Speak Out ... Invest in your children now while you still have the time
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Re "Summer solutions" (News article, May 19): Instead of planning to get your children out of your hair for the summer, look at it another way. Most families only get a couple of hours a day to spend with their children. They get home from school, do homework, eat, clean up and get in bed. Out of all the hours in a work week, maybe at most a parent gets 10 hours with their child. These are usually spent trying to undo negative things they learned in school and leaves the parent excited the next day when the bus pulls up. I'd like to encourage parents to spend this summer with your children teaching new things, one on one, and pouring your life into them. Many families have no choice and both parents must work, but if you don't, use the summer wisely, invest it in your child so they'll be more prepared to resist the negative temptations ahead in the upcoming school year. Remember, you only get a few years to train your children. It's like working all the overtime you can. No one lays on their death bed and says, "Man, I wish I had a few more days to work." It's more like, "If I only had a few more days with my family ..." Jeff Hines Area growthI wonder why cities on either side of Anniston — Oxford and Jacksonville — are showing business growth. A new Hampton Inn for Jacksonville, continual growth in Oxford of major businesses, a new and growing mall. Anniston growth seems stagnant. There (finally) is a new business on McClellan, the new Lowe's Home Improvement, but there is little else. It can't always be attributed to Interstate 20 running through Oxford; Jacksonville has no such convenient route. I believe it's due to nearsightedness and a lack of motivation in Anniston's government and the Joint Powers Authority. The biggest thing in Anniston's "revitalized" downtown Noble Street area is the annual bicycle festival. That has little to do with Anniston except location. I apologize to my fellow Annistonians for their government's remarkable underachievement. It's simply amazing. John Tidball Re "Forsaking God" (Speak Out, May 28): "People, you have to have Jesus in your life, otherwise we're all doomed." Dogmatic statements proclaiming that Christian beliefs are right and all others are wrong have been plaguing humanity for almost two millennia. An ancient law ordered all citizens of the Roman Empire to subscribe to the Christian doctrine established under Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea. After this, for more than a thousand years the subjects of Christendom had the choice of unquestioned acceptance of Christian dogma or torture and death. Christ proclaimed, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness." However, the Christian world was in darkness until the Age of Enlightenment. Not until Christianity began to lose its influence did mankind emerge from darkness into an era of reason, science, ethics and human dignity. What did Christians do before "they took prayer out of schools and the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms?" They hung witches, whipped slaves, pillaged Native Americans, sent children to sweatshops, lynched African-Americans and denied equal rights and opportunities to minorities and women. Today sex-based and religious intolerance continue in the Bible Belt. David N. Miles A recent New York Times article stated "the Supreme Court adopted a broad interpretation of workers" rights, ruling that employees are protected from retaliation when they report discrimination. This is as it should be. Anyone who knowingly retaliates, ignores or attempts to block or divert any effort to correct or otherwise expose for correction an injustice is, in effect, in violation of our laws. Anyone who reports a violation of our laws rightfully should be afforded the full protection of those laws, criminal and civil. Anything less is a violation of our country's laws and should be punished accordingly. James L. Nix |
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