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Letters to the Editor
April 19, 2009
Don’t Ban Stem Cell Research In Texas
The Texas Medical Association opposes the state budget rider proposed by Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, that would prohibit any state money from going toward research using embryonic stem cells.
TMA policy calls for supporting well-controlled studies on all stem cells, stopping short of human reproductive cloning.
Research on diseases like cancer, heart disease and Parkinson’s disease potentially could thwart these life-threatening conditions.
There also is a financial impact. A 2008 Families USA study said each dollar of National Institutes of Health funding generated $2.49 in business activity in Texas, and created and supported more than 20,000 jobs. Can Texas afford to reject that financial boost?
If this budget rider were to pass, Texas would regress. Researchers would leave. Progress would halt. Patients would lose out. Texas must be a leader in scientific advances. We must progress, not regress.
As president of TMA, I hope wisdom prevails and senators strike this rider from the budget.
Josie Williams
Austin
Waves Washing Away All The Nice New Sand
Has anybody else noticed Galveston’s beautiful new beach sand in front of Landry’s down to the San Luis Hotel?
That part of the beach really looked nice until the southeast winds started kicking up the surf.
I don’t know where the money for this beach restoration is coming from, FEMA, the state or the city, but I do know it is our tax money wherever it comes from!
I heard the mayor bragging on KTRH about how we are getting sand back on the beaches. Well, she had better take a picture of it because, if we don’t get another hurricane, before the summer is over or by early fall, all this sand will be sucked out into the Gulf — almost half of it is already.
We’ll never keep sand on our beaches if we don’t stop the waves from crashing in.
Maybe we need another expensive survey to figure out how to hold the sand in place. What another waste of taxpayer money! The mayor should call me, I’ll tell her how.
Tom Hildenbrand
Galveston
Radio Woman Wrong To Trash First Lady
We are all granted the free will to say and think as we please, even when it infringes upon the rights of others.
Among the enlightened, racism is thought of as a morally repugnant vice, used by those who are odious or exhibit unnecessary cultural hubris.
Unfortunately, it is also used by some who seek recognition and can achieve it by no other means.
These metaphorical leeches of notoriety are given many different forums in the media, infecting us all with their rhetoric like a rogue virus among society.
I’m referring to an article in which a radio personality recently referred to America’s first lady as “trash.”
Mrs. Obama was speaking to elementary-school children about being ostracized by her peers while a child for speaking proper English. She referred to it literally as “talking white,” a topic that other learned blacks are all too familiar with.
The radio personality passed judgment after listening to a very brief summary of a colossal topic on which she is culturally uninformed. Whether the comment derived from racism, witlessness or something else, everyone could benefit from that old adage: “Think twice and speak once.”
Jerry Chambers
Galveston
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