean
Chatsworth, Ga.
Shooting is harvest of moral decline
The murder of 17 people in Florida has elicited responses from us all.
On Feb. 16, your Times editorial headline was “Evil doesn’t kill people, people with guns do.”
Consider a more realistic headline: “People with evil intent can kill, sometimes with guns.”
If there are multiple victims or just one, murder is heinous. People make choices based on what rules their innermost being.
Spiritual darkness can cause someone to kill with a gun, knife, bat, hammer, ax, poison, chainsaw, device strapped on a suicide bomber, pair of hands choking a neck, vehicle in control of someone plowing into an unsuspecting crowd or whatever killing tool is used by someone harboring evil in the heart. Hence, the cruel harvest of moral decline.
The traditional family unit has been compromised, aberrant behavior has been glamorized and nurtured, the sports and entertainment worlds rarely produce wholesome heroes anymore, the sanctity of life has been brutalized in the womb and out of it.
Youth who have no roots in the faith that grounded America’s beginnings are directionless and searching for attention in the wrong places.
So, the battle in our culture continues until God’s light resides in our hearts.
Janet Reeve
Important to fund Head Start agencies
As executive director of Family Resource Agency in Cleveland, I attended the National Head Start Association Winter Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., with more than 500 Head Start families, alumni and staff from almost all 50 states.
While meeting with the offices of our elected representatives, I discussed the need for robust funding for Head Start programs in Bradley, McMinn, Meigs and Polk counties.
As I spoke about the impact Head Start has on families, I kept the story of Tony, a Head Start child, close to mind. Tony’s teacher suggested the mother seek counseling for Tony’s disruptive behavior and gave her the name of a local agency.
Many years later, that teacher ran into Tony’s mother, who gave her a big hug. The mother had taken the teacher’s advice, and Tony, after 10 years of counseling, was a successful high schooler: playing on the football team, earning excellent grades and planning to attend college. Tony’s mother said none of this would have happened without Head Start.
Our children are too important for our leaders to be tightfisted. It’s time for them to step up on behalf of our most vulnerable early learners.
James E. Anderson