Progress or preservation at Engel?
Preserve Engel Stadium because it is part of Chattanooga history — why not!
While you are at it, bring back outhouses, well water, dirt roads, and travel by horse or walking, one-room school houses, hospitals, medical, and dental care and all life experience exactly as it was 150 or 200 years ago — it’s part of Chattanooga history, too.
Progress is bad. Standing still and letting improvements in other cities devour Chattanooga and all prospect of future growth works for me.
Richard Moore
Cleveland, Tennessee
Trump thinks only he is above the law
In view of Donald Trump’s memo defining progressive ideas as domestic terrorism:
Our country seems to have joined the ranks of other countries with state-sponsored terrorism — given also his authorizing sinking boats off the coast of a South American country and his enthusiastic meeting with an Arabic nation which arranged the killing of a journalist working for a widely respected U.S. newspaper.
This same president is quite happy for federal agents to kidnap people off the streets, perhaps maiming or killing them, if not making them leave this country.
This president terrorizes also by calling for the deaths of particular individuals who point out his vindictive words and actions.
This president says they who break the law should be punished, but apparently, in his view, there is one person who is exempt from punishment for breaking the law.
Virginia M. Jones
Oak Ridge
Other ways Dems can regain relevance
Ben Sessoms touts “affordability” as a potential Democratic Party strategy to regaining relevance in Tennessee.
While this may work in states and cities where Democratic Party policies have already jacked up the cost of living (e.g., New York City, New Jersey), Tennessee is already quite affordable in comparison, provided that one does not stupidly squander their personal funds on poverty generators.
If Democrats want to regain power and lead Tennesseans to healthy, productive lives, let’s see them rally against homicide inside and outside the womb, gender confusion (which requires expensive treatments to maintain), addictive chemical use (especially in our youth), undisciplined sexuality (which causes unplanned pregnancy and spreads disease), single motherhood as the preferred family unit (which invariably requires SNAP and Medicaid), open borders (which requires taxpayer subsidies to acclimate trespassers), addictive chemical use (which also means promoting random drug screening in schools and not legalizing cannabis use) and hate for those who do not agree with them.
Mr. Sessoms can begin with his own editorial page. Until then, I won’t hold my breath.
Jim Kennedy
Smyrna
Capitalism doesn’t belong everywhere
As the current version of the Republican Party sprints towards fascism based on white supremacy, they are calling people acting on their true Christian beliefs of love, peace, and yes, empathy, communists and socialists as a smear.
As we try to fix the brutal changes the GOP has implemented during the last decade’s plunge into hate, do not let these false Christians exercising hate fool you again, as they have since the working class started to fight back against the oligarchs (billionaires).
It is as simple as stating that certain areas should not be for profit — capitalism doesn’t belong everywhere.
Churches should not be run for profit.
Prisons should not be for run profit.
Hospitals should not be for run profit.
Policing (including municipal parking) should not be for profit.
Pre-school and after-school care should not be for profit.
All these should be nonprofits with strict C-suite compensation. All overseen by strict regulations.
This is what the GOP has destroyed and stolen over the past 50 years. These robbers stole the hospitals that we all paid for. The prison industry (yes — an “industry” to cage people) makes millions of dollars by having jail time for almost any offense. We built and paid for the electric grid, they stole it too …
As President Harry Truman stated in 1952: “Socialism is what they called public power.
“Socialism is what they called social security.
“Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
“Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”
Michael W. Smith
Didn’t God permit Charlie Kirk’s murder?
The murder of political activist Charlie Kirk was a tragedy for everyone who believes in civil discourse, and specifically to people of faith. It is my understanding that people of faith believe that all things that occur on this earth are known and permitted by God before they happen. The attempted assassinations of President Trump was obviously stopped by the hand of God.
I was taught in my religious upbringing that God rules the world and every person in it. Nothing can occur on this earth without the knowledge and permission of God. Thus, God permitted the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, resulting in the deaths of at least 135 people, including many young girls at a religious retreat who were camping along the banks of the river; God permitted the murder of two young children and the injury of 21 others at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis; God permitted the murders of hundreds of other children on an almost daily basis; God permitted the murder of Charlie Kirk and did not prevent it.
Perhaps God needed Charlie Kirk to sit at his right hand and assist him in heaven. Perhaps God needed the young children who died in the flood in Kerr County and hundreds of other young children who have been murdered by gun violence. Perhaps God has gathered each of these persons for reasons we will never understand. God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
Erskine P. Mabee
Sale Creek
Who decides when orders are ‘illegal’?
I am a combat-decorated veteran, and this is directed to those likewise-situated military veterans in Congress who pompously claim that service members don’t have to follow “illegal” orders. Who decides that? A terrified and inexperienced buck private in the midst of a firefight? Meanwhile, how many of his or her unit members are being maimed or killed while he or she decides? Is his or her decision, one way or the other, subject to a court-martial? Heck, you veterans, as well as your vast number of colleagues, all of you, presumably well-educated, can’t even decide who is and who is not an “illegal” occupant of the United States.
As proud as I am of my service, I’m glad (very!) that I did not serve under any of you. And I’m positively certain those heroes who served under me feel the same.
Claudos Spears
Young Harris, Georgia