Letters to the Editor

Trees and evolution

Recently, a letter writer poked some heavy-handed fun at the exploits of evolutionists.

Deeming their petty pursuits to be entirely useless, the author proposed — in jest, one must assume — that evolutionists instead develop advanced trees, which can cut themselves down and become lumber that amazingly assembles itself into houses.

That is, indeed, a marvelous objective, but what would we do with our vastly increased leisure time? Would we immerse ourselves even deeper in endless political primaries or escalate our scrutiny of the misadventures of so-called celebrities, such as Britney Spears?

As for trees and their evolution, here's an interesting little conundrum: When oaks and firs and pines made their debut on earth, supposedly on the third day of creation, did their trunks have year rings?

H.J. BEAUJON

Cessna Avenue

Chavez and the U.S.

It was good to know that the people of Venezuela handed dictator Hugo Chavez a defeat to his bid for an expansion of powers. This, in a sense, is ironic and of epic proportions. The State Department's Sean McCormack had a nice little flowery talk to the media about democracy, freedom and people's rights.

Here in the U.S. kids can't have a nativity scene in public schools because it's offensive; prayer is outlawed anywhere in public, especially at a school; and the invasion of illegal immigrants from the south continues. We are trillions of dollars in debt and the checks and balances in place to prevent it are ignored. Random spying and illegal searches are being conducted every day on our citizens and the list goes on.

How ridiculous for a spokesperson from our State Department to talk about freedom and democracy. What a joke.

Wally Reddington Jr.

MSgt., U.S. Air Force (Retired)

Durrell Court

Goose Creek

Bad tax breaks

I agree with what Gov. Mark Sanford is trying to accomplish in his letter to Cabela's. He's trying to protect the citizens and the business owners of South Carolina.

How many people would agree with the Legislature if it was to give tax breaks and other considerations to businesses that were trying to take away their personal livelihood?

Look at it this way. A major restaurant goes to South Carolina and gets tax considerations that may put some local restaurants out of business. It also could be a tire company or floral company — the list go on and on.

Where will it stop? It will stop when all local businesses are out of business and all the remaining businesses are owned by out-of-state enterprises. You may think this is ludicrous. But if South Carolina gets a reputation as a state that will give away the ranch to get a little business, the wolves will line up for a piece of the action.

The retailer BassPro has already lined up and is knocking at the tax man's door. You can bet that if Cabela's gets a break, BassPro will want the same or better.

Cabela's is in the business of making money. It is not a non-profit that just wants to make people happy. It has to answer to stockholders, just like any for-profit company.

You may think that Cabela's wants to have great competition among the other sporting goods companies.

Indeed, it may say competition is good, but I bet it cheers when a competitor goes out of business and its piece of the pie gets bigger.

I'll even bet the company president's bonus package is based on increases in sales.

The Legislature should think long and hard about what is at stake. For Cabela's, it's money, but for the business owners of South Carolina and their employees, it's their livelihood.

John M. McGlynn

Peirce Road

Cottageville

Dogs vs. birds

On Dec. 1, The Post and Courier reported on a pet project that works, namely the compromise allowing dogs off-leash during certain periods of time on Sullivan's Island. According to the article, the policy is deemed successful because dog owners and non-owners are happy with it.

The success of any policy depends on compliance, and people are more likely to comply with a policy they like. However, I hope that in assessing the success of an environmental policy, the town is also assessing how the policy affects the environment. The only mention of the environment in the article was in regard to the effects of dog waste. This is, of course, only a small part of the impact dogs can have on beach environments.

As has been discussed previously in this newspaper (most recently in the Dec. 2 Home & Garden section), an impact dogs have — one that most people remain unaware of — is on shorebirds.

Simply put, dogs love to chase birds. So what? It is completely natural for them to do so. Unfortunately, it is not at all natural for shorebirds to be chased frequently by dogs. And while these birds may seem to fly away easily at each disturbance, the total effect of all these little disturbances results in birds that spend significantly more time flying away and significantly less time eating and resting.

This matters because most of these birds are highly endangered, and all of them are on a tight budget. During the winter, they must put on enough fat to fuel their migration to their breeding grounds, which in some cases are thousands of miles away and across open ocean where they can neither rest nor feed. The more disturbed birds become, the less fat they put on, and birds with less fat are less likely to survive migration.

The frequent disturbances these birds face on our increasingly crowded beaches result in death by thousands of seemingly harmless little cuts.

One dog happily running through a flock of birds — what harm could that cause? Why should we curtail our or our dogs' fun? In ecology, we call this the "tragedy of the commons."

The beach is a shared resource, and the damage we each do as individuals is small. But the cumulative damage caused by all our fun is deadly. So we who use the beach must ask ourselves if we are willing to place small limits on our fun so that these birds can survive.

Humans, dogs and shorebirds can coexist only if humans are willing to take responsibility for their behavior and that of their dogs.

On leash or off: Let birds rest. Let them live.

Melissa Hughes

Ornithologist

Associate Professor of Biology

College of Charleston

Wallace Drive

Not built to share

If people want to lobby for roads that are designed for sharing by bicycles and automobiles, I fully support the effort. Until our roads are constructed as such, bicyclists should limit their activity to places that pose minimal risk to the public. Maybank Highway and Riverland Drive were not meant for sharing.

To the bicyclists who displayed their indignation at the use of my car horn on Saturday, I apologize for not wanting to get into a head-on collision with oncoming traffic so we could "share" the road.

J. Caldwell Warley III

Split Hickory Court

Johns Island

Hunger article

A recent article in The Post and Courier stated that 35.5 million Americans went hungry last year at one time or another.

What the writer of this article failed to tell us is that the vast majority of these supposedly hungry Americans are overweight or obese from overeating — by choice — junk and unhealthy foods.

That is bad news for taxpayers, who have not only to feed them, but also to treat the myriad diseases that are associated with being overweight and obese.

And that's only in America.

G.A. Monuocrusos

Savannah Highway

Thanks for freedom

No matter what side of the political fence you sit on, everyone should thank God and a veteran that we live in a country where we can name a teddy bear anything we want.

Try to forget the criticism of candidates just long enough to remember the freedoms we all enjoy and that we aren't forced to speak English with a German, French or Arabic accent.

Victoria Hewitt Causey

Dragoon Drive

Mount Pleasant