Separating voting truths from lies
Somewhere there is the truth about alleged voter suppression in Georgia. Most nights, a TV ad sponsored by StopJimCrow2.com reminds us that “our democracy is in crisis.” A fellow TFP reader’s blood pressure is rising over unspecified “insidious ways to limit the availability of the ballot” (2/6). The president continues to insist that the Georgia voter law is “Jim Crow on steroids.”
That these charges are overblown and now even tedious is not the worst part. The worst part is that there is never a shred of evidence in these claims that voting is in fact hindered. Do Georgia voters have to prove identity? As in most states, yes – but hardly a burden in an age of proving identity. Do those filing mail-in ballots have to prove that someone else didn’t complete the ballot? Yes, to the extent that such proof can be verified. Do voters have to plan ahead to register? Yes. Do they have to plan when to vote, either on Election Day or during the early-voting period? Yes, but voting is supposed to be an adult activity.
Let’s find the truth and move on.
Gary Lindley
Lookout Mountain, Ga.
Watching Olympics for the athletes
I’m watching the Olympics. I am a strong conservative. I believe people and nations should be held accountable for their actions and words. And I believe in the celebration of individual effort, endurance and excellence.
I’m watching the Olympics not because it’s being held in a corrupt and oppressive country. It’s terrible that it is the case. These athletes had no voice in that decision. I’m watching the Olympics because these (mostly) kids have dedicated their lives to try to achieve the best they can be. Again, they have dedicated their lives to be something most of us can only dream of. I’m watching the Olympics because no matter where they are held, the people participating rise above petty politics and show us what the human race can truly achieve – physically and mentally.
When we let politics invade all aspects of our lives by joining the boycott mob, we are no better than those we oppose. We diminish ourselves, and we diminish those we should be holding up as role models. I’m watching the Olympics.
Mike Wolford
Hixson
91-year-old loves TFP digital edition
My knee-jerk reaction when I heard the Times-Free Press was going digital was, “I’ll cancel my subscription.”
I’m so very glad I didn’t give in to that impulse. I’m now in my second month using my digital edition and find it to be delightfully superior to my former newspaper edition.
The features I find most appealing are: With a tapping of my fingers, I can read an entire article; the enlargement of puzzles and funnies appeals to my tiring, 91-year-old eyes; and I never have to worry if my copy is going to show up.
Lynelle Mason
Signal Mountain
Happy with paper, not the news bias
We’ve been subscribers since 1995 and this week switched to the digital delivery service. So far we have been happy and relieved. I have enjoyed the balance of left and right in the TFP not seen in most papers.
However, the bias of omission is ever present. As long as the TFP gets its news from AP/Reuters/Bloomberg/NYT/Wapo and others, nothing will change as those services have a mostly leftward bend.
Recently, for example, after a worldwide study of COVID, Johns Hopkins’ conclusion was that lockdowns/shut-ins resulted in only .2% reduction in deaths. That is really good news going forward. They also point out the negative aspect of lockdowns emotionally, physically, spiritually, and especially on school kids. But that opinion doesn’t match the narrative of the left, which wants to increase control over all of us because they know better and we’re racist/sexist or any -ist du jour when they can’t argue with facts.
Unfortunately, this insidious bias isn’t going to change. When was the last time the TFP printed an article about the Southern border disaster (not an opinion piece)? Will Bennett ever get over TDS (Trump derangement syndrome)?
George D. Arthur
Hixson
Reader faults letter from nuke critic
A letter from a public advocate against nuclear power (“Nuclear no better than fossil fuels,” 1/30) presented inaccuracies and misleading statements which may have mislead readers about the safety and benefits of commercial nuclear power and, by extension, Navy nuclear-powered ships.
I am a retired nuclear power-trained submarine officer. I spent two and a half years on a submarine during a nuclear refueling overhaul where an officer had to enter and inspect the reactor compartment every four hours. I was engineering head of an operational nuclear fast-attack submarine for three years. My lifetime exposure to ionizing radiation from a Navy nuclear reactor is far below the allowable federal limit for a radiation worker. Annually, we are exposed to more radiation from naturally occurring and man-made sources than a submariner working and sleeping in proximity to a nuclear reactor/nuclear weapons.
TVA’s generating assets include nuclear, fossil, hydro, natural gas, diesel, solar and wind. The letter took a shot at TVA CEO Jeff Lyash’s unpaid volunteer board position at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nonprofit industry trade organization, wondering if it was a conflict of interest. Where could his experience be put to better use?
Jack Zollinger
Dems’ effort is to install communism
Once a government provides you with basic utilities, it can then decide when to turn them on and off. Once a government pays for all your education, it can then control the education and career you get to have. Once a government provides you with food, it can then decide how much or if you get to eat. Once a government pays for your housing, it can then control where you can live. Once a government pays for your health care and medicine, it can control whether or not you are valuable enough to be allowed to live. Once a government eliminates states’ voting laws, it can control how you vote. Once the government gets you to agree to gun control, you have no way to prevent that government from doing everything described above.
This is the aim of the radical Democrat Party and the Biden administration to transform this country into communism.
Gary Hayes
Ooltewah
‘Smartest’ will survive pandemic
About COVID-19, anti-vaccine protesters do not have the right to any respect for your personal opinion, which appears to be based on ignorance, delusion, absurdity and fear.
More than 900,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID. Are you proud of this fact? You have no regard for the lives of anyone but yourself.
Go ahead and have disinfectant injected into your veins, take all of the hydroxychloroquine pills you can, become washed in the blood of whatever deity you believe in – all will have the same results.
Charles Darwin spoke of “survival of the fittest.” That term has now evolved to “survival of the smartest.”
Erskine Mabee
Sale Creek