TCU seems to have money to spare. Here’s how to spend some to make the campus safer
Here’s a needed campus upgrade
TCU seems to have a generous amount of funding available for athletic facility improvements. Have officials there considered erecting overpasses on University and Stadium drives?
In the interest of safety for students and the convenience for drivers, it would be a welcome improvement.
- Darlene Tutjer, Fort Worth
Answers needed about Athena
Nicole Russell’s column on Athena Strand’s murder failed to address the girl’s stepmother’s apparent lack of proper parenting. (Dec. 7, 11A, “Wise County girl’s murder shows why modern parents are vigilant”)
Why was a child Athena’s age — she was only 7 years old — apparently allowed to play 200 yards from the house routinely? News coverage has suggested that Athena left her house after an argument and never reappeared. Her stepmother said she fixed dinner and went to the girl’s room to tell her the food was ready, and Athena wasn’t there.
More accountability is needed here.
- Russ Bloxom, Arlington
About more than integration
It is sad to see another woke, misguided liberal writer knocking his own race (a popular pastime these days) as Mac Engel did in his Dec 2 commentary, “The best; 2022 TCU squad can add another accolade to list: Greatest team in school history.” (3A)
In evaluating the best TCU teams of all time, he eliminated any team that wasn’t integrated. So, according to Engel, former TCU greats Davey O’Brien and Sam Baugh were not worthy of consideration as quality quarterbacks because they were white and played on white teams.
It would follow then that, according to Engel, the white men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not worthy of their contribution to history. Or that the hundreds of thousands of Union troops who gave their lives to eliminate slavery should be ignored in history.
This neurosis is the kind of insanity that tragically affects many in America.
- Charles Edwards, Fort Worth
Cruz plays both sides again
What a guy Sen. Ted Cruz is. He tells us on a regular basis how much he wants to protect the Constitution of the United States. Yet, when Donald Trump suggests we “terminate” anything in the Constitution that prevents returning him to power over nonexistent “election fraud,” Cruz does a little backpedaling and hem-hawing.
Cruz is the guy who has worked his whole life defending the Constitution — or so he says.
- Carolyn Sawyer, Fort Worth
The many goods of firearms
Gun ownership is an American tradition older than the country itself and protected by the Second Amendment. More gun control laws would infringe on the right to bear arms.
Guns are used for self-defense and protection millions of times a year. Some research has indicated that previous bans on assault weapons did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level.
- Kenneth Richardson, Fort Worth
Unjustified attack on LBGT Texans
I am deeply concerned by the deeply transphobic leadership in the Legislature and the targeted evil directed toward children. Nearly all of my transgender friends have come out since we entered our teens.
Policies such as Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to investigate certain medical care as abuse not only scares those it affects, but it also endangers their lives. (Nov. 16, 1A, “Keller school board votes to ban books on ‘gender fluidity’”) An inability to receive proper care has been shown to increase rates of suicide among transgender youth. It’s an attack on the lives and livelihoods of queer people.
If Abbott truly wanted to save the kids, he would abandon this dangerous and hateful platform.
- Joseph Skoog, Denton
More health care, more productivity
For international students such as myself, living in the United States is too expensive. Leaving aside high tuition costs, medical care is a problem, too. Taxation and regulations controlling the price of drugs and health care services further drive up the out-of-state cost of health insurance for overseas students.
The population living in poverty is going to increase in the coming years. A fundamental, affordable right to health care might help save people’s lives. Affordable health care equals healthier people, who can then be more productive and help the economy grow.
- Umang Shrestha, Irving