LENTEN DIET

Season offers chance for better eating habits

Wednesday, Feb. 13, marked the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period before Easter, when Christians would abstain from meat and dairy products in remembrance of Jesus' 40 days of fasting before launching his ministry.

Devout Christians who observe meatless Lent help reduce their risk of chronic disease, as well as environmental degradation and animal abuse. Dozens of medical reports have linked consumption of animal products with elevated risk of heart failure, stroke, cancer and other killer diseases. A 2007 U.N. report named meat production as the largest source of greenhouse gases and water pollution. Undercover investigations have documented farm animals being beaten, caged, crowded, deprived, mutilated, and shocked.

Lent offers a superb opportunity to honor Jesus' powerful message of compassion and love by adopting a meat-free diet for Lent and beyond. It's the diet mandated in Genesis I-29 and observed in the Garden of Eden.

Every supermarket offers a rich array of meat and dairy alternatives, as well as the more traditional vegetables, fruits and grains. Entering "vegetarian" in your favorite search engine provides lots of meat replacement products, recipes and transition tips.

IKE SCHNEIDER, Boise

COMPASSION

A troubling story

I work with a friend who told me a story that disturbed me. It related to an incident tha involved his daughter in her high school parking lot. She fell and broke her ankle while walking to her car over her lunch period.

While in pain due to her fall, she crawled to her vehicle to try to alert her father of her injury so he might be able to help her. During her ordeal, she was never offered any assistance by her fellow classmates and was actually honked at by drivers anxious to get to their lunch dates.

This behavior exhibited by her fellow students should be a red flag to all of us about our loss of humanity in our society. Is it now acceptable to look the other way when someone is hurt and needs some help? I think the school administration should use this incident to teach the kids that it's expected to help someone when they are in need.

We have the same responsibility as parents and guardians to our children. Have we as a society lost our sense of grace and compassion for our fellow man in this digital age?

BILL BURNS, Boise

ROE V. WADE

Abortion advocates don't have all answers

Regarding the Reader's View from Ms. Greer celebrating the 40-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I must take issue.

She chooses to ignore the principal reason for which many (all?) of us take in our opposition to abortion. It is not because we "want to demean and dismiss women" or we want to "attack women."

I'm willing to acknowledge that most of those (who disagree with me on the issue) have made an informed, conscious decision that they place a higher priority on a woman's right to choose what happens to her body than they place on the life within.

Why can't people like Ms. Greer acknowledge that most of those who are opposed to abortion, likewise, have made an informed decision that they value the life growing within more then they do the woman's right to choose.

I suppose it's simpler to classify all those who disagree with her perspective as those who are simply "opposed to women's rights." Not once, in her reader's view did she use the term "baby." And I guess we are not so "united" after all, because I do, in fact, want politicians to interfere if it means it will save a child's life.

TIM MOKWA, Boise

Keep abortions safe

Reading Hannah Brass Greer's "40 years of safe, legal abortions: Let's keep it that way," I am reminded of the time when abortions were not legal and therefore unsafe. For as long as there are unplanned pregnancies, there will be abortions, legal or not, safe or unsafe. When a woman feels such desperation that abortion is her only option, she will pursue it no matter the risk. When abortions are not legal, unregulated practitioners will do the job for a price. As a nurse, I have seen the sad results of desperate girls and women taking the risks.

ANITA FLORA, Boise

BARACK OBAMA

President pushing to weaken America

The Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi is now controlling Egypt. Morsi recently stated that "America is the enemy." He also stated that the Jewish people of Israel are "descendants of apes and pigs."

So Barack Obama is responding by giving Morsi 20 F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abram tanks. Imagine the president of the United States of the 1930s giving similar weapons to Adolph Hitler. He approved $10 billion in arms sales to Arab League states. Obama stated, with a straight face, that "Islam has a long tradition of tolerance."

Obama's nominee for secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, is being cheered by Iran's official media outlet as an "anti-Israel nominee." Hagel refused to join his fellow congressmen in voting for sanctions against Iran and denies that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Obama favors major cuts to the Pentagon and wants to reduce our nuclear arsenal by an unbelievable 80 percent. This arsenal has deterred would-be attackers from launching a full-scale assault against the United States. Radical Islam is joyously celebrating as their brother in the White House deliberately weakens America while arming those who want to destroy us, as oblivious Obama supporters, and the lovestruck media, just keep cheering their hero.

DAN KAEPPNER, Meridian

BOY SCOUTS & TRUTH

Scouts do their best to serve God, country

Thinking about the Boy Scouts and thinking what is the truth. The Boy Scouts do their best to do their duty to God and their country. If God is truth, then truth is where the presence of God is. When truth is not honored, individually or nationally, we all suffer and the entire nation suffers. God's word in the Holy Bible is the truth, and it is absolute. The Boy Scouts have always been able to served God and country, without capitulating to outside groups. Some outside groups would like to bring unrighteousness into the Boy Scouts.

The Scripture is very clear, "Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." We know that God's word will always remain true. It is no wonder that Peter warned of the devil's attack on the truth of God in the last days: "And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of." 2 Peter 2.2.

JACK MULDOON, Marsing

POSTAL SERVICE

Ending junk mail could save revenue

Knowing full well that I may never see mail again I decided to write this letter. I think that our postal service is always operating in the red. Their only way to increase revenue is to raise the price of stamps.

Why not eliminate bulk mail? I guess that about 90 percent of the mail that I receive is tossed into the recycle bin. If this is true of households across the nation, then there is a lot of mail being delivered that serves no purpose.

As far as I can figure, the bulk rate is around 28 cents or less per letter. Simply eliminate bulk rate prices and I think it will result in no more junk mail. If bulk rate mail suddenly disappeared, our U.S. Post Office would be over-staffed and have far too many facilities and equipment to handle the lighter load. In the private sector, this would require downsizing, a term that might be foreign to the folks that run our Postal Service.

I am not sure how all of this might affect our current stamp prices, but I am willing to gamble on it.

DUANE FLOWER, Boise

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

Call the 'Rope Czar'

Recently during an outing at El Monte High two students lost some fingers during a tug-of-war contest. The government, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a Rope Czar to head up an agency to ban rope in all schools and homes. By the president's 817th executive order all clothes lines and rope swings were banned. Tug boats names were changed to pull boats. Barbara Streisand, Bill Maher, Jane Fonda and Rosie O'Donnell each donated $100,000 to the NRA (No Ropes Allowed).

DAVE SILVA, Boise