Remembering how U.S. stood together
Please let me tell you my story. I lived on Garden Farm Road in Chickamauga, Ga., in the early 1940s. My mother and dad, Charles and Caroline Casey, worked at Peerless Mill. Mother looped stockings, and Daddy was a machine repairman - until World War II started, and the jobs were quickly changed from ladies' stockings to parachutes for men in service. Mother told of how she was so afraid the parachutes might not be folded exactly right, and they would fail to open. It was her job to see they were folded correctly and packed. Since the ladies could not get nylons to wear, they painted their legs with makeup.
I'm sure some of the ladies reading this can tell many interesting stories of improvising that was done in those days.
I am so proud of America and how we all stood together. I love the United States of America and stand proud of all of our people of the U.S.A.
Barbara Moore
Rossville
Decrypting phones just a first step
The genie left the bottle years ago with PGP (pretty good privacy). Before then, encryption was labeled as a munition, on par with trying to bring bullets onto an airplane. This has weakened security for the past 20 years, and now the FBI is wanting to weaken encryption for the entire world, to simply look at a dead terrorist's phone. Can Apple decrypt the phone? Yes, it can, but if it does, then it will have a backlog of iPhones that authorities will want access to. Here is the question: Is it really worth it? Sure, the majority of us will not be asked by the authorities to unlock our phones, but we also need to think of people besides ourselves.
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Edward Snowden
John Spencer
Hard to recognize America anymore
I don't even recognize my fellow Americans anymore. The same nation that once fought two world wars and put men on the moon has ceased to exist in my lifetime. Universities seem proud to be united among themselves promoting dog-like morality as professors teach socialism-laced indoctrination and any God-hating philosophy. It's always the students protesting for so-called social justice. Demands made by the recipients themselves. What a joke! After spending day after day watching government-subsidized social engineering at work, I get mad. It swallows up our nation's resources and gets passed down diaper to diaper. Obama has given us seven years of "parasitism" in which the lazy or opportunistic live off the working taxpayer. Workers are becoming anemic through liberal mistreatment. Is it too late? I can't say. But this I do know. All Americans regardless of their party affiliation or bank account will get to swim, choke and drown in the same stagnant economy and dying nation we together have helped create. What's even more regrettable is it should have never have gotten to this point. We had a choice seven years ago.
Charles Wall
Chickamauga, Ga.
Senator's no-vote angers gun owner
Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga: You are a disgrace. It takes a real low-life to refuse to vote on the handgun carry permit law. I pray you are voted out of office. I want to know why if I pass my background check that I am not allowed to carry or to purchase a shotgun or a rifle. I should be able to carry one at once. Do you know how much it costs to purchase a handgun carry permit? Where is all the extra money going? Whose pockets are being filled? Many states now allow you to carry a handgun when you pass your background check. When is Tennessee going to wake up? I would sure like answers, and I would love to see a senator who at least has guts enough to vote and is concerned about the average voter.
Arthur W. Lyonais
Longtimer doesn't recognize America
Friends and Americans, what has happened to our America?
Millions and millions of Americans, after searching their hearts, voted for the man they believed would be the best president. This has always been the American way. Then the TV, newspapers, and all the media tell us we are fools for choosing such a man. It's not the professionals' job in Washington to tell us who to choose.
Now, the GOP tells its members, "we don't care what candidate you favor as long as it's our choice. If it's not, we will do all in our power to keep your candidate out."
My friends, I am 86 years old and this is not the America that I grew up in. Something is terribly wrong. I just hope and pray that this wonderful America, that God blessed us with, can be fixed for our children and it's not too late.
James Rose
Signal Mountain
Don't resort to tabloid reporting
I have been very impressed with our hometown paper of late. For a while, I thought we'd gone tabloid, and I found I was spending less and less time reading the paper. Now, I make time to read articles all the way through! Thanks for the shift to substantive reporting. Today, though, there was another one of those articles about Sen. Corker's "alleged" misdeeds: He "may have shared information," etc. These allegations come from an organization that didn't bother to answer your reporter's email about whether it received remuneration for filing these complaints. How convenient. How about some facts? Otherwise, stop turning unfounded accusations into headlines. It's a shift back to our recent past.
Susan Jones
Signal Mountain
Wal-Mart pay hike appreciated
As one of 38,000 Wal-Mart associates in Tennessee who received a pay raise this month, I appreciated the recent Times Free Press articles on the subject.
Throughout my five years with Wal-Mart, I've never felt such a collective rise in morale among my fellow associates. During the largest single-day pay increase ever, 1,813 associates in Hamilton County and 85 associates at my store saw a bump in our March 10 paychecks.
Personally, I'm elated I will be able to better support my family of five with this additional income on top of the benefits we receive, including the health plan, education assistance and retirement plan I already receive. I also look forward to future opportunities being provided to us in the form of better training, additional education and quarterly cash bonuses as I pursue a rewarding, lifelong career with Walmart.
Raymond Daigneault