Is the mayor’s office in Dallas not informed of what is going on in this city? Are the words “Boondoggle” and “Trinity Toll Road Dead!” not within the grasp of the mayor and the newly formed group of intelligent people whose purpose is to resurrect a dead horse?

For months now in the news, on the streets of Dallas with protests and marches, and with many articles and letters written to The News, many people have vented their frustrations and opinions as to the massive “joke” of a supposed $1.5 billion flood-prone road that will eventually cost about $400 million a mile and do nothing to relieve any traffic problems no matter what that council is trying to tell you.

Does there need to be an extensive investigation into why this 9-mile malignancy is being shoved down the throats of uninformed Dallas citizens? It appears that there is something “rotten in Denmark” This road has no benefit to the city. Enough already!

David McLintock, Dallas/Lake Highlands

Re: “Turner emphasizes long-term goals — President: Six-year deal proves school’s high degree of commitment,” Tuesday SportsDay story.

SMU President Gerald Turner seems determined to lower the academic standards of his university so as to ensure that the six-year contract just given to new coach Chad Morris will result in the successful rebuilding of the football program.

How else to understand his comment that “Morris can recruit on an even playing field regarding academic entrance requirements.” He added, “Looking at admission scores over the last four or five years, they [SMU’s] are very similar to what you would expect from an FBS school.”

And he also notes how hard the university has made changes “to help athletes get in school, and once there, providing academic support” in the form of “mentoring, tutoring, and literacy enhancement.”

Literacy enhancement, really? Is this the direction SMU should be moving, toward lowering academic standards so that normally unqualified athletes can just cross the minimum threshold even if they have to learn how to read once they are in college?

In that direction lie the disasters that have struck universities like UNC where academic support got way out of hand. Does Turner want to create the “culture of reverence” for football that got Penn State into so much trouble? SMU needs to rethink its priorities.

Sanford Thatcher, Frisco

Re: “House OKs blocking Nazis’ Social Security,” Wednesday news story.

Sometimes the line between comedy and tragedy is very thin. The U.S. government finally realized that we have been paying Social Security payments to Nazi war criminals for years. Now Congress is writing laws to stop the payments.

It seems so ironic that those of us who are retired teachers are not able to collect our Social Security because of a law called the WEP (Windfall Elimination Provision). My Social Security payments are cut by two-thirds because I draw teacher retirement. After my payment for Medicare is taken out, I’m left with a grand total of $58 a month. It would be funny if it wasn’t so unfair.

Logan Casada, Duncanville

Re: “Parenting advice for Obama,” by Barbara Wiskow, Wednesday letters.

Barbara Wiskow’s letter suggests that the proper response to a GOP aide’s criticism of the Obama’s teen daughters should have been “Mom and I will look into this.” I’m going to picture Wiskow with two teenage daughters. She finds on her daughters’ Facebook pages such things as “Your mother certainly hasn’t bothered to teach you anything.” Or, “You Wiskows look dressed for a night out at a bar. You’re short on ‘class,’ but what should we expect?”

Now, I wonder if Wiskow would still respond with, “I’ll look into this.”

Eulaine Hall, northwest Dallas

It had never occurred to me how clever it would have been for the Obamas to simply laugh off the criticism by that Republican congressional aide. I believe they handled it appropriately by simply not commenting. However, in hindsight, I agree with Wiskow that Obama could have even gained points by making fun of it.

Scott Wheeler, Dallas

(AP Photo)

Louis Head, center right, Michael Brown's stepfather, and Brown's mother Lesley McSpadden, center left, react as they listen to the announcement that a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson who fatally shot 18-year-old Brown.

Re: “Learning From Ferguson — Events just one brick in wall of mistrust,” Tuesday Editorials.

Thank you for your editorial recognizing that the problem of excessive force by police against black and brown people is broader than Ferguson.

What I believe many conservative, pro-police critics overlook is that the Ferguson shooting is not an isolated case but a pervasive problem, as shown by the nationwide protests, including many white faces in the crowd.

White establishment voices see this as an us-vs.-them issue and have a knee-jerk reaction that if the police shoot somebody, they must have a good reason. However, the reason there is so much outrage about this problem across racial lines is that it typifies the lack of accountability of police for the use of deadly force.

Lawyers are accountable to the State Bar and can be subjected to discipline and loss of license for actions much less severe than taking someone’s life. Doctors, accountants and other professionals are likewise accountable if they screw up.

Police, on the other hand, are protected by a patchwork of police review boards and friendly prosecutors, who rarely punish or indict cops for excessive force. And when they do, as in Dallas, the cops almost always get the action reversed. This problem must be corrected.

Jim Barber, Dallas

How can law enforcement sit by and blatantly watch criminal activity such as looting, arson and shutting down of major highways, thus seemingly condoning this activity? Everyday citizens get ticketed for going 5 mph over the speed limit, for jaywalking, for fishing and hunting without a license.

If we torched our neighbors’ house or stole appliances from a store, would the police with their military-type arsenal turn the other way? I think not. Where is the justice? Apparently there is no justice, depending on who is doing the criminal activity.

America boasts that we have the best, finest legal system in the world, but nothing is perfect. It’s flawed, this is life, deal with it. There is good and bad in every profession but no excuses for activists brought into cities stirring up violence going unpunished.

I believe this is sending the wrong message to law-abiding, tax-paying citizens that police will not tolerate our misdemeanors but will not further ruffle the feathers of criminal activists. So sad, but only in America.

Alfred Hersh, Carrollton

This is the 21st century, and we should be moving forward. It should not be about the color of your skin, the money you have in the bank account, or your educational background. But it is about keeping our country safe and respecting your fellow citizen or neighbor. Today we have folks that are pushing racial tension and hate between us.

The media has helped to push the sentiments sometimes to manifest hate and tension between people over the world. The media can be used like a tool of good and evil. But it takes a strong-minded person to know when they are helping to push hatred and extreme anxiety for show ratings. We must relieve ourselves from the media so we can refocus our goals to the service of all of mankind.

Do not let this present day of media or small-minded people thrive to make us hate one another. It is OK to disagree.

Sharon Shepard, Garland 

In my opinion, Heather MacDonald’s screed is absurd — and fallacious. Take her reference to the Occidental College student found responsible in the sexual assault of a female student, though text messages sent by the woman indicated her intention to have sex with him.

MacDonald claims that this single episode “illustrates the reality behind so-called campus rape.”

Really? Let’s assume for argument’s sake that this case is utterly without merit. Let’s assume that the woman regretted her behavior after the fact and sought to blame the man. Would it prove that a widespread problem — one that has finally come to national attention more than 25 years after the first studies of acquaintance rape — is not really a problem? That what happens is merely “so-called rape,” not the real thing?

Of course not. But MacDonald is less interested in making a reasoned argument than in vilifying feminists and raising hackles — at the expense of students of both sexes who are assaulted.

Moreover, if she genuinely believes that we are dealing not with sexual assault but only with a lack of “decorum,” then I believe it is she who personifies the “Victorian” attitude she attributes to feminists. I say this as a scholar of Victorian literature who also teaches feminist theory.

Beth Newman, Dallas

I had to read this twice to believe it: The caption under a photo contained this sentence: “Urban planners and transportation experts … say that more roads lead only to more cars using them.” Really?

So more roads cause more cars? Isn’t that lopsided logic, as in, say, “flies cause garbage”?

Or, to put it in the contrapositive, if we had no more roads, we would have no more cars.

The statements are identical to a student of logic, but neither is logical.

How about this simple summary: Dallas is growing in population, people use cars, therefore there will be more cars in Dallas. I believe we need to plan for that.

Ben Harrison, North Dallas

Sadly, drowning is the leading cause of injury death among children ages 1 to 4 in the United States.

Swimming can and should be a fun, lifelong activity if layers of protection are put into place and proper safety steps are followed by parents and kids. Parents should always supervise their children in or near the water, teach kids to stay away from pool and spa drains, and make sure their kids learn how to swim. Parents should also know CPR and basic water safety skills.

I urge parents and kids to visit PoolSafely.gov and take our pledge to be safer — not just during the summer but all year round.

Elliot F. Kaye, Bethesda, M.D.,

Chairman, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

@PoolSafely 

Our nation is snowing and storming,
And lakes that are frozen are forming,
From ice and the sleeting,
No flights to the meeting,
On dangers of globally warming.

(New York Times)

Death row inmate Scott Louis Panetti during an interview in a visitation cell at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, in a Nov. 2006.

No internal compass

Re: “Capital Insanity — A judge’s stunning dissent in the Panetti case,” Tuesday Editorials.

I utterly disagree with your position on the execution of mentally ill persons who commit violent crimes. Mental illness is an explanation, not an excuse.

In my opinion, anyone who commits a crime that would result in the death sentence for a so-called normal individual deserves that sentence, whether or not they theoretically understand that what they did was wrong.

We are what we do, and the only valid reason for taking a life is in the defense of another life from an external aggressor.

In fact, I believe a mentally ill person is far more of a danger to society than a sane person for precisely that reason: They either do not understand that what they did was wrong, or they do not care. In either case, they have no internal compass to prevent them from repeating their heinous act as many times as they deem fit.

Olan Knight, Murphy

While reading this intriguing editorial about a severely mentally ill man, this question came to mind: If this man has 14 years’ worth of documented mental problems, then why was he released from the mental institution that first documented this?

Also, I would like to put into thought that since this man has been documented to be a schizophrenic who has murdered people, then he probably won’t do much for society. Which would in turn lead to the death penalty, and this case will be dropped and forgotten.

However, if the state and doctors decide to keep him confined in a prison or mental hospital by himself for psychological analysis, then that would be a great solution as well. I also do find it remarkable that he was able to function rationally to defend himself during his trial, which also has me question Panetti’s rationality to life.

Elena Ortega, Haltom City

Re: “Turkeys got a pardon; don’t condemn the kids,” by James Ragland, Metro column.

While I agree that the children of our first family in their private lives should be out of bounds for media fodder, when they stand at the presidential podium, representing the first family and thus our country, there is an obligation to uphold the basic decorum of dress and behavior.

I believe a simple rule of thumb is that if your attire is inappropriate to pass the standards of almost every public and private school in this nation, then it is inappropriate for the presidential podium.

Lauten was disrespectful in the words she posted on Facebook, but the point was accurate. Lauten should know that just as the first family has an obligation to decorum and respect, we have a similar obligation to the family that represents our country, regardless of our personal political leanings.

Kathy Megura, Plano

Higher ed requires funding …

Re: “Make Degrees a Priority — Students must leave college with marketable skills,” Monday Editorials.

I agree, degrees are a priority. In this editorial, the former state demographer Steve Murdock is quoted, and then it goes on to say, “Other experts say tuition costs, indecision on career tracks and students taking too few courses per semester contribute to the problem.” From there on the editorial fails to follow up on this idea, which I feel is the major stumbling block to a large portion of today’s students.

Our current governor, governor-elect and the Texas Legislature all put the blame for low graduation rates on the higher education system itself or on the students themselves, and this editorial goes right along with this approach, ignoring the elephant sitting in the front row. For years, lawmakers from the governor on down have robbed funding for state institutions of higher education, all in the name of economy and tax cuts. It’s about time The News faces the truth: that if you want an affordable education for all college students, the state has to pony up.

William Stallings, Irving

I expected to be disappointed but instead was thoroughly impressed with this editorial. The importance and acceptability of two-year colleges was emphasized. This is long overdue. So is the need for intensive testing and counseling as students leave high school and enter college or the workforce. I was surprised to see that also mentioned.

Across the board, our high schools are spitting out graduates that aren’t ready or qualified for higher education. Here are my suggestions to help solve the problem: mandatory school uniforms from first grade to 12th grade (a simple form of self-discipline that would solve so many problems); teachers equipped with the tools to command respect and attention (including a vice principle or disciplinarian); eliminate the “crap” classes. If students can’t read, write, do math, know history and understand basic science, all the other “crap” is pointless. And finally, have ESL available to all students as a final-period class or following the normal school dismissal.

You know these proposals might even save a few bucks. But parents, teachers, administrators and citizens all have to pull together to succeed.

Christopher J. Rankin, Holly Lake Ranch

@cantonst

Re: “Extending Combat Mission — Afghans aren’t ready to fend off Taliban onslaught,” Friday Editorials.

This editorial mentions the need for combat troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, but not the need for jobs. A young man who risked his life serving as an interpreter and cultural adviser to the American Special Forces in Afghanistan reminded me that many Afghans join the Taliban because it’s the only way they can support their families. He seemed bewildered by our failure to face this reality.

I know many people throughout the world who think Americans like to solve problems with guns. I worry that some people feel this is the result of a strong Christian influence in America. A bigger worry is that this might be driving them from Christianity. America, and its Christian culture, is on stage in Afghanistan. Are we presenting the right performance to the rest of the world?

John Stettler, Dallas

Re: “No Smoking Gun — Benghazi report finds little fault in response to attack,” Nov. 26 Editorials.

Thank you for this editorial. I’m heartened to see the report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence getting attention. After two years of media attention given to the rancorous allegations of cover-up from members of the Republican Party, the American people are owed more than casual reporting of the actual findings.

As pointed out, politics as usual won’t stop being played in regard to the tragedy of Benghazi, but armed with the facts, perhaps the American public will be less easily persuaded when partisan advantage is sought by making unsustainable allegations. The News editorial shows how media can work on behalf of the public and its need for balance in news coverage.

Brian Baldwin, Dallas

(Staff photo)

Other buildings were demolished at Main and Elm streets to make way for retail storefronts across from The Joule hotel. This demolition site is in the 1600 block of Main Street in downtown Dallas.

The Joule Hotel is transforming a section of Main Street in downtown that was in much need of some shining, but as is the way things often seem to work in Dallas, only the wealthy benefit.

We’ve got a beautiful giant eye sculpture locked behind bars for mostly tourists who stay at the Joule to view. We’ve got blocks of valet-only parking spaces, a team of bellmen ready to keep out the riffraff and now the added “benefit” of one of Dallas’ last truly old buildings being torn down to make way for a store that sells high-priced jeans.

Klyde Warren Park broke the mold and opened up a park for almost everyone, and the DMA went to free admission — both important steps, but we’re walking backward on Main Street for those who don’t make six figures.

Why is it that great cities like Chicago and New York can share the good stuff with everyone and Dallas cannot?

Mark Carroll, Frisco