Times Free Press columnist David Cook is right. We need the downtown employment that the Pilgrim's Pride and Koch Chicken plants offer our citizens.
We own our home two blocks from the Koch plant in the Fort Negley neighborhood. We endure an obnoxious odor two or three times a week outside our home, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
We do not enjoy the odor, but we are the newcomers. We are not asking the plant to move.
Neighbors have found employment at a job for which they do not have to travel far. That's good for them; that's good for our neighborhood; that's good for our city.
Franklin and Tresa McCallie
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Who would portray Founding Fathers?
All of us have enjoyed time-travel movies such as "Back to the Future." Could below be an outline for the next one?
What if the current White House politicians were transposed with the delegates from 1774, about to draw up articles of independence from England? What if Washington and his minions were switched to 2020 America? Can you imagine what differences - if any - this could have made with our history?
I would bet dollars to doughnuts that instead of a democracy formed, an autocracy would be envisioned and installed.
As for today, how do you think the early American leaders - Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, et al. - would vote at an impeachment trial where the president was accused of the same things Trump recently was? Lockstep with the Senate majority leader? Would they authorize the president's control to be carte blanche? Makes one wonder, but I've got an idea ...
Tom Hanks would be a good fit for the juxtaposed early American president, while Robert Redford could be a superb Washington. Oprah would do a good job as director. Can't wait for the Oscars.
Tom Baker, Hixson
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Insurers keeping subsidies improperly
Last year I had marketplace insurance with a subsidy for about half the year. While looking at my 1095-A for my taxes, I noticed that it showed my insurance and subsidy ended in July 2019.
However, I had canceled my insurance in June. I called the marketplace call center to get my 1095-A form updated and to my horror learned that because I did not call the marketplace directly, my insurance plan took the July subsidy. It should have returned it because I did not have coverage for July.
Can you imagine how much subsidy money is going to insurance companies when people default on their premium payments and their policies are cancelled? The insurance company is keeping the subsidy money.
I know my subsidy last year for that one payment was $1,247. Let's say that 1,000 people in my circumstance did the same; $1.2 million was paid in one month to the insurance company when in actuality coverage was not available to the customer.
As with anything, there will be things that fall through the cracks. Somewhere someone needs to do some checks and balances.
Janie Murphy, Lookout Mountain, Georgia
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Scottsboro Boys museum a must-see
Thank you, WUTC, the program "Scenic Roots" and Shelia Washington, founder of Scottsboro (Alabama) Boys Museum and Cultural Center, for a great informative interview earlier this month.
As a 78-year-old white woman, raised in the segregated South, I am having to work to uncover through books, documentaries and personal accounts a history education that I was denied. Programs like this are immensely valuable. My husband and I plan to visit the museum soon.
Sue Carol Elvin