Blame riverboat loss on city

It is a sad loss for the entire Central Texas area to lose Tony Cain after his many efforts regarding the Brazos Belle and the Spirit of the Rivers paddleboat.

How about the city of Waco stepping up to the plate and claiming its responsibility in this loss?

Clearly, the poor management of the dam situation was the largest factor in the failure of this business.

The city cries for more tourism, yet will do very little to help those trying to support and enhance the downtown area.

When will the city step up and acknowledge it must do more to help owners of small businesses to succeed, especially when the riverboats were a very desired attraction?

This is not the first downtown tourist business to fail due to the lack of support from the city. All of the negative press did nothing to help Tony Cain and his family to keep things “afloat.”

Victoria Conner

Marlin

Darwin as sacred cow

The neo-Darwinistic interpretation of evolutionary theory is that random mutation and natural selection (RM&NS) can account for all the biological diversity we have today, as well as the large-scale morphological diversity found in the fossil record.

No evidence exists that RM&NS can do anything other than generate derivative speciations and random “noise” genetic information.

For those who don’t know, species are near the bottom of the taxonomic scale.

Baylor University’s Richard Marks is a world-class expert in evolutionary computing. His Web site that Baylor unceremoniously pulled had nothing to do with “intelligent design.” Rather, it was the faceplate for his evolutionary informatics lab, where he was attempting to run realistic simulations to see if RM&NS could actually account for what neo-Darwinists claim.

What Marks has run into is a prime example of what the soon-to-be released docu-movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed exposes: The neo-Darwinistic interpretation of evolutionary theory has become dogmatic catechism in the scientific community. Anyone even appearing to question it is met with censorship, ridicule and harassment.

In fact, because of recent court rulings, it is against the law in some school districts for a teacher to even criticize the neo-Darwinistic interpretation, because such criticism is taken by the court in those districts to be promoting religious beliefs.

Since when is criticism and skepticism of a scientific theory in and of itself a promotion of religious ideas?

William J. Murray

Moody

Condemn war, not MoveOn.org

With overwhelming majorities, both houses of Congress recently agreed to condemn MoveOn.org for its anti-war ad in The New York Times.

If you have seen or heard about the ad, you can agree that the message was harsh, but effective.

What alarms me most is that our elected officials can easily agree on a resolution of condemnation against someone for exercising one of our most basic rights — free speech — but don’t feel compelled to put an end to the war and bring our troops home to their families, if even just for an extended leave.

Sen. John McCain even went so far as to state that MoveOn.org should be “thrown out of the country.” Kudos to Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking a stand in favor of free speech and voting against the resolution.

Right now, the general sentiment is that the war is a bad idea and needs to come to an end.

Both the House and Senate need to put the focus back on the war. Stop wasting time with useless, unconstitutional votes.

Christina Flores

China Spring

Horse-slaughtering under scrutiny

State Rep. Warren Chisum, R- Pampa, has formally requested an attorney general’s opinion as to whether or not it would be legal for a foreign corporation to transport horse meat for human consumption through Texas for export.

This year a federal appeals court upheld the Texas law prohibiting horse slaughter for human consumption. A Mexican horse-slaughtering company in that case had been trucking horse meat through Texas to DFW for shipment overseas. Chisum wants to find out if they can still do that.

The horrific cruelty of horse slaughter as practiced is nothing like the humane slaughter of cattle. Additionally, when plants were still operating in Texas, the USDA found that the vast majority of horses taken to slaughter were not old and sick. They were perfectly healthy.

Chisum’s concern for a Mexican slaughterhouse is interesting. The profitability of a Mexican horse-slaughtering plant and the dining choices available to the French must be really important issues to his constituents in the Panhandle.

Randy Turner

Fort Worth

Shocking worldview in classrooms

In “Call It Censorship at Baylor” [guest column, Sept. 24] Mark Ramsey voices a major problem facing Christian institutions of higher learning. Many parents across this nation would be shocked to see the worldview their students are getting in some of their college classes.

Parents make major financial sacrifices to send their children to private Christian schools. They deserve to know in advance just what kind of worldview will be promoted.

Barbara Wood

Woodway

‘Miss Cornelia’ will be missed

Cornelia Robinson recently passed away at 95. “Miss Cornelia” was loved by thousands of Camp Fire children and adults as she cooked and sang for them at Camp Val Verde.

After each evening meal, the children would call her out of the kitchen to thank her for a wonderful dinner. In return, Miss Cornelia would sing to them.

We can all find comfort knowing that the “sweet chariot” of which she sang for so many years has come to carry her home. She was a role model for all of us. We loved her.

Sandy Spark Corwin

Waco