Guns as high school raffle prizes

It has come to our attention that various high schools in the area and surrounding counties have fundraisers at this time of year to support their athletic teams, especially football teams. Typically, these fundraisers are organized and promoted by parent booster clubs as a way to support the schools’ athletic programs and needs.

Our concern is not with the fundraisers or the commendable support of organizations like parent booster clubs. Both are admirable endeavors to meet monetary needs that are not or can not be met by State and/or Local budgets.

Our concern is with the prizes associated with some of these fund raiser raffles: guns!

Regardless of the rationale used by the school administrators and/or booster clubs about the appropriateness of using guns as prizes, we believe that guns as raffle prizes in today’s society where guns are often the accepted choice for violence and destruction sends the wrong message to our students.

We wish all students to have great opportunities in sports and academics — but not by promoting gun sales through school fund raisers.

This is not an issue of legality, or second amendment rights, or an issue about “patriotism” in today’s highly charged and contentious political environment. It is an issue of morality and how we as adults and public institutions demonstrate appropriate moral leadership and choices to our young people. Raffling off guns as a way to boost ticket sales and promote interest in a fund raiser to help students and their athletic programs is simply not the best “means to the end.”

Raymond E. and Kathleen Komar

Meridian

Living with good and bad change 

Life can change in an instant, both for the good, and for the bad. In light of the tragedy that happened in Las Vegas in that mass shooting at a concert there, along with the mass shooting at a church n Texas, we all can learn that life is unpredictable.

Mass shootings resulting in so many deaths, cutting so many young lives short is the bad kind of change that comes in life.The good kind of change comes in the form of marriages, and birth of babies, along with falling in love with the person that is right for you. They make you so very happy that you can’t see yourself without them in your life at all. You see yourself spending the rest of your life with that person, and you just want to spend the rest of your life making them as happy as they make you. Getting married to the one you think of as the love of your life is a good kind of change.

Landing a great job with all kinds of benefits to go along with it is also good change. It’s even better when it turns out to be your dream job that you always wanted to have.

A bad kind of change is losing your job, losing a baby, or child, or being sued or arrested for something. Losing your home is another bad kind of change in life.

We just have to take them as they come both the good with the bad. Because life can change in an instant very quickly and how we handle it will tell us what kind of person we really are deep down.

Roger Burt

Lauderdale

Why pardon a turkey?

President Trump is getting his pardon pen ready, as the Mueller investigation starts indicting his associates. This Wednesday, he plans to practice on two very innocent Minnesota turkeys.

The other 244 million turkeys killed in the United States this year have not been so lucky. They were raised in crowded sheds filled with toxic fumes. Their beaks and toes were clipped to prevent stress-induced aggression. At 16 weeks of age, slaughterhouse workers cut their throats and dumped them in boiling water to remove their feathers.

Consumers pay a heavy price, too. Turkey flesh is laced with cholesterol and saturated fats that elevate risk of chronic killer diseases. Intense prolonged cooking is required to destroy deadly pathogens lurking inside.

Now, for the good news: Per capita consumption of turkeys is down by a whopping 34% (*) from a 1996 high of 303 million, as one third of our population is actively reducing meat consumption; Our supermarkets carry a rich variety of convenient, delicious, healthful plant-based meat products, including several oven-ready roasts.

This Thanksgiving holiday, as we give thanks for life and good fortune, let’s also skip the gratuitous violence and grant our own pardon to an innocent animal.

Milton Silva

Meridian