Gender and pay; birds and cats; pope and refugees; Trump votes; Fort Worth council

Gender and pay

The irony in some of Thursday’s letters on the gender wage gap is mind boggling.

Women can’t compete with men in most sports, so they are given separate leagues of their own. Then feminists complain that the women don’t get the same salaries as the men’s team.

Those women wouldn’t earn any wage if they were treated equally to the men. They wouldn’t make the team.

Then there are the feminists pushing relentlessly to open all jobs in the military to women while not lifting a sincere finger to get women registered for the draft, let alone actually conscripted into the military. They want equal results, not equal opportunity, equal rights without equal responsibilities.

The whole “equal pay for equal work” movement is fueled by people like this. They want to dictate everybody’s wages according to this kind of bias.

Birds and cats

Don Watenpaugh indicated in a Friday letter that he felt birds were being caught by feral cats even though they were in the trap-neuter-release program.

We have a small colony of ferals our my back yard. They have all been neutered and we keep them fed. We also feed the birds in our back yard. The cats are fed, the birds are fed.

The cats, being fed, never bother the birds. They just sit and look at them. The birds don’t seem to mind as they come down to eat what has fallen on the ground, right in front of the cats. I’ve never seen bird feathers around indicating that a cat may have caught a bird.

We also have no squirrels, rats, mice or snakes. I can’t tell you the joy that we get just sitting and watching the cats when they are all out together. This established colony is at a stable number and keeps any stray cats out of my back yard.

Feral cats that have been trapped, neutered and released are fed by those involved with TNR programs. More cities and more people should realize that the TNR program does indeed work. As indicated by one respondent in the Monday’s All Points feature, this is not the cats’ fault!

Pope and refugees

Pope Francis did a very compassionate thing bringing three Muslim families to Italy from Greece, where they had sought refuge.

He had much to say regarding his actions, but did he say to them, “If you don’t become Christians, we’ll cut off your heads”?

This is what the Quran says should happen to nonbelievers. This is the same Quran read today, and I don’t see Muslims tearing out the Quran pages that contain this offensive instruction.

Trump votes

If Donald Trump could stop boasting about his New York primary victory long enough to check the vote totals, he would notice that Hillary Clinton got far more votes (975,984) than the three Republican candidates combined (794,468).

There might be a message there.

Fort Worth council

Fort Worth arguably has one of the most effective city councils in the country with nine dedicated council members.

Expanding the number of council districts to 11 will result in significantly increased costs: More office space in an already overcrowded City Hall, increased salaries, staff and technology support and the cost of drawing new districts.

Even worse will be the increased difficulty in reaching consensus.

Those pushing this proposal have narrow political agendas.

Let’s not immobilize a great city government. Please vote “no” on Proposition 2 on May 7.

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Gender and pay; birds and cats; pope and refugees; Trump votes; Fort Worth council."