I am outraged at the recent report of Exxon reaping more than $40 billion in profits. Rising gas prices are the single factor influencing the reduction of my consumer spending.

My “fun” budget was gone in May. In September I began cutting into my food and clothing budgets to pay for gas. I make a decent living, yet I find myself drowning financially. As gas prices continue to rise, so does the cost of everything else. In my little town, the price of groceries has more than doubled.  Clothing costs have increased.

Does anyone really think the oil companies would suffer if they only made $30 billion in profits?

A year or so ago there was talk of an investigation into price gouging by the oil companies — an investigation that never materialized, and all such talk quietly faded. 

The government’s plan to stimulate the economy by throwing a few hundred bucks at everyone is ridiculous. It’s a Band-Aid on a gushing wound. I am no economist, but if gas went back to about $1.50 a gallon, I’d sure be increasing my consumer spending.

Come on, people. Make a little noise. Our government is permitting the oil companies to bankrupt us. Apparently the oil lobbyists are more important to the people we elected than we are.

Carolyn Olesen, Tecumseh

Satterfield needs to study up

As a former academic person, Leon Satterfield ought to know better than to so readily believe everything he reads in the newspapers. Intellectuals are exhorted to think critically and get beyond headlines, something Satterfield fails to do in regard to his criticism of President Bush (“Feeling sorry for the prez,” LJS, Jan. 28), in which he accomplishes little more than carrying water for a flawed study that, it turns out, was financed by the world’s leading Bush-hater George Soros, through the highly partisan groups “Center for Public Integrity” and the “Fund for Independence in Journalism.”

Satterfield reports as news articles that fail to reveal the connections of these organizations to Soros, a publicly sworn enemy of Bush. One might just as well accept a study of the Clinton administration financed by Rush Limbaugh.

But one does not have to follow the money trail of the study to understand its flawed and dishonest nature. All one really has to do is a little research. The claims that President Bush made concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq continued the perspectives of the country’s leaders that preceded his administration and represented what was believed by just about every intelligence agency in the world. Are we really to believe that Bush was the only person in the world to know the truth, enabling him to be the only liar on the issue, while previous leaders had been exhorting for years that Saddam was a great threat because of WMDs? The idea is quite absurd.

It is astonishing that these facts, which are easily accessed matters of public record, are so little known or recognized. It is discouraging to know that a professor like Satterfield cannot see beyond the extraordinary hatred of Bush that is greasing the skids of The War Card study.

Richard Terrell, Lincoln

Don’t generalize education

On Jan. 27, in the Lincoln Journal Star article “Testing proposed for home schoolers,” it was reported that Sen. DiAnna Schimek has introduced a bill (LB1141) that would require standardized testing of home-schooled children. This bill has been introduced with the concern that home-schooled children are not being properly educated.  

In my personal experience, as a child in a family of five, I have received a fine education. I graduated early at the age of 16 and went  to college at 17. I feel that I am not any less educated than someone in the public school system.

Had I been given a standardized test while being home-schooled, I might have failed. There is a lot of pressure placed on someone who isn’t used to such testing. So what happens when a home-schooled child takes this annual test and fails, not because he or she is undereducated, but because the child isn’t familiar with this sort of testing? Schimek proposes to then send the child to public school for a “proper” education. Who is to say that the child wasn’t already getting a proper education? 

Unfortunately, it seems like all that’s seen are the troubled cases where home-schooling hasn’t worked out for a child, but I have known many cases of home-schooling to work out very well. It would be speculating for me to say that all home-educated children are getting the proper education that they should receive, but it would also be an assumption for someone else to say that home-schooled children are not getting a competent education.

Elizabeth Fayman, Lincoln

Appreciate what you have

Concerning the article on establishing a trust fund to increase teachers’ pay (LJS, Feb. 1), I say let them earn it through accountability and professionalism. Pooh on comparisons with surrounding states; this is the “good life” state, so take what you have.

By the way, Jan. 31 was a school day, so what were the 150 educators’ students doing while the educators were in Lincoln lobbying for more pay?

Harry Hesnault, Lincoln

All life needs to be valued

I read the Jan. 28 article on proposed Medicaid cuts with great interest. As I read, I could not help but be reminded of the warnings of the Old Testament prophets regarding the manner in which society treats its poorest and most vulnerable members.

For example, Jeremiah writes of God, “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?” (Jeremiah 8:21-22). In Ezekiel 16:49, the prophet warns, “This is the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” And one of the most famous of the prophets, Amos, quite bluntly states: “Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine” (Amos 5:11).

It is truly astounding that even though a majority of Nebraskans profess Judeo-Christian values, we seem to be acting no differently today than did our early ancestors in the faith. Why, when the public coffers dwindle, do we look to reduce programs that benefit the poor and most vulnerable first? 

Our Judeo-Christian roots urge us to seek “Shalom,” which can best be described as striving for a world that operates as God intended. We cannot treat the poor as proposed and claim to be striving for “Shalom” at the same time.

Chuck Bentjen, Beatrice, director, Justice and Advocacy Ministries, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America-Nebraska

News lacks objectivity

Throughout the year I have not seen any mention of Ron Paul’s name. When I opened the paper to the News Extra on Jan. 31, I was appalled when it implied that Nebraska voters were only to pick from four candidates.

Not only are you ignoring Paul, but you are ignoring the people behind his message and denying the rest of Lincoln an educated decision. We the people have the right to an objective local newspaper. 

Kathryn Lewandowski, Lincoln