7 throwaways didn’t waste any of 9 lives

To whoever put seven kittens in a box, taped it shut and threw it into a Dumpster off Speedway Boulevard last week, I’d like you to know all seven are safe.

Yes, they were found by a person who, unlike you, has a heart. The kittens are being bottle-fed and taken care of.

Unlike you, someone took the time to ask around and see if friends and family wanted a kitten in a few weeks when they are old enough.

Six will have homes; we hope the seventh soon will be spoken for.

I chose the white kitten with the black tail and black ears. I’ve named him Yoda. That’s what he looks like.

In these tough times, it may have been hard on you to take care of these kittens, but they deserved so much better than being taped shut in a box and thrown in a Dumpster in the heat.

I have no idea how I’ll pay for Yoda’s shots and neutering, but I do know somehow I’ll manage.

It’s too bad you didn’t think of more than yourself.

Susan Mahne

How would gay unions threaten our freedom?

I have been a happily married man for many years. And I cannot conceive of any instance where my marriage or happiness would be endangered by letting gays, lesbians or people of different races marry.

On the contrary, I find my happiness and sense of security threatened by the large number of Americans who seem to hate freedom.

These people until quite recently forbade people of different races from marrying and are now determined to keep gays and lesbians from doing so.

Freedom means letting people enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” unless it hurts someone else. And how is anybody hurt by letting gays and lesbians marry the person they love?

Jim Burke

Bisbee

Animal doc unleashes over Prop. 401 missteps

Your endorsement of Proposition 401 as “innocuous” was based on incorrect information. It appears editors, like computers, must have decent input to produce decent output.

The meat greyhounds eat is the same used in most commercial pet foods. Although inappropriate for human consumption, it is perfectly healthy for dogs, who digest raw meat easily with no ill effects.

Animals eat other animals all the time without benefit of frying or roasting. They eat dead or diseased animals first, since those are the easiest to catch. Anyone who has ever watched a pet dog gobble up a dead bird understands this reality.

You are also mistaken to suggest that requiring greyhounds to be outdoors for six hours a day is desirable. Because they are so lean and carry so little fat or hair, greyhounds are especially vulnerable to temperature extremes.

They get overheated or chilled easily. That is why they are exercised for shorter periods four or five times daily.

Prohibiting use of hormones to control estrus in female greyhounds is counterproductive. Steroids reduces stress in the dogs and potential disruptions in the kennels. When the females finish their careers, they are taken off steroids and their normal cycles resume, enabling many of them to return to the farm as breeders.

Prop. 401 is not needed and, if it passes, could do greyhounds more harm than good. It is anything but “innocuous.”

Paul Pullen

veterinarian

Use $25,000 to help out citizens, not criminals

Re: the Wednesday article “$25,000 grant for desert water stations OK’d by Pima supervisors“:

I don’t agree with the Pima County Board of Supervisors using our $25,000 tax money for water stations in the Sonoran Desert to benefit illegal immigrants.

Leave any contributions to that cause to be made by individuals on their own dime.

Citizens of our own country need assistance with food and water. Let’s help them and their children before we help noncitizens.

Supervisors who voted for this should be replaced at the next election. Maybe the state attorney general ought to look into the legality of this.

Carol Stocksdale

Rewriting loans would be win-win for most

My family and I, like many others, owe more than our house is worth.

We bought our home in 1998 with an FHA-VA fixed-rate loan. We took out a second mortgage to pay bills, as our house had equity.

The bailout by the feds is not going to loosen the tight grip of the banking institutions. They are reluctant to lend to anyone, including other banks.

The simple solution is to stop everything. By this, I mean re-evaluate all troubled mortgages at 2003 to 2004 levels and rewrite the loans between 5 percent and 6 percent, backed by the government.

Lending institutions will take a loss. They can write off their portfolios of worthless paper.

But foreclosures will stop; families can stay in their homes; and mortgages will be paid. Money will flow!

Just draw a line and start over. Otherwise, our economy will continue to fall and nothing will be left.

Everyone is at fault here. Greed! I think we all have learned something and will not allow this to happen again.

David R. Stone

fire marshal

Drexel Heights Fire District

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Opinion. Tags for this post: Editorials, Opinion-Editorials, page-b02. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.