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Make parents do their job: Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor
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Make parents do their job

The News Journal has given a lot of attention lately to the relationship between poverty and the performance of some children in the public school system. There has been relatively little in the paper regarding poverty and single parent households in which these children are growing up.  

Many of these children are being born out of wedlock, with absentee fathers. The Red Clay school district has reported that it is now providing some children three meals per day, and, of course, at taxpayer expense.  

We need to reverse the incentives which foster out of wedlock children.  An idea that I find attractive is outlined as follows.
 
First, at birth, every child shall have an identified father who will be required to support the new child and its mother. We now have the DNA technology to achieve this goal.

Second, Starting one year after establishing this legal requirement, no welfare payments/support to a new birth mother shall be made until the father has commenced support of the family (mother and child) for which he is responsible.

Of course, a lot of details will have to be worked out, but the central idea is that people who produce children should be held responsible for these children. Harsh — tough love, by today's standards — incentives will need to be put in place to convince people to behave responsibly.  

It has been reliably reported that today 30% of white children are being born out of wedlock in the U.S.  The figure for black children is 70%.  

This situation needs to change.  What other ideas (actions) for changing these statistics do others have?

James R. Thomen

Montchanin

Climate skeptics aren't ignoring facts

There seems to be confusion during the climate change debate. Of course the climate has changed on our planet during its existence of some five billion years.

The arguments should be whether climate change is primary caused by humans or the immense powers of nature.

Skeptics, who are erroneously called climate change deniers and rather offensively called “purposefully blind” in a recent letter, believe that climate changes are primarily caused by geographical and universal influences. Their arguments are not based on “flawed logic’ or “purposeful blindness,” but on honest opinion and doubt about politically motivated studies.

Our environment should remain clean and has improved significantly. We no longer know the suffocating dense fogs of a century ago caused by industrial exhaust and residential wood and coal burning.       

If, however, humans cause climate change, then the debate should be about the exponential increase of the human population from two to over seven billion in one generation. Five billion more people in one generation who need food, shelter, space, energy, employment and yes, pollute!

All environmental efforts are presently focused on the effects while the real cause, the population explosion, is neglected and absent from climate arguments and agreements.

John Egbers

Hockessin

Stop sending spam mail

To the non-profit community: Please, I beg of you, no more address labels, “free” cards, or calendars (especially with the amount circled that I am supposed to remit in payment).

I am in my 80’s. Just for fun, I counted all the address labels I have on hand – excluding the ones with misspelled first name – and do you know the number I came up with?

1,581.

Please, enough!

Dorothy Cutting

Wilmington

Why no action on gun offender registry?

I could not believe that there was not a response to the article on Oct. 22, which indicated that some council members needed more time to decide on how to vote for the proposed gun offender registry.  

Really? Those undecided council members are not concerned with the shootings and murder of the residents in their community?

Granted, this registry will not stop all violent incidents with a gun — but it will not hurt to have it. It would be one more tool to help the police. 

For those who are concerned about it on ethical grounds: What is ethical about a felon who is not supposed to have a gun using it to kill, threaten or maim some innocent person? Does the public not have an ethical and legal right to be protected?

Elaine Markell

Newark