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Published: May 03, 2008 08:09 pm
Readers' Forum: May 4, 2008
Motorists, be aware of roadside workers
I am writing this letter in regard to an accident that happened April 24 on West Springhill Drive.
A driver of a car drove through road cones and a pile of dirt and rocks before hitting a construction worker. I was appalled when I heard the news the next day that the driver was not cited for hitting the worker. I thought that there was a rather hefty fine for speeding through a construction zone, as well as injuring or killing a construction worker. I could be wrong and please correct me if I am, but I believe that injuring or killing a construction worker results in fines up to $10,000 or eight years in prison.
Now, I understand that the worker was transported by a co-worker and that his injuries were minor, but I don’t believe that the driver should have been let go without a warning or a ticket.
My husband and I are both emergency workers. My husband has been hit by a vehicle while working a car accident on a major local highway, while I myself was just missed by a passing motorist while working traffic control on another emergency scene. All too often construction workers and emergency workers are injured or worse in roadside accidents by drivers that are not cautious and do not slow down.
I am asking that motorists please be aware of your surroundings, especially now that the road construction season is in full swing. Please slow down and drive carefully. Not just for construction workers and emergency workers, but be aware also of crossing guards, school zones, and pedestrians in general.
— Kelli Stewart
Terre Haute
Making a play for senior voters
The day after the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama said he has a problem appealing to senior voters.
Now he is running ads on our local TV offering tax breaks to seniors. Does he really think our votes can be bought?
— Char Minnette
Terre Haute
Clinton comments rash and reckless
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks on the Keith Olberman show last Monday night, the evening before the Pennsylvania primary cannot go without comment.
In the interview she told Olberman that if Israel was attacked by Iran, if she were president, she would declare war on Iran and said the U.S. “could obliterate” Iran. She repeated this assertion on ABC News. This is rash and reckless speech even if Sen. Clinton knows, as she surely does, that Iran has no intention of attacking Israel and therefore she wouldn’t have to make good on her threat.
Of course, she would say that proves “deterrence” works. Threats do not stop terrorists.
Members of the U.S. Senate running for president have, in my opinion, no business threatening any country. Perhaps Sen. Clinton felt threatened by Iran because it recently negotiated a Shiite truce which is one of the reasons there is less violence in Iraq, and not as the Bush Administration insists by the surge.
Why be threatened by a negotiated truce by whatever country? We don’t own the Middle East. I think it is the constant threat of war that has helped us get into the mess we are in now. Other countries are scared of us and have started to re-build or increase the size of their militaries and all of them want at least one nuclear weapon to be considered a “modern” country. Is wanting a nuclear weapon a sign of progress?
War is an obsolete way of settling international disputes. We have more communications technology than there ever was in the history of the world and it is time we start using it.
When Rev. Jeremiah Wright said in a sermon given immediately after 9/11, “The roosters have come home to roost” he obviously meant from the context of the rest of the sermon that our bad foreign policy in the Middle East had resulted in an attack by a terrorist group, al-Qaida.
We need to remember that the attack was not authorized by any foreign government, but only by the terrorist group itself.
— Cathy McGuire
Terre Haute
Where’s the money for Clinton’s plans?
Where is Sen. Clinton going to get all the money she’s promised for health care and the service men and women? Steal from Social Security Trust Fund again? We don’t want socialized medicine.
She can’t keep her own campaign out of debt, how is she going to keep the country out of debt?
Since the Supreme Court gave legislators the right to rob the trust fund, they both should be made to pay back the trillions they’ve used for $800 toilet seats.
Clinton is living in a fantasy world.
Wonder if the Supreme Court doesn’t know that the trust fund belongs to the people who work and pay Social Security until they retire. Many do not live long enough to collect it.
— Florence Murphy
Terre Haute
Irresponsible act by local driver
Bricks to the hit-and-run driver who smashed my chain-link fence on or around April 14. To tear down a fence with a motor vehicle is one thing, but to hit and run is something else.
You did leave two or three pieces of your trim which I guess you thought was some payment? The real bad thing is the complete disregard to other people’s property. At least you should have the guts to report this to me or the police. It wasn’t so much the cost to replace some 25 to 30 feet, but the lack of responsibility of driving.
Maybe someday this kind of thing will happen to you and you’ll know how I feel. Shame on you.
— Roy Allaway
Terre Haute
Be careful bashing the oil companies
The price of gasoline has been in the news and on every consumer’s minds recently. We should not go overboard on bashing oil companies though.
Looking at one example, last quarter Exxon earned a profit of $11.7 billion in profit. As has been well publicized, this is a very big number and a record for the company. At the same time though, income was $116.6 billion — again a very big number. Consider though the profit was only 10 percent of income.
This is a healthy profit margin. Some companies would like to be in this financial situation. There are companies that make a higher profit as a percentage of income. These figures show Exxon is a well-run corporation but hardly the robber baron some would make it out to be.
At the same time, a company of this size making record profits probably does not need government subsidies. These subsidies, our tax dollars, would be better spent on making energy sources such as wind, solar and tidal power that are not yet economically viable, more so.
While on the subject of gasoline though, there has also been much coverage regarding convenience stores. They are not owned by the oil companies. They operate with thin profit margins. It is said that often they sell gas at a loss and make their profit on sodas, milk and other items that customers pick up while there.
It is ironic though that during a recent stop at one such store in Terre Haute an interesting conversation could be overheard by employees and patrons alike. There was an argument going on over the phone. It seems another chain had prices listed a dime different on each side of their marquee.
The store manager was unsure which price to list at their location. The person on the other end of the phone settled things by going up to a pump and checked which marquee was right.
While not price gouging, this is tantamount to price fixing. Even if a convenience store operates on thin margins and doesn’t make much profit, if any, on gasoline sales, the price they charge should be based on what they purchased the commodity for and not what someone else is selling it for.
— Dwayne Owens
Terre Haute
We should re-elect dedicated judge
This is the first time for me to write a letter to the editor. I agree with retired Putnam Judge Sally Gray’s letter of April 24.
I too have known and worked with Judge Barbara Brugnaux for 25 years. I am a retired alcohol and drug counselor of 18 years, with the Vigo County Court program. I have worked under several different judges in Division 5 court. I have found there were none more willing to learn about the problems of addictions than Judge Brugnaux.
I know our court alcohol and drug programs are second to none in this state and country. I was very honored to be a part of the founding of the drug court. I can’t say enough about the dedication and compassion of this great judge in our community.
I am challenging all of the folks who have been helped to recovery by the court programs to rally around Judge Brugnaux now. Vote May 6.
— Dorothy Kuykendall
Retired CADAC
West Terre Haute
Stein’s movie gives open-minded view
After viewing the Ben Stein movie “Expelled”, I have been consumed with a need to react to the profile it presents.
I was expecting to be entertained with some humor, however there is very little to be light-hearted about in this documentary.
This film exposes the evolvement of the scientific community into a extremely biased position concerning one of today’s most prominent questions, that of origin of life and evolving of species.
These two questions are unanswered, and unanswerable with current scientific capabilities. As all who follow this discussion know there is a copious amount of hypotheses and theories with beautifully prepared writings and illustrations which supposedly offers proof of each presenter’s theory, none of which are provable with (absolute) proof.
Those who promote their arguments seem so entrenched they fail to consider possibilities outside their views. Some in the scientific community are coming slowly to realize the unanswerable questions may fall outside the dimensional domain in which we live, while others refuse to move from popular theories provable or otherwise.
The academic area looks to be the most entrenched of all concerning this subject, which is most damaging it seems, since under the guise of “freedom” of thought and inquisition some hypotheses are not only ignored, they are forbidden if not a part of the teachers agenda.
The film does not condemn the teaching profession but certainly is designed to prod those teachers to abandon the practice of disallowing a fair amount of examination of the possibility of a transcendent power outside our dimensional limitations, namely the God of creation as an explanation of life origins, and to question random selection, to not do so is a breech of trust to your noble profession.
To open minds to realities must be a most rewarding venture, however half opening a mind because of obedience to one’s personal beliefs is very unprofessional.
This movie is a must for the open minded on all sides of this debate. It is very reveling.
— Bill Jaeger
Terre Haute
Carter worst ever? Not by a long shot
In his recent letter (“Carter should leave diplomacy to others”), Randy Baker argues that Jimmy Carter was the “… worst president the United States has ever had to endure.” I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Baker.
No one needs to look to the past in order to identify the worst president that America has ever had to endure because our current president is clearly the owner of that dubious distinction.
An overwhelming majority of Americans agree with me on this. In a recent Gallup poll survey, George W. Bush has earned a 69 percent disapproval rating — the highest disapproval rating of any U.S. president in Gallup poll history. Harry Truman came close in 1952 with 67 percent disapproval. Jimmy Carter was never as unpopular as Richard Nixon and never as unpopular as Bush is right now. It is possible that there have been, in fact, worse U.S. presidents than George W. Bush, but this is a debate for historians
In my view, Jimmy Carter is a man who is without any peer among the current and recent former U.S. presidents — not one of them even comes close. He is by far the most honorable, decent, and moral of them all. He has worked tirelessly for years advocating human rights and world peace with unflagging
devotion.
People may disagree with him, but even his most vocal critics cannot point to any instances of dishonesty or moral turpitude (whatever that means) in his behavior.
— John Allen
Terre Haute
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