Industrial pollution
The change in venue in the Monsanto case smells of the foul odors I inhaled into my lungs as a child, its intent as misleading as the PCB-infested cool water I swam in.During my formative years, I romped throughout West Anniston during the hot summer months with my cousins and friends like little Huckleberry Finns in the local streams that ran from the "pipe shops," as we came to know them.
I'd turn over large rocks to catch small crawfish and place them in a white "slop" bucket that Grandpa used to feed his hogs. Grandpa used the crawfish I'd caught as bait when he went fishing down on Choccolocco Creek.
The fish he'd bring home and clean on the back porch in Joyview Heights Projects and which Grandma would fry for dinner was the reward I remember for my efforts.
Given Grandpa's sixth-grade education and my youth, neither he nor anyone else in the neighborhood for that matter were informed/educated that they were being poisoned by PCBs everyday.
I later learned why Grandpa didn't have much education/information: They said back then that whites didn't have much use for educated/informed blacks. The general feeling was that blacks didn't need a great deal of education or information to pick cotton, cut grass and clean houses.
Will the people of Alabama (black and white) allow Monsanto to make this PCB case another dirty chapter in Alabama's mistreatment of its citizens of African descent?
The moral gauntlet has been cast down.
Roy Carter
Phoenix, Ariz.
Disregard for life
Recently, a study by Phillip Morris Tobacco Company concluded that dead smokers save the government money.
The evidence confirmed that the positive effects of smokers who die from tobacco-related illnesses, the cost of health care, lost working days and fires caused by cigarettes represent a benefit for society.
I say, shocking conclusion but isn't that the way our society deals with everything more or less?
Elderly people are shuffled into understaffed nursing homes where the lack of care allows patients to be isolated, mistreated and institutionalized.
A single fall from a bed that requires a patient to have surgery may well end in death.
In attempts to remove people with drug and alcohol problems from our streets, police do not hesitate to injure suspects who attempt to escape when they are apprehended.
A dead prisoner is one less prisoner to house.
Be it a 5-year-old who cannot sit quietly in school, a 15-year-old who cannot obey a curfew, or a college student skipping class, it is obvious that breaking the rules will result in punishment to one's self.
Even in our games such as baseball, a participant gets three strikes and then is "out." To argue with the umpire over his decision could result in being told to leave the ballpark.
These studies tell us (the survivors) things that we already knew from observation over a lifetime. Society expects individuals to conform and contribute economically. Otherwise, life is cheap. You die.
Carol Stober
Talladega
Postal rates
The postal department can save a bundle of money by stopping a delivery on Saturday.
Larry J. Cate Sr.
Munford
