Cycling editorial makes unfair comparison
A promising young cycling champion recovers in a hospital bed here, and to use his crash during competition (which has nothing to do with recreational cyclists going up the mountain) as an opportunity to jump back on your pet peeve (“Stop the cycle,” Times, 5-31) is nothing short of disgraceful. You talk about safety, but I suspect the real issue is that you’ve had to slow down a few times behind some riders on your way home.
But if safety is such a concern, let’s ban tractor-trailers, because they also go too slow uphill and they wreck and kill people all the time. And while we are at it, lets get rid of trains, because sometimes people are in a hurry and try to beat the train at the crossing and die. And let’s not allow school buses either; they are an awful inconvenience when we have to stop behind them as they let off their young passengers (who occasionally are struck and, sadly, lose their lives). Let’s see – pedestrians need to go away as well; they make us stop when they cross the road, and recently a few of them died when we could not slow down in time.
R.J. CLAPP, Ooltewah
Draft logic doesn’t fly
Here we go again, someone thinks the government needs to get involved. In regards to Mr Sutton’s comment regarding a military draft, just think of MASH 4077 – where the characters consumed alcohol while on duty overseas in a war zone. Sorry, I don’t want my son or daughter serving with those kind of clowns. If ever you feel there should be a forced service in our armed forces – a draft – please try to imagine yourself in the service as a chief petty officer or gunnery sergeant, E-7. You have a 20-man division/company of anywhere between 19-year-olds and mid-30-year-olds. Some are trying to make a career out of the service while others are just waiting their time to finish off their draft. Guess who gets most of the attention? You guessed right if you answered the draftees. They will be the squeaky wheel always needing grease. The careerists will have to take a back seat while the CPO/gunny tends to the grease.
JOHN LOPEZ, Ooltewah