West Newsmagazine Letters To The Editor

West Newsmagazine is West St. Louis County's exclusive direct-mailed community newspaper.

Letters To The Editor

Delay the green

To The Editor:

Much has been made about the red light cameras – not only in your newsmagazine, but in all types of news media. Tickets schmickets – there always will be drivers running through the yellow and running through the red.

In your April 23 issue, Alan Mawhinney suggested “lengthening the yellow light time . . . that proper light timing will reduce violations and accidents.” I completely agree with Mawhinney. But the drivers will still sneak through.

However, perhaps a solution would be adding a 5-second delay in the green coming on after the red – but not telling us about it. When a light turns red, simply re-program the green light at the other part of the intersection not to come on for another 5 seconds.

Think about it.

All drivers who ran the yellow/red will have passed through. And drivers waiting for their green will wait an additional 5 seconds before proceeding through – but they will not know they are waiting another 5 seconds. Five seconds of no movement at all points of the intersection.

It is a no-brainer. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) quietly re-programs the software for that intersection. We do not have to know about it – just do it and do not tell us.

Dave Alonzo

Wildwood

Education as investment

To The Editor:

I simply must respond to Thomas Sowell’s column, “The economics of college” (May 7).

Sowell argues that government spending on college education means less for other things, like building homes or hospitals. This is an overly simplistic and misleading understanding of the economics of education.

Education is not some black hole where the money invested simply disappears. Education is an investment with highly valuable dividends, something most developed countries understand much better than the United States.

Tax money invested in education is an investment in our people, our future and our nation. Those graduating from college have higher income potentials and become that high-producing tax-paying middle class on which this country depends.

When you saddle that group with high student loans, it directly impacts their ability to engage in spending and long-term investments that stimulate economic growth and stability. When the public invests in the education of its own people, the dividends are reaped for a long time and we all benefit.

Under-funding higher education robs us all of those dividends.

One other correction. Those “feel good” subjects are not a waste, Mr. Sowell. Those with liberal arts educations still enjoy a higher income upon graduation than those with no college education at all. The investment is a worthwhile one, for all concerned.

Rev. Krista Taves

Emerson Unitarian Universalist Chapel

Ellisville

Where is outrage?

To The Editor:

We all reacted in horror to the man who kept his daughter locked up for 24 years and had children with her.

What a monster.

Well, how about those in the sect in Texas who have kept all of those women and children locked up for years in the name of religion? They have created a harem for themselves and their buddies.

Where is our outrage?

What happened to the young men who were children of these men and women? They are put out on the street when they become old enough to endanger the paradise of these dirty, old men.

Now that we have DNA on these guys, every last one of them should be rounded up and put in prison, tear down the walls and free the women.

Those women are no better off than the Muslim women in Arab countries.

We better be fighting this horror right here in our own homeland.

Carol Stukey

Grover

Making sense?

To The Editor:

Does it make any sense that the United States borrows money from foreign countries to occupy and reconstruct another foreign country - namely Iraq? That is the Bush administration policy.

George W. Bush is the same guy who thinks it is a good idea to pay the oil companies American taxpayer dollars to sell us $3 and $4 a gallon gasoline.

How much more dumbfounding can it get?

Fred Boeneker

Sowell lights

To The Editor:

This is in regard to Thomas Sowell's column in the April 30 issue that in part discussed the safety hazard of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL). All fluorescent lamps, including the 48-inch tubes you might have over the workbench or laundry area in your basement, contain a very small amount of Mercury. A small amount of Mercury has been in all fluorescent lamps ever since they were developed decades ago.

I am not aware of any concerns related to Mercury with the larger fluorescent lamps other than they should not be put in landfills. A large amount of fluorescent lamps in a landfill could allow Mercury to leach into the soil. Because of the small size of CFLs, I would suspect that they contain even less Mercury than the larger lamps and therefore would be no less hazardous.

I would like to find out from Mr. Sowell what source he used to determine that extra ordinary efforts would be required to clean up a broken CFL. There are occasions when a large amount of Mercury can get out of its container such as with a broken older thermometer or furnace thermostat that would be a true hazard but it is my opinion today's CFL would not fall into that category. Possibly one of your other readers could verify this.

CFLs have their place in a homeowner's effort to reduce energy consumption but, for various reasons, probably will not replace all incandescent lamps. When a CFL fails it should however be returned to a collection center just as we do with old rechargeable batteries.

Michael Sheridan

Sowell flights & lights

To The Editor:

Thomas Sowell writing about the cancellation of thousands of airline flights, he says it was not the idea of the Federal Aviation Agency, "which usually cuts the airlines some slack on items that are not considered to be really dangerous."

I say it was the FAA's idea because the airlines have been abusing the gentle treatment they have been getting from the aviation regulator.

American Airlines was required to correct the wiring bundling in a punitive fashion because they falsely reported that the work was properly done, in defiance of the FAA. It was necessary to clamp down on them to remind American's management that they are subject to federal safety regulations. The fact that the FAA's lax enforcement policies had been publicly exposed by Congress was not as important as the outrageous falsification of inspection reports by the airline.

Sowell should also be aware that it is his judgment that the items are not considered to be really dangerous. You could draw that conclusion from watching network news reports. But the fact that they are safety requirements that were not resisted when the regulations were proposed means that people in the industry recognized the danger better than we armchair observers.

The disgraceful handling of the flight cancellations by American Airlines was an attempt to inflate the problems of consumers and shift the blame to the FAA.

You should have looked elsewhere for an example of political crusaders charging like a bull through a china shop. There is the recent proposal of a temporary repeal of the Federal Gasoline tax by two presidential candidates, and there are countless examples in the legacy of Newt Gingrich and his successors in the House of Representatives since the early 1990s.

I have been using compact fluorescent bulbs for several years now and have never had one break. When one burns out, which is not common, I seal it in a plastic bag and put it out with the trash. I would do the same if one broke. The silliness about CFL bulbs and the space Sowell gives it in his column reflects back on his own political crusading, not those of the advocates of CFL bulbs as a small step in energy conservation.

Bill Sullivan