Opinion

Letters to the editor, Feb. 23

TBO.com
Published: February 23, 2013

Idea might catch on

A couple of weeks ago you ran an opinion piece about the children and security at our schools. I wrote a letter to you suggesting we hire the National Guard or reservists in our area to provide school security.

Well, I just noticed an item in the newspaper Navy Times about a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last month by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California that would allow the National Guard to support local and state school security efforts.

I hope this idea catches on. It would save the taxpayers money.

Michael Patrick Murphy

Port Richey

Inform our food choices

As an environmental science and policy student at the University of South Florida, the potential harmful effects of genetically engineered foods are very much a part of our rhetoric.

In many cases, GE plants are designed to produce their own pesticides. The long-term health effects of these plants on humans are undetermined. I believe it is my right to decide whether to consume these products, but corporations like Monsanto have deprived me of this right by pouring millions into anti-labeling campaigns.

I urge our representatives to introduce and pass a law that requires the labeling of GE foods in Florida, so that I and my fellow Florida residents may make the choice of what to consume.

Kendall Donahue

Tampa

The writer is the director of politics and activism of the Student Environmental

Association at USF.

It's all on Congress

This whole matter of budget sequestration is directly on the heads of the members of Congress.

Congress is failing in every aspect to do its job as outlined by rules, ignoring the good of the citizens they represent and playing a hateful game of bullying and spite on a president they could not beat in an honest election. They are trying to destroy him by failing to do their job.

Does that make sense to the American public? Do you want to continue to have this group of bitter men trying to force their desire for a plutocracy down the throat of a nation that said in November we prefer a democracy?

Let's be sure to vote as much of this spiteful group of losers out of office and stop their continued poisoning of the heart and soul of this country in 2014 and beyond. Speaker John Boehner and his horde must go, so we can continue the job of returning this country to full health.

Everett Houghtalen

New Port Richey