Telemarketers should be shot at sunrise! If you punch the button indicating to remove your name or number from their calling list, the phone still rings automatically and won’t stop until it is picked up. The only difference is the automatic recording doesn’t play.

Why can’t the nit-wits understand if you don’t want to hear from them four or five times a day — and the time is automatic, too — you don’t want to be bothered by a ringing phone interrupting whatever you’re trying to do.

Yes, I wrote a letter to somewhere but my five peaceful years aren’t quite expired yet — and I’ll write another one. Meanwhile, isn’t there something Ma Bell can do to correct this blatant harassment of American citizens?

L.C. Giles, Vicksburg

History deserves attention

As an American History teacher, I am very concerned about the lack of knowledge or interest by our students in the history of our nation. There are two great opportunities for our young people to increase their interest in history and to become more knowledgable citizens. The Junior Historical Society helps students learn more about the history of our great country with guest speakers, field trips and the National History Day.

This summer, I had the opportunity to travel to the National History Day at the University of Maryland with two of my students and their families. They were competing at the national level in the Junior Division after winning their state-level competition. They were excited to represent Mississippi in the documentary category of the Junior Division. Students from Pascagoula High School were representing Mississippi in the Senior Division.

There were over 2,400 students from seventh- through 12th-grades from every state of the Union, except one, and four American schools from overseas. Students competed in the National History Day event in five categories: drama/play, documentary, paper, Web site and exhibit. The only state that did not have students was Louisiana. The competition was tough! This was the Olympics for history students. The state-level event in March held at the University of Southern Mississippi was excellent. The program at the national level was incredible. I have been to many events with young people, but this was the very best.

Now is the time for all social studies teachers in Mississippi to start preparing their history students for this year’s National History Day state-level event in March 2009 at the University of Southern Mississippi. It would be very sad when the roll of states is called at the National History Day at the University of Maryland in June 2009 and Mississippi is the state whose name is not called.

Tom Watts, Madison Middle School, Madison

No excuse for pet abuse

This is in response to the letter printed on Aug. 17 from Paws Rescue concerning the black female Labrador put on the road.

Maybe this man who put the dog out was upset because she had chewed up his favorite pair of shoes. Labs do love to chew, but they do outgrow that. Maybe he could not afford her if he was driving an SUV with the gas prices so high.

Still, there is no excuse in what this man did. He could have given her to some loving family. She was chasing after him because Labs are a very devoted, loving and protective breed to their owners. How do I know? My husband and I have owned four. Three have passed on due to old age but we still have Boudreaux, our Cajun Lab.

I hope this man realizes that “what goes around comes around.” God bless Paws Rescue for the work that it does.

Stella H. Fuller, Vicksburg

Judicial imbalance

I am concerned about disproportionate sentencing of DUI offenders.

A lot of DUI offenders are alcoholics and in any other circumstance are not a threat to our communities. Our focus should be on solving the problem, not destroying other lives and families because of our pain.

When a man with priors shoots and kills a woman in a day-care parking lot, leaving a 9-month-old alone in the hot car for hours before discovery (as happened in Pearl in 2006) and receives 20 years for the murder and seven for child endangerment, it seems wrong for a DUI second offender to receive 25 years, five suspended with supervised probation, for a reckless and deadly mistake (as happened in Vicksburg in 2008).

Not only was the Vicksburg sentence disproportionate to an intentional crime, it was disproportionate to other DUI cases in the state. In a Rankin County case from 2006, an aggravated DUI case involving a death and a defendant with drug warrants and past felonies resulted in a sentence of 10 years with eight suspended and no rehab.

This is what Mothers Against Drunk Driving and organizations like it are doing to our legal system. I know the pain of losing family members, even losing a brother due to negligent driving six days before his high school graduation. At the moment of tragedy we all face huge waves of emotion and want everything in the responsible party’s life to be ruined just like ours. But judges are there to be impartial, to give both victim and offender justice.  Rehabilitation should be at the forefront in any case, but these private organizations have put so much political pressure in the wrong areas,  judges and other officials are more concerned with getting on TV to say they are tough on DUIs, all the while leaving violent, sexual and burglarizing criminals out on the street.

Someone needs to change how we have been going about things in all official areas of this sad state that we have become. We should all be more aware of what justice really means, and the influences we are creating in our world. By the way, working in the restaurant business, I have served many of these elected and hired officials many alcoholic drinks and watched them drive away.

Lindsay Webb, Pearl