‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy works
Imagine you are an infantry platoon sergeant and an avowed homosexual is assigned to you. Back — way back — when I was in the military, each enlisted man carried a shelter half. Come bivouac time, two soldiers coupled their shelter halves to make a tent for sleeping. Who do you assign to the homosexual?
Canceling the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy won’t work. The gay soldier will be ostracized and any soldier close to him will be a marked man. You can imagine the comments.
President Obama announced that he would end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs are obligated to defend his decisions. The president should ask the platoon sergeants.
ROBERT F. CAHILL
Hixson
Anonymous 311 system unfair
Chattanooga’s City Council should eliminate its anonymous 311 complaint system. It’s too tantalizing for opportunist homebuyers/sellers and more affluent neighbors to use as legal harassment. All someone must do to sic city inspectors on you is punch the numbers 3-1-1 into a local phone, and allege “overgrowth, pestilence or health risk” about your property.
Too many people are experiencing a cite-to-sell phenomenon, where inspectors drag citizens with valuable real estate into court and make too-expensive demands for repairs or landscaping.
Follow the money as to why. My inspector told me to sell when I admitted I couldn’t afford the more than $10,000 in landscape architecture he demanded. I’d recently gotten low-bid offers. In court, the inspector tried desperately to get my property condemned. The judge dismissed — three times in three years.
It shouldn’t be that easy to dog a single woman or struggling parent in this economy of record foreclosures.
How is it even legal to anonymously press charges? It’s not OK with police. Likewise, anyone who tries to get you hassled by city inspectors/officers should have the guts to give their name.
LANA SUTTON
Tritium proposal shows hypocracy
I was dismayed and saddened to read that Sequoyah may start producing tritium, which enhances the destructive power of nuclear bombs. Whatever became of “atoms for peace”? Carl Sagan said the nuclear arms race was analogous to two men standing in a room knee deep in gasoline, each bragging about how many matches they had.
It is ultimate hypocrisy for us to preach to the world about nuclear disarmament while doing the opposite ourselves. We’re saying, “We’re so responsible, rational, and ‘Christian” that it’s OK for us to have WMDs but not for others.” Ha! Bush didn’t even rule out first use.
Nuclear reactors even for electricity constitute inviting targets for terrorists, and this would make Sequoyah even more inviting.
There’s no conceivable circumstance that would justify nuclear weapons which could end all life on earth — except maybe cockroaches.
Einstein said, “Unleashing the atom changes everything — except the way people think.”
FRED H. WRIGHT
High court ruling, 5 justices must go
Corporations do not represent our government ever.
They provide a piece of the huge puzzle, but they cannot — not now or ever — rule the people. Greed, arrogance, selfishness are the all-time goals of big corporations. Please support something to reverse this very stupid ruling passed by the Supreme Court, the five most conservative and selfish people on the court! Get rid of them also.
SANDY DANIELSON
Not all chained pets mistreated
I’m writing in regard to the law that says you can’t leave a dog chained up for more than 24 hours.
What are people like me to do? I have two dogs with collars that are chained up in my yard. They are fed and watered every day, and their doghouses are packed with straw. When the cold weather freezes their water, the ice is dumped and fresh water is put in their pens every day.
I understand this law when dogs are mistreated, but mine are not.
The shelters are begging people to adopt but why?
I live on a fixed income. I can’t afford to fence my yard and I surely can’t afford to pay any fines. So I guess they’ll have to take my dogs and put them to sleep.
I know lots of people in the same shape I’m in, so I guess they will have to kill lots of dogs and the shelters will really be packed. I don’t think this law is fair at all, and I’d like to know how everyone else feels about it.
CAROLYN SWANEY
School suspension for toy frightening
The story in the news recently where a 9-year-old boy was practically suspended for bringing a tiny plastic toy in the “shape” of a gun, no bigger than a nickel, shows how ludicrous our society is getting all in the name of zero tolerance.
This little plastic toy fit into the tiny hand of a Lego man no taller than two inches tall. How absurd!
Obviously the problem is in the nomenclature of the item and not the actual item itself. This toy was no more a “gun” than a picture of a gun from a magazine.
I feel moved to write this letter because, frankly, it scares me to think that there are actually people out there in authoritative positions making these insane judgment calls. We need to apply common sense when using the “zero tolerance” rule.
Grammar school kids aren’t allowed to bring cars to school either — so if a child brings a matchbox “car” to school should they be expelled for bringing a vehicle to school?
Let’s get serious and use our heads. What’s next? No “guns and ammo” magazines on airlines?
KEVIN GABOR
Hixson
Fossil fuel use has to change
It’s remarkable that one could combine geological occurrences, alignment of the stars, timing of the Dark Ages and the bubonic plague in a sequence stratigraphy model to predict an impending climate flip to a little ice age beginning in the year 2030. (“Cooling the rhetoric,” Dr. Bible. Perspective page, Jan. 31.)
If true, it calls for the same action that has been recommended to ward off or diminish the effect of the impending greenhouse climate. Alternative fuels and conservation are needed for either lessening the impact of the greenhouse climate or saving existing extractable fuels and to prepare for the impending little ice age.
Miller Energy Resources will have to find some other rationale to justify our insatiable drive to prolong our unsustainable consumption of fossil fuels.
JAMES O.B. WRIGHT
Sequatchie, Tenn.