I would like to express my support for Mike Carter as a contender for the Tennessee House speaker’s position.
Mike is a seasoned and proven leader. He is smart. Mike has everyone’s best interest at heart. He is beyond reproach ethically and morally. The citizens of Tennessee need Mike Carter in this position.
Catherine M. White
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Reader hopeful for digital future
As a long-time champion of newspaper journalism and a former journalist myself, I was intrigued to read the May 29 article (page C1) in the Times Free Press about Arkansas Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter Hussman’s investment in a plan to convert print subscribers to digital users by year end.
His proposal to provide subscribers a free iPad with which to view an easily navigated app of the paper is aimed at retaining readers as the organization reduces its print version to Sundays only.
I think the move is visionary. Hussman, also publisher of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, clearly sees the struggle newspaper journalism is fighting to remain viable. Not relevant, which I adamantly maintain that newspaper journalism is, but financially viable.
Don’t get me wrong. I love holding my newspaper in one hand and coffee in the other each morning, but I also love my newspaper, period, and want to see it survive in the digital age. While Mr. Hussman is not the only publisher to make the attempt, I hope his experiment succeeds. I hope his forward-thinking sets a precedent in the industry that pays off with the continuing survival of the independent newspaper journalism our society needs and deserves.
Julie Van Valkenburg, Signal Mountain
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City streets in dire need of repairs
As I travel around the city I am noticing a complete breakdown of our roads. Every place I drive the roads have been patched, patched and patched again. The roads downtown seen and driven on by our many visitors are falling apart.
Two of our major streets, Bailey and McCallie avenues, are worse than some I have experienced in Third World countries. There seems to be no efforts by our mayor, City Council or Public Works to improve Chattanooga’s roads.
Don’t we pay enough property taxes and sales taxes to keep our roads in good repair? Isn’t it a good idea to keep our downtown streets looking good and in good repair for the visitors who come here?
Our city government, mayor and City Council are letting Chattanooga fall apart from the ground up.
David Anderson
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We fail to grasp bombers’ thinking
Think about those “suicide bombers” who destroyed themselves, along with hundreds of others, in recent attacks on Christians in Sri Lanka.
Please help me understand what can compel otherwise sane men (or women) to do such a terribly insane act. Can there be any logic to it? How can those persons truly believe they are serving a loving God?
Please think about this. We cannot hope to prevent such abominations in the future unless we begin to understand the power of the philosophy which drives otherwise sane humans to such abhorrent extremes.
Bill Laudeman, Red Bank