Letters: 

'High' price tag was actually quite a bargain
 
 

I was quite amused by the conception of land values held by recent letter-writer Becky Gillette ("Price tag is high for bad land transactions"). She seems to think that highway frontage in Ocean Springs can be bought for $3,000 per acre.

 Wake up, lady. A section of land right adjacent to the land in question recently sold for $55,000 per acre. Highway frontage was selling for $20,000 per acre 30 years ago.

 As an original owner of the land, I can say that part of Gillette's letter was almost correct: The city not only promised to build roads into their sports complex location, it was part of the purchase price, and if they did not comply within the contracted time, they were to pay the landowners the cost of building these roads.

 No, they have not paid this obligation.

 The city was given a full year's option to look into every problem they could expect in developing this land. They had as their consultant the man who wrote the book on wetlands. This land was the cheapest to be found anywhere in Ocean Springs. It is not adjacent to any waterway. There are no shrimp hatching on this land! I am fully in favor of protecting marshlands and areas that hold water. The present wetlands law is simply a way of stealing land from the owner.

LIDDELL WHITE 

Gulfport
 
 

I just read that the United Kingdom has legalized the practice of using stem cells from one-week-old human embryos in an effort to find cures to diseases.

 I have a couple of questions. First, does the end justify the means? I can see the government paying women to get pregnant so they will be able to harvest the stem cells. Apparently, that's OK, though, as long as we are able live longer without as much pain. We are a generation that is afraid to die or suffer.

 My second misgiving is that we are on the verge of playing God when we decide to "make" human body parts. We are told that it will be illegal to clone humans for reproductive purposes. Please forgive my unbelief. I remember when it used to be illegal to do a lot of things that we don't even raise an eyebrow over today. An example: killing babies. Not too long we would have cringed if a doctor pulled a baby part of the way out of the mother's womb and scrambled the baby's brain. Now we say it's a woman's reproductive right.

 We are too smart to limit ourselves and our accomplishments. We just can't trust ourselves to do the right thing. I hate to think of what is next.

MICHAEL JENSEN

Ocean Springs
 
 

"Education is a priority in Mississippi," Trent Lott said on CNN. That's not the message I am getting. I voted for this guy.

 Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, "Essential to the Future." That is what the marquee reads on the MSIHL Web site, but that is not the message that I get from the lawmakers of Mississippi.

 I love Mississippi, I have lived my whole life in Biloxi, but why is education getting the cold shoulder? I understand that the economy of Mississippi is in a little disarray, but education is the single most important entity of the state. I know many, many other programs and institutions in Mississippi need funding badly, but how is going to get any better if our citizens are not educated?

 I am a junior political science major at the University of Southern Mississippi. I hear that we may be receiving an $11.4 million budget cut.

 What happened to the tobacco money? You say that it is for a rainy day; well, it's raining pretty hard. With all of the negativity surrounding the state, the Coast and South Mississippi have maintained a prosperous economy and booming population. Is this how the citizens of South Mississippi are rewarded?

 How much is Ole Miss being cut? I am willing to bet my life that it is not as much as Southern. Why do we have Mississippi Valley and Delta State within 20 miles of each other? We are supporting too many small schools. I know it is far-fetched to try to close some of these smaller schools; it would put these dinky towns in economic ruin, plus that idea wouldn't fly with the NAACP. So we are stuck with all these schools, fund them. 

Cutting funding may be a quick fix to a bad economic year for Mississippi, but I guarantee that this will create a black cloud over our heads in the long run. If our people are not educated, how will anything get better in Mississippi?

STEPHEN JOHN DIETZ

Biloxi
 
 

This past Sunday, the priest's sermon illuminated the Gospel reading in a very meaningful way to me. His point was that just as an individual falls into sinfulness, so does a society and, likewise, a whole nation.

 He brought to mind how television programming in just the past two years has changed. Subtle and progressive intrusions have slowly crossed over from former "pay-per-view" erotica and pornographia with the invasion of lewd scenarios in major broadcast forums in even the so-called "basic" package.

 As a former educator, I remain steadfast in abhorring the willful dissemination of degrading and demeaning porn material that seeks to destroy the virtues of marital physical love. As an adult, I have my choices. When I first chose to include HBO, it was promoted for its family-oriented productions. Today, HBO touts "Sex and the City" as the epitome of artful grandeur.

 Even large corporate commercials are predominating their advertisements with sensual and sexual innuendo. The currently running commercial of the brown cow being a sexual attraction to the farmer comes to mind.

 It is unfortunate enough that governmental and religious authorities and many celebrities from sports, music and cinema promote role-modeling that thwarts wholesomeness in our youth. Needless to say, adult acceptance of the antics of these authorities and celebrities and adult allowance of television programming in their homes demonstrates to our young ones a general stamp of approval for such behavior.

 Therefore as a protest of one, who has no children in the home, I shall terminate my subscription to HBO, and I shall protest against the pervasive uses of unnecessary lasciviousness by the major broadcast stations as they apparently become more commonplace.

DAN ELLIS 

Pass Christian 

Clinton's deal that allows him to avoid indictment for lying in a court of law and obstructing justice confirms once and forever that justice in America is pure hypocrisy.

 Clinton, who never intends to practice law again, is punished by having to forfeit his Arkansas law license for five years! His administration was a lie from day one, and, fittingly, ends with a lie.

JIMMY REED 

Oxford
 
 

It is most apparent that there is no more fear of God. The excuse, "I'm only human," has become a term accepted in normalcy to forgive all wrong.

 Not saying something about Jesse Jackson's behavior has been easily done. Most have congratulated his becoming a father and just said, "Back to the battlefield of civil rights."

 The battlefield Jesse Jackson speaks of isn't about civil rights, but one for a reversed oppression of whites.

 Two wrongs never made a right, and three wrongs certainly don't.

 Is it one thing to commit sin and another to lead others to it.

MICHELLE LANCASTER

Kiln

Turning to amusements, today's events (Jan. 18) reminded me of the tear-streamed face of another Elmer Gantry type, Jimmy Swaggart, asking God and his adherents to forgive his second or third or whatever exposure of pay-for-lay romp with prostitutes.

 As a combat-experienced veteran of D.C. Beltway skullduggery, I was struck by today's expose of the Rev. J.J.'s bedroom pole-vaulting. Am I to understand that the greatest concentration of dreck-sniffing journalists in the world, who went after Slick Willie like a pack of piranhas, who had the goods on W's token Latina before she ever appeared before the inquisition, permitted themselves to be scooped by a supermarket checkout line rag like the National Enquirer? Are we to believe that this ongoing affair escaped the attention of the biggest pack of bloodhounds on earth, the Washington press corps?

 All who believe so, please see me for a special I'm offering on a bridge in New York.

 Remember now, nowhere did I use the term "massive cover-up." Heaven forbid. Like the Rev. Al Sharpton said, "The timing (of this expose) is highly suspect." Touche.

BRITT L. ALBRITTON

Gulfport
 
 

In an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson stated, "While my family has wrestled with our options and challenges, we have a rhythm of the family-reconciling process, which is way down the road, two years for us," and "I'll develop a rhythm that allows me to focus on family and ... the (civil rights) battlefield."

 In the Reverend's case, a rhythm method may prove prudent.

ARMOND 'SI' SIMMONS

Pell City, Ala.

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