School boards need tax power
After [witnessing] 50 years in the classroom and 30-plus seasons coaching wrestling and soccer, the TFP's recent Sunday coverage of athletics in Hamilton County public schools said it all. Great job, Stephen Hargis. No matter what the politicians or central office people say, county athletics have been on the decline for at least 30 years with little to look forward to unless some major changes occur. Beside the solutions stated in the articles, I suggest the following:
1. When the Board of Education is given the power to tax, like most other school boards in the country, the district will get the funds they need to operate. They will be accountable to voters for how they spend the money through elections.
2. When public school coaches stop scheduling the private schools in all sports, parents will not have anything to compare. The private schools can have kids from anyplace, and do regularly, whereas the public schools can only get student athletes from their zone.
Jim Watson
Hixson
In Georgia District 14, trust only God
It appears that many have disembarked the ship of Old Zion and climbed aboard the bus of "Christians behaving badly." There is nothing like good religion, and there is nothing worse than bad religion.
The result of bad religion is that it works the opposite of what it is called to do. Good religion calls out for justice, praying for all, and appreciating all of God's creation. Bad religion condemns all that are not of the exact belief or exact political party. Bad religion has a Bible in a loose leaf binder so that a lot of the Scripture is lost.
Georgia District 14 has become a witness to the world of the ugliness that bad religion creates. As Christians, we are reminded that we do not see ourselves as religious people, but people who have a living relationship with The Christ. It is in this Jesus that we want people to see.
Some trust in horses and chariots and donkeys and elephants, but I will trust in the name of my God and Lord.
Rev. Bruce Sloan
Ringgold, Ga.
The problem is in front of us
Your article in the Aug. 28 Sunday edition on mass killings was interesting and covered a multitude of factors affecting and causing our pandemic of public mass murders. However, the one most obvious and universal factor in these events was never mentioned, though hinted at obliquely.
Scattered throughout the text was the noun "gunman." There was no mention of "gunwomen," nor does my dictionary list such a word. It doesn't exist. Why?
Because most firearm violence and nearly 100% of mass murders are committed by males.
But only a small percentage of human males indulge in massive public gun violence. Most will only do so when forced to by the government military.
Logic decrees that, beside background, family, life experiences, mental moods, etc., some males carry a genetic, biological component that bends them in that direction. Here's where some research dollars and effort should go.
Thomas Rodgers
Dayton, Tenn.