Efforts to reduce the number of cats on the streets in Storm Lake may be well-intentioned, but putting cats back outdoors spells suffering and death for felines and wildlife and creates problems for the community.
Cats are domesticated animals. Outdoors, most survive only two to five years. They starve; freeze; languish with untreated infections, injuries, and diseases; are hit by cars, torn apart by dogs, tortured by cruel people; and more.
Earlier this year, an “outdoor cat” in Des Moines was trapped in a shed when the structure caught fire. She was found days later with gruesome burns. And in Davenport, a severely underweight homeless kitten was found “actively dying,” with a respiratory infection and a dangerously low temperature.
Frustrated or hostile residents who consider cats a nuisance routinely harm and kill them. In Arizona, numerous homeless cats — who’d been sterilized and “released” — were found injured or dead after they were apparently shot. In Florida, three homeless cats who’d been sterilized and re-abandoned were found “dead — with their heads apparently bashed into concrete.” In Texas, a woman who fed approximately 50 homeless cats at a park reported that all but five or six of the animals had been poisoned and endured “a horrible, slow death that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
Regardless of whether they are fed, cats instinctively attack and kill vulnerable birds, amphibians and other wildlife. A study in Nature Communications found that cats eat more than 2,000 species, including nearly 350 who are imperiled or at risk of it.
People who want to help animals should work to pass laws requiring that all cats be spayed, neutered and kept indoors where they are safe. This is the only humane and responsible solution.
Teresa Chagrin , PETA Animal Care and Control Issues Manager, Norfolk, Va.
Corn is now four bucks, down from seven in 2022, a blow to corn farmers. Yet ethanol producers are surely looking forward to record profits. The cost of corn is 55% of the expense of producing ethanol.
More promising for producers are subsidies. Ethanol producers receive a tax credit of 45¢ for each gallon produced. During lean years when profits were rare or missing this unused credit is carried forward. So 45¢ becomes 90 and then $1.35 and $1.80 and so on. Serious money for some. A windfall for marginally run plants.
Each year Iowa produces just shy of five billion gallons of ethanol, using nearly 50% of the corn crop. Those subsidies will be a major portion of their profit and will be paid for by taxpayers like you and me. They are not a part of the Farm Program but come straight out of general revenue.
This reminded me of the May 14, 2024, Storm Lake Times Pilot editorial “Where does the profit go?” Do profits stay in the local community or state to help Iowans? Or do they flee out-of-state to big corporations like ADM (Illinois) or POET (South Dakota)?
Even bigger taxpayer expense is on the horizon for new subsidies for CO2 pipelines to spirit away the carbon created by manufacturing ethanol. Carbon will be buried in the ground far away in other states and chased there by copious amounts of Iowa's precious water.
Is this sustainable? Ethanol is a political boondoggle originally promoted as a “green fuel.” In reality it is now proven to be a climate polluter that drives the expansion of other polluters like factory farms and CAPOs. The Big Boy Corporations who have purchased Iowa state government have already taken notice and are sequestering their profits by closing plants (Tyson) and laying off workers (John Deere).
More is surely on the way. In the end only ordinary Iowans will suffer. Well, and our climate.
Ron Platt, Crestland Class ‘59, Overland Park, Kan.
Kamala Harris is a radical leftist, straight from the Progressive/Socialist wing of the Democratic Party.
A political opportunist, Kamala at age 30, jump-started her political career by having an affair with the not-yet-divorced 60-year-old mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown.
She advocated open borders by offering “free” health care for illegal immigrants, Medicare for all, and virtually no restrictions on abortion, even at second and third trimester.
Kamala was one of the first candidates to drop out of the 2020 Presidential race, because she was so unpopular. Nevertheless, Biden picked her as her VP solely because he had to have a “woman of color.”
Joe Biden made Kamala the “Border Czar,” and she visited the border once, maybe twice, for a brief photo-op and some nonsensical statements. She did nothing to stop the invasion of illegal aliens into our country and the accompanying deadly drugs.
She vowed to to eliminate private health insurance, ban fracking, and was an important fund raiser for the defense of rioters, looters, and arsonists during the long summer of riots in 2020.
Now of course she is trying to walk many of the positions back because they are unpopular. One thing for certain, she will have the help of a fawning and adoring media and press for any help she may need.
Vic Massara, Omaha, Neb.
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