Letters to the Editor


Thursday, May 17, 2012
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Letters To The Editor

Needs love, care
To whom it may concern:

About eight weeks ago on Bubba Taylor Rd., near Gravel Pit Rd., you dumped your little black mama dog, with a litter of three or four black puppies, maybe 6 weeks old at that time. I want to give a good description, so you will know who you are.

One male puppy survived. The mama dog was hungry all the time, but feared people. She died because, in looking for food, her head became lodged in a plastic jug. It took eight long days for her to die. Every person in our neighborhood who saw her tried to help her. She was so fearful we couldn’t catch her.

She died inches from food and water. Every time I think of her my heart breaks. If she had been spayed, all of this would not have happened. Even with puppies, a responsible pet owner would have done the right thing.

Please do not take a pet if you are not going to care for it, and don’t leave it to your children. Children are not responsible for themselves; how can they care for a pet without parental supervision?

I have three throw-away pets in my home. I don’t have room for this puppy. He is very smart. He is solid black with a white patch on his chest, friendly and sweet. He needs someone responsible to love and care for him. Call the Marshall County Humane Society (564-2900).

Donna Boswell
Byhalia

Redistricting plan
Dear Editor,

Every 10 years, the legislature redraws the boundaries of voting districts. The party in power always draws the districts in such a way as to improve its chances in future elections. The other party always cries foul and cloaks itself in self-righteous indignation. This “Decennial Dance” is complicated by the chaperoning of the U.S. Department of Justice; which, depending on the party in control in Washington, may have its own political interests to serve.

A front page story in the 10 May edition of The South Reporter laments the fact that our Senate district has been redrawn in the proposed plan. The problems seem to be that we might not be able to get so much stuff from Jackson, and that black voting blocks might be diluted. We have three issues here: 1) getting stuff, 2) racial division, and 3) gerrymandering in general.

We are fast becoming a society of beggars; and the sad fact is that we are begging for our own money. When we send money to Washington or Jackson and then go hat in hand to get some of it back, what has been accomplished — other than providing employment for bureaucrats who decide who gets back how much of the money we send them? We have people making a living as lobbyists representing the cities and counties of Mississippi. What is their purpose other than trying to get back some of the money we’ve unnecessarily sent to Jackson? We have people making a living writing requests for grants. If we paid our way locally we wouldn’t have to send so much to Washington and Jackson, and the people who make a living to get us something for “nothing” would have to find productive rather than parasitic employment. The farther a problem solver is from the problem, the less likely he is to solve the problem. Shouldn’t we be keeping the money and the decision-making at home?

The second issue raised by the May 10 article was racial division. Isn’t it time to get rid of the Voting Rights Act and the meddling of the U.S. Department of Justice in Southern elections? There are very few people alive today who can remember the Jim Crow voting laws. There is election fraud in the South, but no more than in the North; and in the South, no more in white majority districts than in black majority districts. So long as we are afflicted with ambitious people, we will be afflicted with election fraud. The object is to reduce it as much as possible. The Voting Rights Act does nothing to reduce such fraud; in fact, the present Attorney General’s selective enforcement policies make things worse, not better. It is time to get rid of the Voting Rights Act.

In the early 19th century a Massachusetts governor by the name of Gerry had the voting districts in his state redrawn to favor his party. One of the districts was so ridiculously drawn that on a map it looked like a salamander. Ever since, drawing such districts has been known as gerrymandering. Politicians gerrymander voting districts for their own personal political advantage. They also claim to gerrymander for racial reasons. Does gerrymandering our own voting districts to provide some majority black and some majority white districts heal racial divisions, or does it tend to pick the scabs off healing wounds?

Gerrymandering districts does little to promote the appearance of good government, but it does serve the interests of the party doing the drawing, and so long as parties can gerrymander districts, they will gerrymander districts.

The solution is a Constitutional Amendment requiring all districts to be squares or rectangles with four right angles in the boundaries of each district. The one exception to this rule would be districts on the boundary between states when that boundary is not a straight line (river, coastline). This would put an end to the Decennial Dance and both parties would have to live with voting populations distributed by the voters’ choices of residence rather than the politicians’ creativity in boundary drawing.

Very truly yours,
J.R. Dunworth

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