Make way for more trains

To the Editor:

Why not utilize all that ground between four-lane highways for trains?

I thought about this some time ago and wrote to Paul Simon, bless his memory, my thoughts about it. Those commuters now driving their cars could be the same commuters who would use those trains.

My mother - she was born in 1884 - used to say, "The trains are coming back." She was born at a time when trains were passenger trains as well as freight, as nowadays. Perhaps she was prophetic, since driving gasoline-propelled cars perhaps is becoming obsolete.

Helen Sue Johnson

McLeansboro

Some laws don't uphold dignity

To the Editor:

Death with dignity laws violate equal protection. If the state could ensure everyone foreknowledge of his or her manner of death, so that everyone could be free to avoid the suffering incurred, the law could be applied equally. Thankfully, it can't, and it remains the general human condition that people have no control over their deaths, whether from war, famine, communicable disease, substandard living conditions, violent crime, accidents, natural or technological disasters, sudden cardiac or respiratory arrest, brain hemorrhage, etc.

Similarly, if the state could change humans into hermaphrodites so conception was a strictly individual, personal matter, rather than a genuine willful exchange between two people, abortion laws could be applied equally. Thankfully, it can't, and it remains the general human condition that children arise from interpersonal relationships, not from sole individuals.

Human rights come from what all people have in common, not what divides them, like knowledge vs. ignorance of one's cause of death, or presence vs. absence of female reproductive organs. Somehow we have forgotten that, and laws we claim are to uphold our dignity actually lead us away from being human.

Lydia Hazel

Makanda

Belleville has a drive-in, too

To the Editor:

I am writing in regard to your recent Sunday cover story on the only drive-in remaining in the area being near Salem. There's another one that you have forgotten.

It's the Skyview Drive-In in Belleville.

Last time I checked, it had two screens and is open every night.

John S. Mondino

Harrisburg

EDITOR'S NOTE: It all depends on how you define "area." Some people do not consider Belleville to be part of Southern Illinois.