Important to give facts accurately
Truth is external.
* Electoral College: Contrary to a liberal columnist, electors cast their votes in state capitals, not Washington D.C.
* Indians: Contrary to a letter claiming millions of Indians, as of the 1800 census, there were only 600,000 Indians in the U.S., and by 1900 they were down to around 250,000.
* Tulsa insurrection: Contrary to woke political correctness, both Black and white people died in the mob race insurrection; a "massacre" is one-sided. We do need to learn the actual casualties.
* Jan. 6 riot: Definitely not on par with the U.S. Civil War. In the former, one person - an Air Force woman vet - was killed. The latter - 620,000.
Ronald Williams
School board must insist on masking
The HCDE school board code of ethics, Article II, Section 2, states: "I will represent at all times the entire school community and refuse to represent special interests or partisan politics." The board is not fulfilling its duties when it refuses to mandate masks (at least for the elementary school children).
Under-12 children do not have a choice in the matter as far as vaccines and are unprotected against COVID. Parents missing work due to sick kids and the very real possibility of going back to virtual learning due to schools closing is more of an inconvenience than masking kids temporarily. We have masked up before, and we can do it again until this delta variant is gone.
The Academy of American Pediatricians states all children over age 2 should be masked to mitigate the spread of COVID. The school board needs to listen to pediatricians, the CDC and health department officials rather than Tennessee state representatives, other politicians and parents making this a political issue.
We need to keep the politics out of our schools. Our kids have enough to deal with.
Vicki Hill, Hixson
U.S. disingenuous in Afghan wind-down
Only in America, after occupying a Third-World country for more than 20 years, slaughtering tens of thousands of its people, and after getting kicked out, could we expect to dictate the terms of our surrender and how the prevailing country should govern itself after our departure.
We lie about wanting to get people who turned against their country to provide support to us during the occupation to leave before they are killed (as most traitors historically are). Can one imagine the U.S. welcoming tens of thousands of brown-skinned Muslims when we're already losing sleep because Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Jews, etc. are rapidly replacing white America?
What's particularly disingenuous is our professed fear of how women and girls will be treated in Afghanistan once we get out. Our crocodile tears concerning their rights would seem a little more authentic were our own legal definition of a woman or a girl being whatever they say they are.
Afghan culture is more than 50,000 years old which, in terms of cultural/societal best practices, is indicative they're doing something right even as we, after less than 300 years, are sinking fast. But then again, we're exceptional.
Gene Stevens, Tunnel Hill, Ga.