| Letters for Monday 04/09/2001 Do not figure tips on taxes!
My bill for a large party at a local restaurant shows that the gratuity was computed on both the meal and the tax. I really don't want to tip the wait person for the tax. I think restaurants should discontinue this practice. An 18 percent tip becomes almost 20 percent.
ADOLPH TEITELBAUM, Dallas
Inmate 01008286
Why does our society refuse to believe that young African-American males can make mistakes, serve time in prison and return to society and become model citizens? Inmate 01008286 is a high school graduate. He comes from a supportive family. He had ambitions of going to computer school. He had no previous record, yet the Board of Pardons and Paroles considers him a threat to society. Parole denied. Next review date for parole: March 1, 2002.
I cannot help but wonder if being a young, proud, black man is the real reason he will spend the next year in prison rather than school.
ROBERT EDISON, Dallas
Is Texas life better?
Re: "D-FW grew fastest of large urban areas," April 3.
Reporter Chris Kelley seems giddy over the soaring population in all corners of Texas. But how do the residents feel?
Try this simple question on your readers: "Do you feel that life in Texas is better or worse since the 1990 Census?" The unanimous answer will be "worse" because no place on earth, not even Texas, can successfully absorb 4 million people in 10 years without a seriously diminished quality of life.
JOE GUZZARDI, Lodi, Calif.
Numbers needed
Re: "Death of trucker highlights 911 flaw," the March 26 article about the 45-minute, 50-mile search for a heart attack victim who was unable to give his location on LBJ Freeway.
There's another flaw: Finding or describing a location on urban freeways can be difficult without comprehensive knowledge of local area landmarks. Looking in the distance for location clues while driving is a poor system in the best of conditions and downright dangerous in heavy traffic or in an emergency.
Why don't we just post freeway block numbers like we do mile markers?
KEN GRAHAM, Dallas
Xenophobic tinge
Cokie and Steven Roberts are concerned because economic globalization has "a dark downside." Microbes, they tell us, move across open borders as easily as money does (Viewpoints, March 29). I expect more from the Roberts, certainly not this kind of veiled xenophobia. Between the lines of their piece one can almost hear Axl Rose ranting about immigrants bringing in their bleeping diseases.
Commerce as an agent for spreading disease is nothing new. Centuries ago the plague and syphilis wafted across oceans under billowing sails. More recently Dutch elm disease decimated our elms. Starlings, tiger mosquitoes, rabbits and walking catfish have all found new environments to exploit because of international trade and in the process have been transformed into pests. So I am not quite sure why hoof and mouth disease, the spread of AIDS or even the West Nile virus should cause us to worry over much about globalization.
What it should do is cause us to take precautions, act responsibly, and tone down the rhetoric. We don't need columnists sounding like punk rockers.
MIKE CARTER, Irving
Sentence too light
Re: "Ex-coach sentenced to 3 years in student's rape," March 30.
Someone please explain this outrage to me! The assistant coach at North Dallas High School who raped a student only received a three-year sentence. I have never heard of a conviction for such a violent and life-changing crime carrying such a lenient sentence. I am even surprised at the maximum sentence. There are people in prison for life for nonviolent crimes. Many sex offenders will offend again. This is a minor in a school!
Then the article stated the convicted rapist "now probably will be fired." It seems to me that he was not remorseful since he expected probation and was said to be "arrogant." Who will hire him next?
This has really shaken my faith in the system, which seems to have been doing that for awhile now. Justice really is blind.
DEBBIE CONLON, Dallas
Drug war epiphany
Most people have experienced one of those times marked by the sudden arrival of a new understanding, a more accurate knowledge of reality. It is called a moment of truth. As a nation we have experienced these moments, times such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis or that great step on the moon captured by TV cameras for all the world.
It seems another one of these national moments of truth has arrived with the movie Traffic.
On the other hand this may be only one of a number of drug war truth moments, perhaps like rising from 200 feet to 100 feet on the way to the ocean surface.
While some, like columnist Debra Decker ("Drug war must reach neighborhoods," March 31), have glimpsed a new reality pointing them to a new vision of local community crackdowns and demand side pressures, I have seen a simpler vision.
It is the black market created by the illegality of the drugs that is the far greater source of our modern day illegal drug problems. Get the black market to go away, which can easily be done by legitimate businesses drastically undercutting today's black market pricing, and many problems diminish. A licensed business would apply age restrictions, quality standards and educational information. None of this is important to drug dealers today. The high dollar prices are a reflection of high risks, and such bountiful profit supplies the money and motivation for guns, murder, police corruption and even the downfall of nations.
LARRY NICKERSON, Fort Worth
Bravo for salvo!
Sincere thanks for Debra Decker's timely views ("Drug war must reach neighborhoods," March 31). She is right on target and echoes the beliefs of the prevention field.
Too often press coverage is given to pro-legalization efforts, failing to target the only real solutions ... grass-roots approaches such as those she proposes. A new statewide Demand Reduction Advisory Committee is before the Legislature with positive outlook for passage. We are making some strides, but need more coverage of views like Ms. Decker's. Bravo for her salvo!
BEVERLY BARRON,Vice Chair, Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Odessa
The Blue Ghost
In the April 3 Texas and Southwest Section, the aircraft carrier Lexington, now a floating museum at Corpus Christi, was said to have been called the Blue Ghost by Tokyo Rose because of its color. This is partially correct. The Japanese gave it that name because they erroneously reported it sunk three times, then had to encounter it again in subsequent battles.
W.F. KOEPP, Dallas
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