Speak Out

Re "Shelby's response" (Speak Out, May 10):

Letter writer Donald Landers chastises Sen. Richard Shelby's reason for not taking a more aggressive stand against so-called global warming in his response to Landers' letter. To wit, "the really strange thing the letter says is that Shelby wasn't persuaded that global warming, or climate change as the letter called it, was a cyclical phenomenon of our weather or caused by man-made pollutants."

Landers goes on to offer this dubious suggestion, "So why don't we try reducing these pollutants for a while and see what happens? If nothing good happens, we can always go back to doing what we know is wrong."

Let me see if I've got this right: We stop doing what we know is wrong, and if nothing happens to indicate that what we were doing was wrong in the first place, then we go back to doing what we know is wrong.

Thankfully, exhaustive research validates Shelby's opinion, impugns Landers' "Algorisms" and tends to "lay them to rest."

Armond Simmons
Pell City

Thanks for the help

Our 12th Annual Special Kids Fishing Classic on May 1 was really special. Congratulations to Oxford High and Wellborn Elementary for winning the trophies for the most fish caught. Many thanks to all who made this day special, and particularly to all the teachers who work with these special kids every day.

Special thanks to Josephine Ayers for keeping her promise, to Jana McGinnis and the Jacksonville State softball team for doing an awesome job, and to Calhoun County Commissioner J.D. Hess for being in charge of entertainment — this guy can do the twist with the best of them.

Thanks to James Poe for taking hundreds of pictures, which are posted online at www.calhouncounty.org. If you would like a copy of a picture of your child or group, please call James at 241-2955.

Whenever you feel you are having a bad day, just spend some time with a special child.

James Eli Henderson
Calhoun County Commissioner
Anniston

New legislators needed

Re "Need to end sales tax on food" (Speaker's Stand, May 7):

Whether you are Democrat or Republican, the people who are on fixed incomes and draw federal annuity checks on retirement pensions will have to pay tax on these pensions because federal income tax is taken out of our checks every month just like we were working.

The people in Alabama would fare much better if we didn't have a bunch of greedy legislators who vote themselves outrageous extra salaries for part-time jobs — which is the kind of jobs legislators have — and then stoop to voting themselves free state health insurance. That's a crime within itself.

I urge every registered voter in Alabama to vote against any member of the House or Senate now serving in the Legislature. We may get a group with the same character if we vote in some new ones, but at least it will take them one or two terms to learn all of the dirty, low-down tricks of using Alabamians to pad their salaries and perks that take up so much of our tax money. That money should provide for schools and other state operations.

Martha S. Sims
Bynum