letters to the editor

Ah, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

How many more times am I going to hear the same story about cyber-bullying with teenagers (1-8, A1, “Online attacks push teen to try suicide again”)? It's the same plot, varying conflicts and characters, and invariably leads to a suicide attempt.

Tragically, sometimes these attempts are completed. The teenager in Maryville, Mo., Daisy Coleman, thankfully survived, and I hope she recovers and gets psychological treatment.

There needs to be an open dialogue with this dangerous issue of teenagers and social media. Most of the time, subtle and not-so-subtle comments exchanged on these networks are taken for what they're worth: stupid, meaningless words.

But how many more stories am I going to hear and read about where a teenager wasn’t able to brush them off? They take the words to heart, and then hurt themselves.

There are ways to deal with this, and it has to start with the parents and with the family. It is the responsibility of the parents to make their children strong enough to tough it out in this harsh world.

You can turn Facebook off and turn Twitter off. Talk to your child when something appears to be wrong.

Something is very, very wrong.

I'm actually appalled at how much American citizens are going to take from the Obama administration before standing united and doing something about it. We see individuals lying before Congress, involving the National Security Agency, the Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi scandals and cover-ups.

There has been a total disregard of the law of the land and the U.S. Constitution by this president and outright lying and fraud in regard to the Affordable Care Act. Then we see the president arbitrarily making changes to the law in favor of his cronies, unions and big business by executive orders bypassing Congress, and nothing is done about it.

Surely the liberal left sees what is going on with this blatant power grab, but people on the left and the mainstream media, blindly enamored by liberal ideology, do nothing because they just like the president. Are you kidding?

All is well because they like him? President Richard Nixon lied to protect individuals who broke into the Watergate building when he actually didn't have anything to do with the break-in.

And the cover-up didn't really affect citizens of this country, but the media crucified Nixon and ran him out of office. Barack Obama doesn't only serve the liberal left, he is supposed to serve all Americans.

It has been colder than normal for months. I am tired of these freezing temperatures. Where is this elusive global warming when you need it?

This story was originally published January 14, 2014 at 6:14 PM with the headline "letters to the editor."