Reagan's aqueduct good for California
Georgia's plan is to build an aqueduct like the California Aqueduct.
I encourage you to visit Los Angeles or the San Joaquin Valley and take a good look at what Ronald Reagan accomplished in his governship in the '60s and '70s, with the exception of the Democrats closing part of the aqueduct (to save snails). The California Aqueduct has aided the farmers, like the Tennessee River will do for Georgia farmers and the city of Atlanta.
JACK ALLEN, Ringgold, Ga.
We need you to pray for nation
I believe it is a shame that this country has strayed so far from the founding fathers' concepts and desires for this great nation. We are faced with great divisions, promoted by an administration that was supposed to be a uniting force.
I have never seen this country so divided. We are divided on gun control and Second Amendments rights; spending cuts and increasing taxes; pro-life and abortion; and numerous other topics of national concern. We send billions of dollars overseas and we still have homeless veterans and others less fortunate living in the streets. Drug problems (prescription and illegal) are paramount and our prisons are overcrowded, yet there is little money spent for rehabilitation.
When budget cuts are required, we look at cutting out military's already meager pay, cutting the number of teachers in our education system, and other high profile and sensitive areas in an effort to elicit support for a government to continue to spend our great-grandchildren into debt.
Congress and the president need to get together and look at the billions of dollars being sent to nations that hate us anyway and cut support in areas like that. Pray for our country, we need it.
WILSON WEAVER, Soddy-Daisy
Maybe it's time to trim some pay
There are 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 members of the Senate including their annual salaries of $174,000, and a guess of the value of their fringe benefits, the annual cost to run Congress is an estimated $250 million.
I have a solution for part of this so-called 'sequester' -- why don't we furlough some of these folks and/or cut back on their pay and benefits? Forty-seven percent of the House members are millionaires -- 67 percent of the Senate members also are millionaires. Do they really need all of the goodies they provide for themselves?
I am disgusted with one party saying "even" while the other responds with "odd." Why can't they use some good old common sense and work together to do what is good for the taxpayers who support their lifestyle?
JACK KILGORE, Hixson
Georgia residents need yarn choices
I live in Walker County and enjoy it, but since Walmart has taken out all the fabric and craft section from the LaFayette store, I'm left in need of those items. There is very little yarn and supplies and no fabric there now. I would encourage each of you who do crafts, crochet, sew and quilting to call Walmart and let them know the need we have. Even the Fort Oglethorpe store is not as well-stocked as it used to be.
We are in desperate need of a store locally. The new Michael's is way
We have some empty stores in the Bi-Lo shopping center in LaFayette that would be a wonderful place for a Hobby Lobby or some store that fits our pocketbooks and carries what we need. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
DOROTHY BROWN, LaFayette, Ga.
.-----
Presentations dramatize killing
Violence always draws a frown to one's face. Gun violence is first to be blamed for the murders that take place across the country. The two most recent murders by gunfire in Chattanooga were well covered by TV news reports. The unfortunate loss of a 16-year-old on March 5 was played up as if it were somehow associated with Howard High School. It was several blocks away from the school. Drama is a way to attract attention to news reporting. Editorializing is out of line when reporting the news. The proximity of the shooting to the high school was of some import since the gunman was reported to have run toward the school. However, the inference of: "Oh no, another school shooting" was implied by the way the story was presented.
Several local news anchors went further to suggest that if you want anything done about these shootings, you're going to have to put your money where your mouth is. I find that editorial tone offensive. Yes, I'm sensitive to news reporters suggesting actions of any kind. That's not reporting the news. And, looking at "liberal media" in our present sociocultural atmosphere, I detect suggesting gun control.
LAWRENCE HEADRICK, Tunnel Hill, Ga.
Drones change mind about Obama
I have never owned a gun until a few years ago, and I'm a septuagenarian. I asked the gun merchant to give me his "softest" shot he had as I didn't want to ever hurt anybody. I only wanted to make a loud boom. He looked at me like I was crazy.
After listening to President Obama's State of the Union address, I came away thinking: O.K. I'll give up my gun if you will give up your drones. My gun will never harm a fly, while yours have obliterated whole villages of innocent children and mothers. (The world will never forgive us our insanity and brutality, and I want either.)
Every person in that audience is a traitor to the children of our world if they don't speak out against this evil.
Obama raved about the victims of gun violence. "They deserve a vote!" What about the 6,000 innocent victims of his Hell-fire missiles -- do they deserve a vote?
Suddenly we have 64 drone bases in America -- why? To surveill us? I used to think Obama was our friend but his drones have changed my mind. (And I thought Bush was scary!) Screech!
ROBERT LEE BROWN
Culture allows extreme responses
Times Free Press reporting of Chattanooga police officers having a good time beating up on a defenseless black man:
The chief says the actions are "excessive." That isn't the word for it. It is horrifying those men are not afraid of their victim. The rage is evident. So is their belief that they have approval for acting that way.
This is not the first time Chattanooga police have done something like this. Several years ago, police shot an unarmed black man and kept shooting and shooting. It was not one outnumbered policeman -- it was several, and nobody did anything. Evidently there is a culture in the Chattanooga Police Department that approves of over-the-top responses -- not to perceived threats, but to black men.
This is almost as bad as the bad old days.
I wonder if Volkswagen, finding out how we are under the good old boy exterior, is impressed.
NANCY SMITH, Dayton, Tenn.
Don't fuel tension and resentment
We live in a society that seems to feed fear. Unfortunately, our media often serve to present news in such a way that only aggravates our fearful condition.
Broadcast news in particular uses dramatic music and doomsday voices to announce the fear-generating news of the day. Headlines such as "Sheriff: Black president fuels insecurity" (TFP Feb. 28) doesn't help either. Not only does that lend itself to feeding fear, it promotes the "Old South" stereotype to which Hammond refers.
While I believe that Hammond was not promoting this, I would agree with Councilman Greg Beck's caution to elected officials to beware of fueling "that kind of tension and resentment." Such statements are easily misconstrued as giving credence and legitimizing this kind of racist thinking.
I am not naive. Plenty of problems abound, and gridlock severely limits finding solutions. Yet allowing anxiety and prejudice to drive our lives does nothing for our well-being or for our ability to seek constructive means to face our challenges. Our thinking and vision become constricted by so much angst.
Our personal lives and our society would benefit from grounding ourselves in those things which center us rather than living in the anxiety which keeps us imbalanced.
KATE STULCE, Ooltewah
Medicaid expansion would help Tennesseans
Medicaid expansion is not primarily a political issue. It is a human issue.
900,000 Tennesseans are uninsured, the vast majority are not uninsured by choice.
35,000 are veterans without insurance
80,000 are children without insurance.
People assume that if you're poor enough or sick enough you'll get TennCare. The truth is many vulnerable people can't get TennCare. (Able-bodied) childless adults under 65 cannot get it. Many parents whose children have turned 18 cannot get it. Most working adults cannot qualify.
The Federal government will pick up the cost of Medicaid expansion for three years and continue to cover 90 percent of the cost after that. How can that not be good?
All but the wealthiest are one unforeseen illness or job loss away from getting their basic health care needs met without insurance.
- PAT COMBS