Letters to the Editor September 8, 2009

Now that it looks like airport manager Jim Bernard’s plans to expand our airport tenfold is coming to fruition (I’m quite sure that this is only the beginning), maybe its time to see if Commander “Sully” would be interested in moving to this area to fly 787s through the tired and weary Aleutian Geese that try to rest over by the airport before their long and treacherous journey heading either north or south.

Is the airport manager an elected position (I don’t recall a vote), or was the Eureka TV station weatherman just hired by the “good ol’ boys” to turn our “fair” city into another L.A.?!

Thanks to deputies, CHP who helped us during crisis

On Thursday, Sept. 3, my wife and I had visited Crescent City, and purchased a Foretravel Motorcoach.

We had a horrifying incident on Highway 199, about 15 miles from Gasquet. Our coach was burning up as we were driving it, trying to control it on the dangerous mountain curves.

We are safely at home now, although we lost our “dream home.” The purpose of this short letter is to thank the two sheriff’s deputies who were first on the scene. We don’t know your names, but we are most grateful that you were on duty that night around 9:30-10 p.m.

Also the CHP officers that arrived were very professional and kind to us. The public in your area, should be very proud of your service in that area of the state.

We salute you all.

Gas price down in Brookings, going up in Crescent City

It must be the new math. I just can’t figure this out.

Three days before the Labor Day weekend, the gas prices in Brookings go down by 3 or 4 cents. In the same time span, the gas prices in Crescent City go up by 3 or 4 cents.

I’m glad my school years are behind me by almost 50 years. I’d be really confused if I was going to school in these times.

Sacramento unfair with its fishing, park use restrictions

I have noticed a curious thing. Folks down here in Sacramento are very proactive when it comes to restricting fishing and park use along your coast. Yet I hear not a whimper from these same concerned experimentalists when it comes to the utter collapse of the largest salmon population in California.

Perhaps its a human condition that finds it urgent to advise others and not notice our own problems. Our Sacramento Delta system, once a miracle in life-reproducing capabilities, has been reduced to 12 percent for our native species while politicians plan the next “canal” to take the water down to LA and their wives cry and moan about Brazilian deforestation.

Excuse my bitterness showing.

U.S. health care system  actually ranks 37th in world

In Clif Shepard’s Sept. 5 letter he asks the question, “Why destroy the best health care system in the world?”

The question itself is ludicrous because the world’s health experts rate the U.S. health care system as 37th in the world. On the basis of affordability ours comes in dead last.

So, for someone to believe we have the best health care system in the world, they have to have swallowed all the insurance industry’s propaganda promulgated by Fox News.

False choice to cut Medicare, Social Security after stimulus

President Obama says we should not ask, “What’s good for me?” but “What’s good for the country my children will inherit?”

Surely, this economic crisis is proof positive that we desperately need Social Security and Medicare now and for our children and grandchildren.  So many of us have seen our savings depleted, home equity disappear, and health-care costs skyrocket beyond our means. I can’t imagine facing this current crisis without Social Security and Medicare.

Bottom line: Cutting Medicare benefits will also affect millions who pay for a “medigap insurance” to help pay what Medicare doesn’t. Please stand up for yourselves and your neighbors too.

Some in Congress are now using the current economic meltdown as political cover to renew their push for “reform.” These so-called budget hawks know Social Security and Medicare costs didn’t create this crisis yet they want to cut these vital programs to pay down President Bush’s record budget deficit. We can’t balance the budget on the back of Social Security and Medicare.

Cutting Social Security and Medicare as a trade off for stimulus is a false choice. One I hope President Obama, Congress, and the American people will see through and reject. 

Beware allowing govt. to make our life, death choices

Regarding Ray  Rinehart’s Sept. 2 letter imploring the president to pass his health care bill (“Are Americans so rich they don’t care about their fellow man?”) let me first applaud him for doing what he had to do to keep food on the table for himself and his family, and then to try and explain why I oppose passage of that bill in its present form.

The “concept” of universal health care, like the concept of “social security,” is certainly appealing but needs to be considered in the light of the history of our government in formulating, administering and policing “one size fits all” policies and programs. Obviously the current social security system is proving itself to be an entitlement program gone awry. That being said, lets consider the “costs” of the current bill being considered.

• Like social security the monetary cost for universal health care will be paid for by yet unborn citizens and add incalculable amounts to our ever-growing and out of control federal deficit. Not even the richest of the rich that Mr. Rinehart refers to can afford this proposal.

• The “unborn citizens” referred to above will be fewer in number given the “cost” in human life that this bill indiscriminately does away with by authorizing tax dollars to pay for abortions on demand as well as life-ending decisions for those with chronic and/or life disabling sicknesses. For my part this cost in terms of human life far outweigh the monetary costs and stand in stark contrast to the term “universal health care.”

All of us, rich and poor, need be very careful about allowing our government to make everyday life and death choices for us as well as for those yet unborn.

Party leadership must engage members truthfully, accurately

I am heartened by recent letters to the editor but, at the same time, am somewhat perplexed.

Dr. Douglas says, “It is bad for commerce and inimical to growth in a modern economy to have anything less than universal health insurance.” Ms. Kramer says, “People who are afraid of change attack that which is perpetrating the change.” Ms. Munson says, “It is dismaying to find that our ‘government behind the government’ has been able to render our new president, and Congress, powerless!”

Where are our leaders on these important issues? Must we fend for ourselves when it comes to information? For those who are inclined to “search the Web,” the answers are found. But our society seems bent on relying on rumors and innuendos to guide them.

We are, for better or for worse, a two-party system. If that system is going to work, then, the party leadership must truthfully engage and educate its members. Leaving us to fish for ourselves is not acceptable. It’s like being on a boat without a captain.

I call upon our elected representatives to step forward and provide us citizens with a forum for answers to our questions and, at the same time, call upon us citizens to be civil, adult and responsible and give informed guidance to our representatives when we are informed.

Self-serving antics and shouting down alternative opinion is counter-productive.