Glass recycling should return
Thank you for your insightful article on the city and its curbside recycling changes (Jan. 14). Laws should be changed to enable Orange Grove to again recycle all for the city of Chattanooga. That recycling center made a profit for Orange Grove and employed a good number of associates of Orange Grove.
Before federal changes that forced the city to end its recycling partnership with Orange Grove, Orange Grove was carefully processing glass to keep it from landfills and was considering additional glass processing equipment. Wastaway in Morrison, Tenn., recycles glass easily with all other municipal waste. The current recycler for the city should install the necessary glass processing equipment as many successful recyclers have. Safe, proven glass processing equipment certainly exists. Orange Grove deserves our support.
Jim Robbins
Signal Mountain
Opponents missing McCormick bill aim
Gerald McCormick proposes legislation to make the state support state-funded schools that might be sued over transgender bathrooms. The Tennessee Equality Project, wanting to look positive in its negativity, labels McCormick's bill "anti" what it is "pro" about. And opposition leader Mike Stewart opposes it not with valid reasoning but by downplaying it as unimportant.
It's important enough to inspire McCormick, rouse the TFP, elicit comments from Stewart, and have it called "the transgender school-bathroom controversy" on the front of the Times Free Press "Region" section (Jan. 11).
Committing a negative bandwagon fallacy - "Don't do it because nobody else is" - Stewart supports the issue's unimportance with a negative overgeneralization: "I've just not met a single educator or real person who cares about this bathroom issue." Such a generality is invalidated by a single counterexample - by me, a single educator and real person who cares about this issue, and by 1.5 million signers of American Family Association's petition against Target's transgender bathroom policy.
Yes, AFA is one of the "agitator groups" Stewart says is "concocting" the issue; so is the TFP. As for McCormick, shouldn't the state support state-funded schools without special legislation?
Dr. Brian Hale
Red Bank
Simpler solutions available for lead
I felt the Jan. 15 article on lead on the Southside led to a spirit of victimizing.
I spoke with Charlene Nash, horticulturist at our local aquarium and a soil expert who travels with the USA Aid program, Farmer to Farmer. She regularly travels to Africa and Madagascar to help with soil remediation. She also consults locally for organic farmers. She spoke of simple ways to remove lead from the soil without having to remove all the topsoil or being dependent on the EPA. Her nonprofit, Soil Resources Initiative, assists in fundraising for supplies for these trips.
Even a quick internet search provides info on soil remediation with plants.
I am aware there may be more to it than this simplistic approach, but it is a beginning, a beginning which removes helplessness and offers control and hope.
As a dialysis nurse, I am aware of the body's basic chemistry. If there is damage to it, and the body cannot discern between two positively charged minerals, you see it in the blood. Medicine is able to provide supplements to correct the situation. Surely, plants and other minerals can provide the same adjustments to the soil when properly applied.
Jayne Worsham
Do we take Trump act too seriously?
Why would citizens care how much time President Trump spends on the golf course? Or watching TV, or consuming Diet Cokes?
My take is they reflect his effort to demonstrate to the American people how silly it is to take him so seriously and to confirm his elected office is predominantly a part-time job, particularly for someone his age who prefers those activities to sitting in tedious, boring meetings. Particularly the ones that focus on controversial, complex subjects such as health care, tax policy, too-large national parks and so forth.
Like any narcissistic 16-year-old, he prefers to woo the people who voted for him and insult those who did not. He realizes the latter are simply liberal socialists, maybe Communists, who disagree with him on what's important. But this rarely makes much of an impression on him as he is busy contemplating new ways to get his picture in the paper and sign presidential orders to demonstrate that he is conscientious.
Being eloquent or even articulate is the last of his concerns. Tweeting is much simpler and requires much less contemplation.
Becky Young
Signal Mountain
Big Pharma, its ilk keeping pot at bay
Thank you for running the article "Marijuana vs Alcohol" (Jan. 14, page F1) by Ralph Strangis, a recovering addict. The strongest argument about legalizing marijuana is the statistic from the CDC. The CDC reports prescription drug overdoses are about 30,000 per year. Marijuana overdoses are, according to the CDC, zero annually. Yes, zero.
Why is marijuana a schedule 1 "drug" and alcohol is not? I think it is the pharmaceutical and alcohol companies and their lobbyists who are controlling this. They can't make money off marijuana. Plain and simple. Politicians like "liddle" Jeff Sessions know where their bread is buttered. We need to change this. Vote in 2018, please.
Pat Hagan
Rossville
Re-elect same ones and expect change?
After reading the Jan. 14 letters section, I would like to comment on some letter writers. One writer said that some news outlets are just "opinions" and not reliable. He mentions all unreliable news outlets except Fox News. Doesn't take a genius to figure this guy out.
Another obviously does not know how Congress works. He blames Obama for the debt rising so much during his time in office. It was a Republican Congress during most of his time in office, and as we know, Congress is in charge of the budget and thus the debt. Congress is happy that people always blame the debt on the president, so they can go along their lazy way and know the voters will re-elect them anyway, no matter how incompetent they are.
Funny thing, 85 percent of voters want term limits, and Congress for years has had a less than 20 percent approval, yet the voters run out and re-elect the same tired politicians they are complaining about. Doubt it will ever end.
Jack Pine
Dunlap, Tenn.
Expect more traffic citations
Thanks for the recent article on traffic citations being down. Now a cop will be eager to write one at the slightest inkling of an offense - like I saw an East Ridge motorcycle cop do.
James Sholl
East Ridge
Purple Heart claims story work praised
We the members of Ernie Pyle Chapter 1945 of the Military Order of the Purple Heart would like to thank the paper and in particular Ben Benton and David Cobb for the year-long effort to learn the truth about Stephen Douglas Holloway's claims of military decorations. Mr. Holloway's unwillingness to produce orders that are issued for each individual award or the accompanying certificate from the president of the United States bearing the seal of the War Office of the United States leads us to believe the awards' claims are not credible.
Bruce Kendrick
MOPH member
Chatsworth, Ga.