Letters: Stop bullying on the bus
August 25, 2012 12:20AM
Updated: September 27, 2012 10:59AM
Bullying is a problem that affects children in and out of school and can cause serious psychological and physical harm. In elementary schools across the United States, teachers and principals are confronting the issue, both at the mental and physical levels.
School superintendents, principals and teachers across Illinois are making a concerted effort to stop bullying. The Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents and the Illinois State Board of Education premiered an anti-bullying public service announcement this summer in movie theaters statewide.
The basic rules of respect apply also to the school bus, which is an extension of the school building. The appropriate behavior that applies in school also applies in and around the school bus. Bullying on the school bus is dangerous. It distracts the driver and passengers alike.
The safety of our schoolchildren is a responsibility to be shared by all members of our community. Let¹s work together to keep our children safe.
Jesse White
Illinois secretary of state
Support food safety laws
We all have memories of a great meal, but how many also remember the time they felt ill after a meal, maybe for 24 hours, maybe suffering serious lifetime consequences because of something they ate?
There would be fewer food-related illnesses if the government would act upon legislation signed into law by President Obama on Jan. 4, 2011. The Food Safety Modernization Act is the most sweeping reform of our food safety laws in more than 70 years and was passed by Congress with broad bipartisan support.
The law aims to ensure that the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it. Food-borne agents cause an estimated 48 million illnesses annually in the United States, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die. Yet the law languishes because the administration has yet to issue specific rules needed to implement it.
Could you or a family member be the next victim of food-borne illness because nobody in Washington took the time to implement this important law? Please take time to urge the president and his administration to put forth the rules it needs to be enacted.
Deirdre Schlunegger
CEO, Stop Food-borne Illness
Chicago
End access to birth control
Aug. 1, a great injustice took place in healthcare. The U.S. government declared that young fertile women were ill and needed to be “fixed” by contraceptive hormones, sterilization, abortion and abortion causing drugs. This is not a message I wish my daughters / granddaughters to internalize. In addition the AHA declared that we all must pay for it.
As a Catholic my faith teaches; I am perfectly and wonderfully made, a temple of the Holy Spirit awesomely capable of becoming a mother and raising the next generation of persons capable of loving God and neighbor. In forcing people of faith to pay for these substances/procedures, our freedom of religion promised in the First Amendment is lost.
We are told we do not “need a next generation” to teach us to love selflessly. This is not promoting good health for women or for the nation. Fertile women are healthy women, childbearing improves health. Women who have children benefit in many ways; from natural hormones involved in the processes of conception and childbirth, to hormones that suppress ovulation and make milk when breast-feeding. Women’s natural hormones; protect against cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, memory loss, plus natural hormones bind us to our husband and our children. Women were made to give life.
Contraceptives, abortion and sterilization harm women in many ways; physically, emotionally and psychologically. Allowing this harm, harms the family and our future.
Our nation promotes healthy eating, proper exercise and good sleep habits. Don’t you think we should also promote the use of our fertility in the proper context; married with mother and father firmly bonded to each other for the good of any children God may send. This is a discussion we in the U.S.A. must have, soon, if we are to continue as a healthy nation.
Mary Therese Egizio, RN
Executive director
Natural Family Planning Life Institute
Joliet
