How is military using word ‘recall’?
In light of the recent call for pulling troops back to the U.S. from abroad (especially the Middle East), it paints a very confusing spectacle. Despite such hope-inspiring statements, there also are reports of a steady increase in the military calling up men and women in the service who have actually been off active duty for a few years.
Are our soldiers being recalled back home or are more being called up? I believe it is both, and yet I’m more concerned about the why more than the how.
According to the U.S. Army Reserve, approximately 14,000 soldiers who have been on inactive status have been reinstated to active duty since March 13, 2003, and around 7,300 of that number have been deployed to Iraq. So what is going on here?
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst based at Lexington Institute, claims one reason is the observation that the sheer numbers of those on reserve being called up also indicates that the military itself doesn’t have enough manpower to fight this war.
Seems to me when the word recall is being used, it’s meaning service men and women are being called back into duty instead of being relieved of it.
ADAM NIMMO
Stop the spending to save the nation
During the last year, I have traveled to tea party meetings from Kingsport to Chattanooga, from Polk County to Memphis. The absence of politicians and preachers is very significant. I only saw one politician and one preacher during this whole tour of the state tea parties.
The tea party is saying that the spending must stop. A UT economics professor on WNOX-FM verified that the nation is facing bankruptcy unless the government spending be stopped. The tea party people are not just angry about paying high taxes, they realize that this spending has to stop. It is a matter of necessity to save the nation.
J.B. GRIFFIN
Dayton, Tenn.
Cut truck emissions to help our future
Let’s start taking action now for the future of all. It is time to clean up the big rigs and trucks on all our roads. Increase fuel economy and decrease emissions by requiring pickup trucks and larger trucks to meet higher standards now.
It’s time to act for our planet and children.
CURTIS TOMLIN
Leave prayer to own moral practice
Prayer is properly protected in private piety.
With all this talk about “dangerous secularists,” I wonder if people are confusing the irreligious with the anti-religious.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation isn’t against the practice of prayer. I doubt they’d advocate eliminating religious practices; they’re historical. But the Founding Fathers’ Christian faith doesn’t grant it federal merit.
The First Amendment advocates impartiality to religion both in people’s freedom to practice or not, and in the government’s regard toward either.
Christianity is permitted in public when it doesn’t give an impression this country favors Christians. Those demanding special treatment for Christian prayer seem to believe “Judeo-Christian” values get carte blanche; they don’t. For this country to be free, all religions must be treated equally.
Anyone saying prayer and Bibles are gone from the schools looks too broadly. Students can pray in private and the Bible is relevant literary text for English courses. Prayer and the Bible are not gone from schools, but the feelings of entitlement and pride regarding them ought to be. Prayer is in no danger; it flourishes more when kept out of government business, left to its own moral practice by private individuals and groups, not funded by and foisted onto the public.
JARED COWAN
Sewanee, Tenn.
America will pay for GOP majority
Voters took a giant step backward.
GOP politicians are merely agents of the large corporations of oil, banking, “health insurance,” etc. Hence, their agenda is to add more and more to the coffers of the ultra-wealthy.
Not only do they push for tax cuts for the richest of the rich, they push to end government regulations. Together, this is a disaster in waiting for the economy! It becomes a Ponzi scheme on regular working Americans. If left unchecked, a recession and possible depression looms ahead.
Check actual history: the disaster of 1929, the 1980s near-recession of Reagan/Bush, and the GOP/Bush/Cheney fiasco! After Reagan’s tax cut, he then gave us a huge tax increase to avert a recession; Bush/Cheney dumped billions on the banking industry — with no oversight whatsoever!
Besides ruining the economy, unregulated greed is deadly. We get unnecessary mine and industrial disasters, and horrendous oil spills, simply because safety measures are not in place, not followed, or ignored!
The GOP House majority will stop all assistance for everyday working Americans, but instead call for endless investigations (total complete witch hunts)! Yes, America will suffer the consequences of putting this sorry gang in office!
WALTER M. BENTON
Signal Mountain
What do we get for TVA salaries?
Tom D. Kilgore, TVA president and chief operating officer, received compensation totaling $1,045,550 in 2005. Five years later, Kilgore was paid $3,598,079. A $2.5-plus million (244 percent) increase in five years.
Five other TVA executives earned more than $1.4 million in 2010, with one earning $2.3-plus million.
Accomplishments? A December 2008 Kingston ash spill which, by TVA’s own estimates, will cost ratepayers at least $1.2 billion.
Kilgore cites a reduction in average monthly wholesale kilowatt hour rates from 6.8 cents in 2009 to 6.17 cents in 2010 as a reason for 2010 executive compensation. The Department of Energy has far different numbers — DOE states Tennessee electricity customers in all sectors (residential, commercial, industrial and transportation) paid higher electricity prices in 2010 compared to 2009. On average, DOE states Tennessee end users paid 9 cents per kilowatt hour in 2010 versus a 8.62 cents in 2009, a 4.4 percent increase. Nationwide, the consumer price index for electricity increased only 1.1 percent — meaning Mr. Kilgore’s brilliant leadership only cost Tennessee electricity customers four times the national average increase.
TVA ratepayers, how much longer are you going to tolerate an out-of-control TVA? How much longer can you afford to?
GREG ADAMS
Hixson
Notices should stay in newspaper
The residents of the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County who don’t have home computers and rely on printed media to be well informed should complain very loudly to their local elected leadership, now.
The city of Chattanooga is using your tax dollars to create local ordinances and lobby state legislators to amend state law requiring public notice of meetings of the City Council, public contract opportunities, and other activities of local government be exempt from publication in our local newspaper.
I have many elderly friends who rely solely on the local newspaper to learn of proposed government transactions and meetings, because the age of home computers began late in their adulthood.
I believe that not only a large segment of the elderly, but the impoverished community is also limited to printed media.
The rights of these groups of citizens to be informed should not be taken away for motives that may be less then genuine. This proposed action is also contrary to good government and transparency in transactions.
If you rely on printed media as a sole source of information, you should oppose this action by contacting your local elected representatives at 757-5196. After all, you are the largest voting block in Chattanooga.
APRIL EIDSON