About the Grand Island City Council
After watching the recent City Council meeting, I would just like to express my opinion on a few topics.
I’m all for the Camp Augustine purchase but I feel the proposed bike trail to the park shouldn’t be a top priority. With that $5 million cost, a lot of improvements could be done to the trails and routes in town. We have the opportunity to become a bicyclist city such as Lincoln, especially with us being flat.
My second opinion is the chickens. Again, all for it. They can help with companionship and self-sustainability. I know I won’t be able to have a chicken but it’s nice to know there is an option for other people.
Joshua Janulewicz
Grand Island
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Court's decision was wrong
The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action is a devastating blow to our education system across the country. Affirmative action has been a tool to break down systemic barriers and we must continue to advance our ideals of inclusivity and opportunity for all.
Paul Bacon
Hallandale Beach, Florida
Content of character or color of skin?
Woody Holton’s recent editorial, “5 Things You Likely Didn’t Know About the Declaration,” reports “The Declaration of Independence was written by wealthy white men, but the impetus for independence came from ordinary Americans.” I’m sure Holton, a history professor, is very knowledgeable of American history but I question his use of words. I don’t know the intent, but why does it matter that the writers of our Declaration were white or wealthy?
This context is only relevant today in the atmosphere of CRT and social justice. The main point should be that our Declaration was written by passionate Americans who valued the ideology of freedom and understood the hearts of men when it came to power and governing people. After all, America consists of rich, poor, middle class, white (a misnomer as we are all shades of brown), various religions, cultures and so on. Our founders, irrelevant of their social status, stepped up and put their lives on the line to confront an oppressive king who did evil to those under his rule.
The point is that even mentioning a person’s color or social status when reporting an event, in today’s culture, promotes division. M.L. King phrased it beautifully that what counts is the content of their character, not the color of their skin. When we keep track of who the first Black, woman, Islam, minority, queer or whatever to become something, why does that really matter? We are all of one race, image bearers of God with immeasurable value. What one does to promote justice for all humanity should be given for their own merits, not of the category in which we place them. Let the governmental entities keep track of the numbers and categories, but let us recognize the value of each other in the promotion of harmony and justice.
Dave Olson
Grand Island
No cockfighting
I grew up on a small ranch and embraced animal agriculture long before I graduated from veterinary school. It’s precisely because I’m a veterinarian — as well as a meat eater, rancher, hunter and staunch advocate of animal agriculture — that I strongly oppose cockfighting.
Animal agriculture is a noble enterprise, providing sustenance for billions of people and livelihoods for millions.
Cockfighting, on the other hand, is a disgrace and a crime, providing no benefit to anyone but the people who enjoy animal bloodletting and who illegally wager on staged fights between birds armed with knives or curved ice picks on their legs.
U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., has introduced the bipartisan Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act, S. 1529, which closes loopholes in the enforcement of animal fighting laws that allow criminals to sell fighting animals and generate vast sums of money from illegal gambling. I’m working to promote this bill as senior veterinarian for the nonprofit Animal Wellness Action.
Cockfighting bears no resemblance to animal agriculture. There are no standards of care, there is no proper utilization of the animals, there is no service or value to the American consumer. Animal abuse is built into the marrow of cockfighting and mutilation of animals is its very purpose.
Now it’s time to work to strengthen the federal law, so that the nation can better distinguish between proper animal use and the worst forms of malicious cruelty. It’s past due that cockfighters hang up their spurs and halt their criminal animal abuse. Support the FIGHT Act, S. 1529 and H.R. 2742, to oppose cruelty and support integrity of agriculture.
I used to cut wheat in Nebraska’s panhandle in the summers as part of a custom combine crew and also cut corn there in the fall. So, while I’m not a native, I’m not without roots.
Thomas Pool, DVM
Norman, Oklahoma