TVA should fund energy upgrades
If Chattanooga wants to power the gig with renewable energy, it will need to help TVA understand its priorities. Reducing the use of coal by about 30 percent is good news for the Appalachian Mountains. Let’s replace the remaining 35 percent with renewable and efficiency programs. Getting the gig is innovative. Some innovative ways of electrifying are: solar, sun-comes-up-solar, passive solar, geothermal, wind, and water vortex. CCHEE (Climate Chattanooga Healthy Energy for Everyone) is a local coalition of about 30 social justice and environmental justice groups. CCHEE wants TVA to fund energy upgrades for homes and businesses to help us reduce the amount of energy lost “through the roof.” TVA does not embrace the idea of mining energy efficiency. I hope our City Council, mayor’s office, and chamber of commerce will take this opportunity to get energy efficiency on TVA’s agenda. The city council of Austin, Texas, is working to get that city off the grid by 2025. Our City Council could lead the charge in Chattanooga. It can partner with TVA to incrementally innovate how we get our electricity in the next five years to build the house of our energy future. Jeannie Hacker-Cerulean Lupton City
Prosecute senators for sedition, treason
President Obama has had to swim against the current of racism from the beginning of his presidency. The white power structure represented by Republican politicians has endeavored to sabotage him at every turn. It has attacked him with the mentality of a lynch mob. If it damages America in the process, it is just so much collateral damage. It has viciously attacked the Affordable Health Care Act with lies and slander. It has demonstrated reckless disregard for poor Americans who have no access to health care. The president has been called a “liar” by a redneck Republican South Carolina congressman during his State of the Union speech. The white power structure has shut down the government in an attempt to stop benefits for poor Americans. It attempted to sabotage the economic recovery. Now it has set its sights on undercutting American foreign policy: inviting the leader of a foreign country to speak to Congress without consulting the President, then committing an act of treason by writing a letter to the leader of a hostile foreign country. This is not opposition. This is sedition. The 47 Republican signatories should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Terry Stulce Ooltewah
Jury must be voice for abused girl
If there is a God, and I believe firmly he does exist, the grandmother who made a 9-year-old girl run for three hours will never enjoy another day of freedom on this earth. To force a child to run while carrying firewood for hours is torture and cannot be described as anything else. This is just like the people who beat a child to death and then claim they were just giving him a spanking for misbehavior. The girl’s stepmother who stood and watched all of this and did nothing is equally guilty. The jury must be the voice for this young girl, who has been silenced forever by these evildoers. Carolyn R. McCrary Hixson