The Constitution is a contrived piece of junk written by a bunch of whiskey addled, witless and cruel slaveholders that we've mistakenly built ostentatious monuments to honor in the quest to make us feel better about ourselves. If you don't agree with this assessment, look at the results.

The May 17 letter titled, "Politicizing trash pickup" missed the point.

Last Saturday, representatives from several Fresno groups gathered at Wesley United Methodist Church to package meals for Stop Hunger Now, an international hunger relief agency. More than 90 volunteers from local churches, such as Wesley and the Unitarian Universalist Church; unions, such as SEIU local 521; and other organizations, such as Planned Parenthood and El Dorado Community Leaders, packaged more than 10,000 meals to be sent overseas to feed hungry children.

I think Angelina Jolie is quite mad, as evidenced by her most recent extremist behavior. Oh, to have the luxury of time, wealth and resources to play god with one's own body. Clearly, she is not over the death of her beloved mother.

With one year of college left, I have come to realize that the city of Fresno has very few businesses that offer student discounts. Living the university life is expensive: tuition, books, student-body fees, gasoline, etc. Going out once or twice a month is a nice break, and it would be even better if students could get a 5% or 10% discount at places by showing their current student identification card.

I was appalled that the Fresno County Board of Supervisors would pass a resolution proclaiming 2013 the "The Year of the Child" and then quibble over wording ("top" priority) in a resolution that does not support children!

I felt I had to respond to Cody Ramsted's rude and sarcastic May 16 letter regarding the services of the city's solid waste drivers. In my opinion, the drivers have always been courteous and even stopped their trucks to pick up spilled trash years before Measure G had been thought of.

Maybe you have seen the news regarding Clovis residents' complaints about the noise level coming from The Firing Line, a shooting range. Well, living next to or near a Clovis Unified School, such as Granite Ridge, is no Sunday picnic, either.

A photo of the back of a baby girl's neck showing a wound caused by snipping the child's spinal column, evidence at Kermit Gosnell's trial, brought to mind lines from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: Antony calls Caesar's wounds "poor poor dumb mouths" and says he will "bid them speak for me."

Doesn't anyone stop at stop signs or behind the pedestrian line anymore? I do.

Kudos to the House GOP for Friday's instructive hearing on the IRS affair. After listening to former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller's testimony, we are offered a deeper understanding of the issue. If some 501(c)(4) non-profit applications with words like "tea party" and "patriot" in the names of the organizations were, upon further review, trending to the dubious or bogus side, as Miller's testimony suggests, the obligation for the agency to consolidate resources and profile a larger sample of such applications for merit is reasonable and self evident. Why blame the system for doing its job?

I read with interest The Bee's May 17 editorial about Proposition 13.

A few facts about Measure G: No money is earmarked for public safety and garbage rates should have been reduced 15% since 2009. The difference between 17% and 15% is only 40 cents a month. There is no provision for special pickups such as for the homeless trash. The contract is complex and can be broken.

Over the last few months, I have read letters from senior citizens who have felt that they have been deceived by Uncle Sam on their Social Security benefits. They are correct in their assessments.

Now that the recession is behind us, it is reasonable and timely to cut back all safety-net programs to their pre-recession levels no matter what the current unemployment rate is.

I have seen all of Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin's ads on TV about how our garbage bills will be reduced if Measure G is approved. Can the mayor please explain to me why my and 330 other homes have had theirs doubled? This does not seem fair to me.

Some two years ago, Fresno outsourced commercial trash pickup. I have four apartment complexes, three now serviced by Mid Valley Disposal, one by Allied Waste. Neither company has raised rates during this time, and both companies have provided superior service to that previously provided by the city.

Poor President Obama. Looks like his second term isn't going so well. He's got an IRS scandal, Benghazi problems and now his justice department is making George W. Bush look like a rookie wiretapper.

I dislike many government regulations, but I would not be unhappy if leaf blowers were banned. The pollution and noise levels are extreme.

Realignment ostensibly posited a reasonable alternative to overwhelming state debt. It seemed a small price to pay for a menagerie, to which the state promised no viable alternative. Sadly, this arcane solution has wreaked havoc at the local level.

Judges in California send convicted felons to state prison on a daily basis. The last time I checked, the Fresno County jail is not a state prison. Gov. Jerry Brown should cut back on the handouts and keep these people in prison!

Leticia Perez wants to raise the minimum wage. Not a good idea. All it would do is raise the unemployment rate. Small businesses are already tightening their belts because of ObamaCare. They cannot afford to pay for their employees' medical plans and now she wants to increase minimum pay.

The June 4 special election is an opportunity for enlightened progressive citizens, middle- and working-class voters to take action for the good of hard working blue collar personnel instead of big business profits. Mid Valley Disposal service does not have Fresno's interest. We have to separate the wheat from the chaff in this instance.

The Bee published a story on May 15 about lowering the blood-alcohol limit; the story highlighted how drunk driving is one of the highest causes of death in America. Fortunately, liberals have provided a template to fix this unacceptable situation.

As reported in The Bee recently, global C02 levels have reached a new high of 400 parts per million. This is quite alarming, since similar levels have not been seen on earth for about 3 million years.

I am rather appalled at the May 16 editorial printed in The Bee regarding President Obama and the description of his " imperial presidency." I thought the purpose of a newspaper was to inform its readers, not to influence them by imposing its own interpretation of events.

Buy local! It benefits our community. That is what we hear all the time. However, the managers of the campaigns for and against Measure G -- a purely local measure -- apparently didn't think about our community when trying to woo Fresno voters.

A tragic event at a garment factory. Nearly a third of the young ladies working there (some 15 and under) died in the flames. Some leaped to their death on the streets below. The exit doors had been locked. These ladies had endured extreme poverty and terrible working conditions. They were afraid to speak up and lose their jobs.

After watching the press conferences of President Obama and Jay Carney, and the answers they gave to reporters concerning Benghazi, the IRS audit profiling scandals and the investigation of Associated Press phone numbers by the Attorney General's office, I had an interesting thought.

What a sense of sadness rushed over me when I opened The Bee recently to see James Russell Clements' obituary. Having grown up walking to school (both Hamilton Junior High and Fresno High School) along Van Ness and passing by his family's gas station each Christmas season, I remember well their window display of Santa Claus sleeping, replete with a rising and falling chest. For many of us, this display made our holiday season.

Solar panels. What a great idea? Start saving money on your utility bill? When I was in school, it was during the Dark Ages. We had to learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide without the aid of calculators. And we actually learned something. So, if my facts and figures are incorrect, someone out there please correct me.

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in and what did I find? Hubris and wretched excess. We think we know the secrets of the universe. Hubris! If a little is good, then a whole lot is better. Wretched excess!

Can anyone tell me why:

Is it possible under the No Child Left Behind Act to achieve and meet expectations for every school in the nation? NCLB was signed by President George W. Bush and was placed into law on Jan. 8, 2002. The act sets standards for every child to be at least at proficient level, have highly qualified teachers in every classroom and make public schools accountable. The goal is to end the gap in student achievement.

I would like to respond to the May 10 letter, "GOP double standard," by Clyde Auston. He writes of the various attacks on U.S. consulates from 2002 to 2008, and the 31 lives lost during those attacks. What he fails to mention is that not one was a U.S. citizen or employee of the State Department. He also fails to mention that all consulates were heavily staffed by U.S. Marines who, in most cases, helped repel those attacks.

For all the people who would like to know the facts about Benghazi, I would recommend you read the report on the State Department website about the incident. This details the incident and gives recommendations on future security.

As we watch the investigation into the attack on our embassy last September unfold, we need to look for the reasons behind the actions, reactions and inaction of the president and the State Department.

Thank you for the story by Sophie Dictos, the adopted daughter of Paul and Stella Dictos (Valley Voices, May 11). These are people who were a great influence in my family's life also.

Over the past four years, Highway City Thrift Store has partnered with Fresno State marketing classes in a hands-on, service-learning experience. The students apply what they are learning in class to assist a local non-profit.

The Sunnyside Property Owners Association donated and dedicated park benches for the Sunnyside Fancher Creek Parkway. In the last couple of years, two were stolen. I built -- out of old, spare wood -- a replacement bench so that my grandkids and others could rest during their walks. It, too, has been stolen.

The day after the Benghazi terror attack on our embassy in Libya, The Bee had a front-page article on The church at Kaweah in Three Rivers linking it to the video that was incorrectly blamed for the horrendous acts that killed four Americans.

Do you remember the children's book, "Charlotte's Web," where in the corner of the barn door the spider spells out "some pig" in her web in an effort to save the pig? The townspeople hear the news, rush to the barn, gather around and agree it must be "some pig." At one point, a person in the crowd says: "Some pig? That's some spider!" Everyone ignores this person, maybe because if it's in print, it must be true.

There was a May 11 report on The Bee's inside pages that a jury in Guatemala had found a former president of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, guilty of crimes against humanity. There were many witnesses and a lot of forensic evidence to attribute mass slaughter of his people in 1982 to the man, and I, who was alive reading newspapers at the time, am sure the jury made the just decision.

Mayor Ashley Swearengin warns us that if we don't privatize our sanitation services then we will have to cut public safety services. Slashing public safety services is an equally foolish Plan B.

The moniker, "Fresyes," is an insult to Fresno, and its citizens, owed to the fact that it actually projects a negativity that something is amiss in California's fifth largest city.

Is it "anomie?" Which is to say: a breakdown of a supporting social or moral framework between individuals and their community. A 12-year-old stabs his little sister to death; a shot fired outside the Fashion Fair Mall; skateboarders beating a man; an American Special Forces person in Afghanistan accused of murder and torture of 15 Afghans (where did he learn that skill?); a New Jersey sex offender killing and holding hostages in his residence -- and so on without end.

The May 12 letter from Nick Lewis is correct but does not go far enough. Barstow Avenue from Maroa Avenue past West Avenue is dangerous. There you will see the running of red lights, speeding (posted at 25 mph or 35 mph, but vehicles going 45 mph-plus are not uncommon), passing in the turn lane and using the bike lanes as regular driving lanes or a drop-off zone at Bullard High School.

Thank you for your May 6 editorial in support of AB 227, which would reform Proposition 65 to help stop abusive lawsuits.

One of the most important components in a student's education is parental involvement. This should include being involved in their school programs, helping them become responsible and independent, and providing them with a peaceful environment at home.