Some serious stuff

Well, Laura Ingraham stated today that George W. Bush and former VP Cheney were responsible for the situation in Iraq.

What has happened is exactly what many people in the United States were saying before military action in Iraq was undertaken.

Saddam Hussein at least was able to keep his countrymen under control; now there is a floundering population creating a vacuum trying to be filled by the worst of the worst kind of Muslims.

Saddam Hussein was no saint, for sure, but Christians living in Iraq and others were not in danger of being slaughtered en masse by Islamic State militants.

There is no strong desire by most Americans for our military to take on another war, so I hope the action of our president prevents the Islamic terrorists from taking over the whole country.

On the home front, there are at least two situations that seem to be occurring more frequently than ever.

One is the number of little children being left locked in cars in the hot sunshine while the parents are otherwise engaged. There is no excuse for this, in my opinion, and the person guilty of doing this should be prosecuted, as well as people who leave their helpless dogs in the car without adequate ventilation.

The other situation prompts some light treading, because of the fact that I have two brothers-in-law who were formerly policemen in Maryland and Virginia for many years before they retired, as well as the fact that I feel sure most policemen and policewomen are of the "good" variety. My criticism is of the tendency to not allow the alleged villain to speak, or to disregard anything they are saying.

There was the situation in a Walmart recently (in another state), where a man was looking at a BB gun while talking to his wife on his cell phone. As he was handling the BB gun, a couple called 911. Several policemen came rushing in with guns drawn. The man said, "Wait a minute. This is a BB gun, not a regular gun!" The policemen shot him, and then fired two more bullets into him as he lay on the floor of the store. Young man dead.

Another man was being arrested for a nonviolent crime as he came out of a store. He was thrown down and held in a chokehold by five officers, and he whispered "I can't breathe" numerous times before dying as they held him on the ground. He had no weapon.

Saturday, in Missouri, a young man, who was going to start college this year, was near his grandmother's apartment house coming across the street with a friend, when a police car drove up and said "Get off the f------ street and get on the f------ sidewalk!" The young man's friend said, "We're almost to where we are going!" The other boy, named Michael, put his hands up and stopped. Another policeman drove up and shot him once, then shot him more times as he fell to the pavement, dead and without a weapon. There were witnesses, but the police have come up with a different version of what happened which does not make sense. There is rioting in Missouri tonight (Sunday).

There was a girl who had car trouble one morning recently in another state. It was dark and rainy. The girl ran to the nearest house to see if she could call someone to come help her. She knocked loudly on the door to awaken someone. A middle-aged guy came to the door, left the screen shut, returned with a shotgun and shot the girl in the face, killing her.

What did all these murdered people have in common? They were black.

Why am I so concerned over these incidents? I do not endorse bigotry and I do not understand the rush to killing in the cases described. A few bad apples can quickly spoil a barrel. Police are losing their long-held identities as being our protectors and becoming more to be feared.

When I was in high school, I accidentally hit the school principal with a snowball. I was being snowballed by some friends in another building, and I threw the snowball thinking they were coming out of the building. Instead, the principal came out, and my snowball struck him. He grabbed me, turned me around, and kicked me hard, calling me a "n------headed s.o.b." I didn't dare tell my parents about the incident, or my dad would have torn him apart.

The principal moved away the next year to a larger school about 10 miles from our country school. One evening that year, a car stalled in front of the principal's house. The driver, a black, elderly minister well-known in the area, walked up to the principal's door and asked if he could use the phone to call his son to come get him. The principal walked back inside, retrieved his 12-gauge shotgun, and shot the minister through the screen, killing him. The principal got off and was not prosecuted. That was not surprising, because the town was notorious for its public lynching, regardless of innocence.

-- Louis Houston is a resident of Siloam Springs. His book "The Grape-Toned Studebaker" is available locally and from Amazon.com. Send any questions or comments to [email protected] or call 524-6926. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Editorial on 08/13/2014