Unjust sports expenses
It's past time for colleges and universities to separate themselves from athletics.
The university athletic programs today have nothing to do with academics.
Coaches, and now individual athletes, are often paid more than entire department faculties.
It seems obvious that most schools will expect their students to pick up part of the tab for the likely exorbitant athletic expenses. Families struggling to pay for college should not be expected to foot the bill for athletic programs on top of everything else.
Sports programs should be completely divorced from the schools and reformed into what they actually are: professional sports leagues. Let the fans and television networks pay for them.
L. KEITH TALIAFERRO JR.
Summerville
Missing loved ones
What a wonderful time for reflection and to open one's heart to joyful past remembrances.
Our thoughts can turn to a loving spouse who may have passed. In so many ways, these remembrances reach into our minds, hearts and souls.
To spend Christmas reminiscing about such an engaging spouse can overcome depression and sadness.
This ongoing connection with a spouse is more than dreams, signs or other subtle ways. Although heavenly spouses have been angelized, their presence can be experienced by surviving spouses on occasion.
Their presence can stir very powerful feelings, and will hopefully be somewhat comforting and not at all disturbing. Whether our departed spouses are truly present and watching over us, the mind, heart and soul connection that we believe and trust as soulmates can still remain.
One can only hope that a heavenly humanity will be a rich, meaningful and intimate relationship.
When a spouse leaves this world, part of you is gone as well. But those experiences likely will remain so embedded in your life that they may never be absent. The surviving spouse can be a wiser and deeper person because of a life shared. Things may never be the same, but try to emerge as the kind of person one can only become through loving someone so dearly.
Christmas time remembrance is, "Loved you yesterday, love you still, always have, always will."
DENNIS J. DONAHUE JR.
Isle of Palms
Right verdict issued
Kudos to Daniel Penny for having the courage to stand up and take the bull by the horns and do what had to be done to protect not only his own life but also the lives of the other passengers on a New York City subway train in 2023.
The jury also deserves credit for having the courage to deliver the correct verdict of not guilty.
The race of a villain or the hero who thwarts him doesn't matter. The Constitution guarantees equal protection and justice under the law for every citizen, regardless of race.
SKIP LESEMANN
James Island
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