Stricter U.S. gun laws
When will the proponents who are in favor of the general population owning and maintaining weapons of mass destruction, see the “light” and face reality? When will legislation be passed that prohibits the manufacture and selling of weapons that are designed for combat use? I am not referring only to Congress, but to die-hard advocates who think it’s OK to interpret the Second Amendment differently.
What is so mind boggling, is when a 12-year-old writes to the president of the United States, via newspaper communication, urging him to use his executive powers to stop this insensitive massacre of people, both young and old.
The recent killing of 10 in Santa Fe, Texas, is probably justified by “diehards” who think “Oh well, the 17-year-old used a shotgun and a .38-caliber handgun.”
Even if the accused killer used a pellet gun, he completely deleted 10 people from this world.
When the Founders of this country wrote the Second Amendment, they did not have the vaguest idea that weapons of mass destruction would ever be used in the killing of innocent children and citizens. Consequently, NRA advocates continue to push for the manufacture and acquisition of weapons that are designed for combat use. As long as the NRA keeps making large contributions to members of Congress, legislation will likely be at a stand still.
Know your representatives and if they are in favor of the current legislation, then oust them from office with your vote.
Pete Romero, McAllen
Go meatless on Memorial Day
Whatever happened to the good old days when the worst things we had to fear on Memorial Day were traffic jams and indigestion? But folks who are getting ready to break out their outdoor grill this Memorial Day face a nasty choice. If they under cook their hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets, their family and friends may face food poisoning by E. coli and Salmonella bacteria. The U.S. Meat and Poultry Hotline advises raising the cooking temperatures.
But our own National Cancer Institute warns that high-temperature grilling of processed meats produces cancer-causing compounds.
Do we really need to choose between food poisoning and cancer?
Luckily, a bunch of enterprising food processors have met this challenge head-on by developing a great variety of healthful, delicious plant-based veggie burgers, veggie dogs and soy nuggets. These products don’t harbor nasty bugs or cancer-causing compounds. They don’t even offer cholesterol, saturated fats, drugs, or pesticides, like their animal-based alternatives. And, they are waiting for us in the frozen food section of our neighborhood supermarket, along with nut-based milks, ice creams, and other dairy-free desserts.
This Memorial Day, let’s stay safe on the roads, but let’s extend the safety net to our family barbecue grill.
Joel Kriviak, McAllen
‘Brevity is the soul of wit’
Being a fan of the movies, I look forward to reading movie reviews in The Monitor’s Friday Festiva section. However, after reading several reviews by Brooke Corso over the past few months, I believe it’s time for The Monitor to bring in a few different reviewers. Sorry, but Ms. Corso writes reviews as if she is crafting a master’s thesis. I suspect her day job is as a middle school English teacher. She delights in writing wordy, adjective-strewn sentences with, undoubtedly, her Thesaurus close at hand. I cite a recent example sentence from her review of “Book Club:” “To have a group of award-winning actresses of stage, screen and television come together in such a film feels like a wasted opportunity to recapture what the demonstrated forty years prior as second-wave feminists at a time of expanded rights, new measures of birth control, sexual exploration, and the revolution of sex portrayed on celluloid.”
While probably accurate, what reader wants to wade through that to get to a feel of what the film is like? Few, I would say.
Let’s bring on some other reviewers, perhaps a few with the idea of, to quote Oscar Wilde, “brevity is the soul of wit.”
Glenn Farquar, McAllen
