Chimps’ use of doll sticks helps solve nature-vs.-nurture debate Re: Daily Outrage, Dec. 23 Is the Daily Outrage a humor column, like Ed Anger in the Weekly World News? The dolt who writes it does not understand science.
The Harvard chimp study found that female chimps carry doll sticks until they have their own babies. Male chimps do not. This suggests that our daughters play with dolls and our sons play with trucks because they are born with the inclination rather than aping other kids or their parents.
Jim Ward
Alexandria
Safety net is about to break
The pressing issue for our president and Congress in 2011 will be how to strengthen our worn-out and misused states’ and the federal government’s safety net that stops the unemployed from falling into the hole of homelessness and starvation.
The Economist reports the unemployment in our nation runs at 9.8 percent. If discouraged workers, those who are looking for a job for the first time and part-time workers who seek full-time work were factored into the percentage of workers recently unemployed, then the true unemployment would be 17.1 percent or 34 million are unemployed from a work force of 200 million.
The Economist does not factor in those persons who are dependent on those 34 million who make up the 17.1 percent unemployment rate. Conservatively, if the average unemployed person only had one person dependent on his or her wages then those directly and indirectly affected by unemployment would rise to 34.2 percent or 68 million people living within our nation’s borders. Because our nation spreads across a continent, the impact of our nation’s high and protracted unemployment is hidden by households not affected by unemployment.
If the 68 million directly and indirectly affected by unemployment were applied to Europe, then it would equal the entire population of France. A hole of poverty the size of France looms over our economy. Our states’ safety nets and the federal government’s safety net cannot hold much longer because these government entities are running out of money to fund unemployment benefits, food stamps and health care.
If all levels of government don’t quickly cut the fat from their budgets and use this money to fix their safety nets, our elected officials soon may face food riots from the populace.
Helen Logan Tackett
Fullerton, Calif.
