10/28/2007 Letters to the Editor

We have a lack of disease detection

Dear Editor:

Immigrants coming through Ellis Island were given a health exam and any who exhibited signs of communicable disease were detained for treatment. Today, no exam has been done on those millions who persistently and flagrantly trespass our borders with neither legality nor passport. And then there are those permitted foreign visitors who just stay and vanish? Our immigration laws are like “old humpty dumpty, who after a great fall off the wall, couldn’t be put together again by all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.”

I assumed, when learning that rhyme, that at least some efforts were made to repair that damage; whereas we can make no assumption that any real effort is being made by the president and congressmen to enforce existing immigration laws.

One good reason the laws should be enforced has to do with communicable diseases being brought here by immigrants. In all origin countries, disease control is lagging behind such programs as practiced in this country, thus resulting in their much higher rate of incidences of such diseases as TB, internal parasites, AIDS, VD strains, intestinal disorders and numerous other banes of the human body.

In the past, huge- and long-term efforts were made in the U.S. to successfully eliminate or reduce the incidence of some of these health hazards which could now gain status’s of epidemics if not handled promptly and properly. We need to forget about hurting feelings when health and lives are at stake and eliminate “political correctness,” “no racial profiling,” and erroneous use of “privacy laws,” which prevent needed “hands-on methods.”

The public deserves that communicable disease incidence records be publicized widely. Remember how political maneuvering some years ago by Hollywood and gay groups was used to make light of the AIDS outbreak allowing for its severe public health consequences? No sane person wants their child working with or marrying someone who is even suspected of being infected with a transmissible disease.

I’m not suggesting that “herd health programs” or identification by recorded tattoos, ear tags or traceable implants as used in livestock, be instigated in this human endeavor, but there is no doubt that these programs have improved disease control and tracking of suspect animals tremendously. Also, health exams, including blood tests and skin tests for detecting various unwanted diseases of animals are required when different species and breeds are moved between states and countries. Why? Disease detection, control and prevention!

Animal health laws work to the benefit of animals and humans so why not put more stress on the value of human exams to find and prevent spread of diseases? “Profile exams and testing” of the potential disease carrying illegal immigrants would be considered cruel and racist by some, but what about the legal American citizens who may innocently receive the immigrants’ disease?

The nonenforcement of immigrant laws allows immigrants to be undetected anywhere within this land while possibly carrying contagious pathogens to and fro. Although not publicized by the media, an active, transmissible and resistant type of TB, new to this country, has been found in immigrants in California and Georgia and maybe elsewhere.

I am still worried that there are no health test requirements for food handlers or cafe workers. Only food handler managers are given short courses concerning their workers’ food sanitation techniques. Why don’t we gnash our teeth, tear our clothes, scream curses and throw a little dirt in the air? That might draw attention to our frustrations, but would our attentive leaders care?

Monte Swatzell

Cleburne

Thanks from Cleburne Ex-Student’s Association

Dear Editor:

The Cleburne High School Alumni Association would like to thank the following people, groups and organizations for their assistance in making this year’s Cleburne High School Homecoming activities a success: Gary Lackey and the city of Cleburne employees who assisted in marking off and protecting the parade route and staging the parade, Cleburne City Manager Chester Nolen and Sam Ball at the Cleburne Municipal Airport for allowing us to stage the parade at that facility, Chief Terry Powell and the Cleburne Police Department for their assistance managing the traffic and for the police escort, John Rollen and members of the Cleburne Fire Department for providing fire trucks and drivers for the Yellow Jacket football team and cheerleaders, Darryle and Jennifer Taylor and Lawn Tech Inc. for providing the trailer for Chuck Curtis and the 1982 state semifinalists Yellow Jacket football team to ride on as parade marshals, Jeff England Motor Company and Harold Crump for providing vehicles for parade dignitaries to ride on, Steve Adams, Tammy Mahan and the members of Boy Scout Troop 811 for providing the color guard and Jason Jones and the Golden Pride of Cleburne High for leading the parade.

Additional thanks go to the members of the Cleburne ISD, especially to CHS Principal Monte Pritchett and Earl Wall and the CHS Student Council and CHS Athletic Director Phil Young for their cooperation and assistance in rearranging the festivities to conform with the guidelines of District 8-4A.

In addition we wish to thank the CHS Student Council and Leadership Class and the Culinary Arts Class for hosting the Friday morning reception for the honorees and the Alumni Association officers, as well as Pat Tuggle and Kay Kelm in the CHS Athletic Department offices for providing tickets to the game for the honorees and their guests. Big thanks to Kara Mead and the CHS cheerleaders — past and present — for hosting the meeting for all CHS exes at Caddo Street Grill.

We wish to send out a special thanks to parade marshal, coach Chuck Curtis, Coming Home Queen Wileta Kretschmar and the family of CHS Wall of Fame inductee Marshall Young for taking time out of their busy schedules to participate in this year’s Homecoming activities and allow us all to express our pride and gratitude that you are all part of the CHS family and alumni.

Coach, it was fairly obvious to all in attendance at the pep rally after the parade that the hat still works! A special thanks to Monty Dobbins, Brad Young, Scott Hobby and Kyle Boles for their assistance in assembling the returning members of the 1982 football team to serve as parade marshals along with coach Curtis and allow us to remember and acknowledge that great season in Yellow Jacket football fore.

Thanks to the entries from nearly 50 schools, businesses and individuals whose time and efforts made the parade another success. Congratulations to Irving Elementary School, Adams Elementary School and the CHS building trades class for their winning entries in the parade.

An enormous thank you goes out to Lisa Magers for her assistance in publicizing and organizing the activities in her role as liaison between this organization and the CISD. Lisa, your time and talents are invaluable to us. Thanks to radio station KCLE for allowing us to publicize the events on the radio and to the Cleburne Times-Review for allowing the same in the newspaper.

To coach Young and the players and coaches of the 2007 Cleburne Yellow Jackets, we say that while the final score may not have reflected what we would have wished, we thank you nonetheless for the tremendous effort in the game and the manner in which you always conduct yourselves before, during and after the contest. It does indeed make us all proud to say that we were once and always will be fighting Cleburne Yellow Jackets.

Sincerely,

Mark Banton, president

Roger Gregory, vice president

Cheri McCullough,

secretary-treasurer

CHS alumni association

We have the right to arms

Dear Editor:

The Brady campaign is spinning tall tales and making a fuss ever since the U.S. Court of Appeals decision in Parker vs. District of Columbia declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms and that the right is not limited to service in a militia. The court also found that the district’s bans on possessing handguns, carrying firearms within one’s home and having guns in operable condition within the home are unconstitutional.

Brady titled its 15-page rant “Militia Madness” and “Second Amendment Fantasy.” The gist of it is the worn out suggestion that the amendment protects nothing more that the “right” of National Guard personnel to carry guns while on duty. “Whatever the nature of its membership,” Brady claims, “it would seem plain that a ‘well regulated’ militia must be in fact, organized.”

Of course, as usual, Brady is just making stuff up. (They write some great fairy tales.)

Title 10, Section 311 (b)2) of the U.S. Code defines “the unorganized militia” to include most able-bodied adult males. So let the Second Amendment author speak for himself. At a time when America’s population numbered fewer than 4 million, James Madison wrote in the Federalist that the country possessed a “militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.”

Madison argued that “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation” helps form “a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.” Madison compared armed American citizens to the unarmed subjects of European countries: “[If Europeans had the same advantages] the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend [their] rights.”

As Judge Laurence Silberman noted in Parker vs. D.C., the most important point here is that “The Amendment does not protect ‘the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms,’ but rather ‘the right of the people’. [It was] the drafters’ view that the people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms, and that the preservation of the militia was the right’s most salient political benefit.”  

At this time throughout our world there are those who would eliminate America from the face of the earth if possible. Other than World War II, there has never been a more dangerous time facing us. We should probably revert to universal military training as they have in Israel and Switzerland to name two, so that our citizens would at least have some idea of how to protect the country. Supposedly at the signing of the Surrender of Japan after WWII, a Japanese admiral was asked why they had not invaded America as they had so many other countries and he replied, “It would have been suicide since everyone in America has a gun.”

With a majority of Congress being Democratic and the probability that Sen. Hillary Clinton will become the next president, the citizens of America have never faced a greater danger to their rights of self protection. If we cannot defeat Hillary at least we can try to make sure our local politicians are sympathetic to the Second Amendment.

W.V. Bonds

Cleburne

Thanks from Cleburne Community Christian School

Dear Editor:

Thanks for help at the Fall Festival. We at Cleburne Community Christian School would like to say a big thank you to all who worked, donated and came to our Fall Festival. We all had a great time and without your help and cooperation we would not have been so successful. Our raffle winners were Hailee Schuetze, plasma 37-inch TV Jeff Harris, barbecue grill Erin Greer, iPod and Amy Tinsley, laptop. Thanks to everyone who helped. May God bless each of you.

Joyce Ganong

Principal CCCS

Vote yes on Proposition 15

Dear Editor:

As a nine-year breast cancer survivor and a volunteer for the American Cancer Society, I urge you to vote yes for Proposition 15.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas was created in the last session of the legislature to manage a historic plan to fund $3 billion into Texas cancer prevention and research. The funding will provide $270 million a year for cancer research and another $30 million toward cancer prevention programs.

Each year 37,000 Texas lose their lives to cancer and more than 95,000 will be diagnosed with this disease. Preventing cancer is more cost effective than treating it. Proposition 15 is a commitment to strengthen the war against cancer by making available materials, programs and services for early detection and prevention. The plan will provide funds to attract the world’s leading medical minds to Texas, create new jobs, fund new laboratories and research facilities and stimulate economic growth.

Please join me in voting yes to Proposition 15 so that our children and grandchildren never have to hear the words, “You have cancer.”

Mary Ann Wheatley

Cleburne