I would like to commend The News on the excellent series of articles on the issue of water quality in northern Alabama.

Your report emphasizes the immediate need for better regional planning, improved water quality laws and more rigorous enforcement of current regulations to ensure that we protect our rivers and streams. The series also highlights the urgent need for constitutional reform that would enable home rule and better local policing of local environmental issues, as well as the need for better accountability of our environmental regulatory bodies at the state level.

Ernest Stokely
Birmingham Audubon Society

It was dismaying to read Mary Orndorff's Nov. 20 article concerning "Bama Day" at Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. Although it may seem to be innocent fun to the kids at this school, stereotyping is wrong. How would people in D.C. react if schools in Alabama sponsored a D.C. Day where kids dressed as the various stereotypes of Washington residents?

Write to the school to express your displeasure. The address is:

Deal Junior High School

3815 Fort Drive N.W.

Washington, DC 20016

Jim Ezell
Tuscaloosa

I hope News writer Mary Orndorff wasn't taken in by that disingenuous "we didn't mean to offend anybody" from those school kids celebrating "Bama Day" in Washington, D.C.

I also hope she gets some local license plates for her car before somebody does her the same favor they did me when I worked in the area. Some civic-minded kid climbed on the roof of my truck and did a clog-dancing exhibition, leaving a very interesting pattern of dents. My hideous sin? A "Bama" plate on the rear bumper. Do you honestly expect a truthful reply when you're standing there taking notes?

Jim Merlini
Montgomery

Regarding the Nov. 21 letter about Judge Roy Moore, God wrote the Ten Commandments for His people (us) to live by.

Judge Roy Moore is doing what God intended him to do, what He intended all of us to do, and that is to live by those laws. God did not remove Himself from the state, the school, our homes and this country, man did. Just look around you and see the horror man has made of this perfect world God created.

God does not look down on Judge Moore and feel embarrassment. He feels joy. If everyone lived by those laws, we would not need courtrooms and jails.

Edna Earle Edgeworth
Hayden

Vice President Al Gore piously opined that this protracted, controversial election will teach schoolchildren about the electoral process that determines the presidency.

This epitome of corruption will best teach them how to become Mafia bosses.

Armond "Si" Simmons
Pell City

To those who are eager to have this election over and done with right now, let me remind you that governments ruled by dictators are clean, swift and brutally efficient. Democracies are necessarily messy.

The point of a democracy is that each citizen's voice is heard, not squelched; each citizen's rights are respected; not trampled, and each citizen's vote is counted, not ignored. Our Constitution and our laws have been set in motion. I, for one, am willing to wait until I am sure who We the People really elected.

Rex Slate
Crestline

Through tears, I read the Nov. 19 front-page story of Carolyn King- Miller's experience at Jones Valley High School 35 years ago. She was the first black student in a previously all-white school. She quietly endured taunts, physical abuse and a missed prom, which was held at a secret location to prevent her from attending. The thoughtless cruelty inflicted by her classmates, their parents and some of her teachers has had a lasting effect on Mrs. King-Miller. I was encouraged to read that now, after 35 years, some of those classmates are trying to make amends.

Thinking change is possible, my optimism lasted until I reached the editorial page, where the Vestavia Hills High School Rebel mascot is still being defended, this time by a student at the school. This student may not associate the Rebel and his flag with racism, but many people do. How can we gauge the pain of those who quietly endure a symbol often associated with hatred and intolerance? Do we also have to wait 35 years before we decide that the Rebel mascot, like the secret prom, was a bad idea?

Tammie Black
Vestavia Hills

The letter from a Vestavia Hills High School student saying that "We need to get segregation out of our schools" and implying that the Confederate flag stands for nothing more than racial hatred indicates that she is not receiving a very good education.

An unbiased, factual history course would instruct the student that the basic political reason for secession was the states' right to govern themselves as set up by the Constitution.

As for the need to begin integration in this county, I am 39 and attended school with and beside blacks since the first grade. What books do these children read? Do they talk to their parents? Does Vestavia Hills teach history?

Lisa Pochurek
Southside

Regarding the Nov. 14 letter about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, I can see both sides of the conflict.

I see a very small country trying to house two nations. Is it possible? Yes. How? Let the United Nations declare it the Holy City of the World. Let Israel rebuild Solomon's Temple in which to worship God. Let Palestinians have their Dome of the Rock. Let the Christians have their place to worship at Christmas and Easter. It should be a place without violence presented to all God worshipers controlled and secured by U.N. peacekeepers.

Join in with me to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

James Parker
Pinson