Speak Out is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you there’s something you’d like to comment on in Elgin or beyond, send an email to ksorensen@tribpub.com. Please include “speak out” in the subject line.
Unmasked student athletes: For many weeks now, I have been disappointed by what I see in the multiple photographs in the sports section of the newspaper: not a single high school athlete who’s wearing a mask is wearing it correctly. Whether it’s volleyball, wrestling or basketball, their noses and often their mouths are uncovered, and the kids are in actuality wearing only a chin strap, which does not protect them. The schools or the sports organizations should either abandon the mask requirement or enforce it, as they all look pretty stupid otherwise.
Don’t become ‘hate zombie’: As we enter the Christmas season, let’s take the time to acknowledge we are a nation with a mix of political views and accept disagreement as part of our democracy. Don’t let the politicians divide our nation with hate by spewing misleading or nasty political views designed to turn you into a hate zombie who won’t weigh the views of others. Do your own research!
God shoots bogey? Tiger Woods says he was saved because God was riding with him after he went 85 mph on a curved highway in California and crashed. Yet the Almighty looked the other way when three children were shot dead last week. Apparently even God makes bogey once in a while?
Guns win over lives: I’m watching the news about yet another school shooting, this time a 15-year-old in Michigan. Just keep making those guns, keep making those semi-automatic rifles, give them to 16- and 17-year-olds like Kyle Rittenhouse and this kid and let’s just see what happens. I knew after Newtown, Connecticut, nothing was ever going to be resolved in our gun-happy, Second Amendment-waving country. People are more concerned about their Second Amendment rights than they are about people’s lives.
Saw it coming: We, the consumer, stay in a no-win situation. Minimum wage was increased and, as projected, the cost was passed on to the consumer. Now General Mills states they will raise prices on its cereal and other products in 2022. So, we get a credit and later on we get slapped with the debit. The only thing the middle class can do is keep on keeping on and hold their head up high while the rich who are in control of distribution of our goods continue to pay their CEOs good salaries plus bonuses.
Watered-down Smollett charges: The watered-down disorderly conduct charges against Jussie Smollett are just one more in a long series of injustices perpetrated by catch-and-release Kim Foxx and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. At least this one that doesn’t involve violent offenders that are likely to prey on others.
