Old song offers hope
We are in hard times. Our country seems to be broke. We don’t have enough jobs. Our homes are in danger of loss. We all are under a lot of stress.
Last night I heard an old song I had not heard in a long time. The first verse helped me; I hope it helps you:
“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, All fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future. And life is worth living the living, just because He lives.” – By Bill Gaither
STEVEN E. SMITH
Rivermont
President wastes taxpayers’ money
It’s amazing how so many liberals don’t know or care what this president is doing to our country.
They don’t care that he is spending our future away.
Instead of trying to create jobs for the many unemployed, he wants to push insurance, only to say I did it my way. If people had jobs they could pay for their own insurance.
I guess he never read the Constitution. He should read it instead of flying off every time he turns around, wasting gas and taxpayers’ money.
The president is supposed to spend time in the White House. Not this president. He’s still camping. You can’t run around the world and do your job right, whoever you are.
IRENE ROSE
Hixson
New World Order in operation now
In the 1970s, I obtained a booklet, “Blueprint for the New World Order.” The plan as stated:
1. Create or use an existing crisis.
2. Use the media to panic the people.
3. Present our solution. The people will then accept solutions they would never accept otherwise. The “crises” named were the environment, education and the economy.
The solution for education was Motimer Adler’s Paideia proposal, now called magnet schools – environment-global warming – economy, free trade, and global economy.
The Reagan/Bush administration instituted most of these “solutions” and we are now reaping the results.
We have an educational system that has produced two generations so brainwashed that they can’t recognize the truth – exorbitant energy prices, our manufacturing jobs have gone overseas while foreign countries own our businesses and utilities and a contrived recession designed to bring the middle class to the status of peons or worse while the elite get richer.
Nobody can fix America now. We’ve gone too far. The New World Order is here, and “you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
EDNA W. TAYLOR
Nurses, support staff deserve more
We wonder why Erlanger’s CEO, Jim Brexler, needs another consulting group to evaluate management’s pay to see if it compares to other hospitals’ management pay of comparable size.
We’re OK with him doing this, if he would also evaluate nursing and support staff the same way.
Management just took close to $2 million in bonuses, with Mr. Brexler taking close to $200,000 himself, in December 2009. At the same time, nurses/support staff saw a 3 percent raise (which was the first raise in five years). Our insurance premiums went up to match that 3 percent, whereas our quality of insurance also decreased. Why won’t management learn that it is easier to pay nurses/support staff comparable to the rest of nurses/support staff nationwide and keep experienced staff around? In doing this, it will give patients their best opportunity to get better (which is Erlanger’s mission statement).
KELLY FANT
Time to stop the silent killer
Can you imagine if everyone in the state of Maryland walked around with a disease called “the silent killer” – and didn’t know it? Or if every single resident in New York and California were at high risk for developing this “silent killer?”
Nearly 6 million Americans are unaware they have diabetes. Look around you. One in five Americans is at risk for type 2 diabetes. Could one of them be someone you love?
For many people with type 2 diabetes, diagnosis may come years after onset. Yet, early diagnosis is critical to delay or prevent the debilitating complications such as heart disease, blindness, kidney disease, stroke and amputation.
What can you do to stop diabetes? Know your risk.
Tuesday, March 23, is American Diabetes Association Alert Day. Discover your risk for type 2 diabetes – and join the movement to stop this terrible disease – by visiting stopdiabetes.com or call 800-342-2383.
It’s time to stop this silent killer once and for all.
MATT KELLY
Use lottery money for all grade levels
If there has to be a lottery, why not use it to help students in all grades. Perhaps find out why some students are habitually late or absent. Why do they always make low or failing grades on school work or report cards. Perhaps maybe they need a tutor who could be paid for with lottery money. They may need glasses and not know it .They may have never had an eye exam by a doctor who gives real eye exams.
When given the help needed, in any way, they may start earning better grades. Better grades may encourage them to try to be at school every day on time, plus finish school, instead of giving up and dropping out.
JENNIFER BRADFORD
Other states more welcoming
I take exception to Rep. Eric Watson, R-Cleveland, sponsor of HB 262, English Only Driver’s Exams for Tennessee.
I work with VW German families every week who are relocating to Chattanooga for assignments of 15 to 24 months. They have a very short window of time to secure rental housing, schools for their children, furniture, Social Security, insurance, and a Tennessee driver’s license before getting to work.
I explain to them, with great pride, that we are not only a state but also a city that is so delighted that they have chosen Chattanooga to build a $1 billion auto assembly plant that we can also offer them (should they choose) a written driver’s exam in German.
Our neighbors in Georgia (11 exams in other languages) and Alabama (12 exams in other languages) appear to be more welcoming than Tennessee (four exams in other languages).
So much for Tennessee Southern hospitality.
BILL GALLOWAY
Signal Mountain