Dorothy Jerse
.
. — GOP disciples live in world without facts
I have been wondering who these people are that John Boehner, House Minority Leader, keeps referring to. You know, the people who oppose everything that the Democrats are proposing. The people, who like the Republicans in both houses, really don’t care about actually fixing any problems, they just don’t want Obama and the Democrats to succeed at the job they were voted into office to do.
After reading recent Forum submissions by Fred Roberts and Charles Bean, now I know who they are.
Similar to the Republicans in office, they don’t have their facts straight. Not even close. What is probably the case though is that while the GOP as a party does know the facts and deliberately distorts or lies about them, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Bean appear to actually have consumed the Kool-Aid and are ready to tote for them.
The marriage of these kind of people with this kind of political manipulation of the truth by the GOP is at the root of our dysfunctional government. If the knucklehead voter were not so easily misled or easily riled up by having bologna stuffed in their ears, the GOP might actually have to do an honest day’s work for a change.
People do want health care reform, they do want the insurance companies to be more fair and accountable, and they do want more ethical and transparent business practices. Every Republican president in modern times has increased the size of government and raised taxes, they have hurt the middle class, and they have made more people poor and put us deeper in debt.
Government has been a major payer of health care for decades. Government takeover of health care is not being proposed. The latest Republican president put the economy in the tank, overspent by billions, and sent our country into a tailspin. And the list of facts goes on and on in the face of all the lies.
I do pause in my assumption of GOP deliberacy, however, when I see that Rep. Boehner does not know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as evidenced by his confusion at a recent Tea Party event in Cleveland. While some dismiss this as petty criticism, I think it is not unreasonable to expect members of Congress to know the specific differences between these two documents.
After all, if they are going to use them against us, then they should at least get their sources straight. Gee fellas, maybe I am being too harsh. How can you be expected to be any more sensible than your knucklehead leaders?
— Don Rogers
Terre Haute
Modesty small price to pay for saving lives
About one-third of a cup of pet N powder fashioned into an explosive device can bring down a jetliner. Other non-metallic or plastic devices can do likewise.
Relying on the bungling of terrorists like the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid about five years ago and the recent Nigerian “Christmas bomber,” does not inspire a sense of safe air travel. Yet the effort to expand the use of whole-body imaging has run into a lot of flak, despite the fact it can detect materials immune to hardware detectors.
Columnist Froma Harrop points out the TSA has tried to placate the squeamish about being scanned through their clothing: “The Transportation Security Administration has tried to explain the considerable privacy safeguards attached to whole-body imaging. The person looking at the pictures sits in a windowless room, and a filter blurs the subject’s face. (Thus the officer has no idea whether the body belongs to Pamela Anderson or one of many millions of similarly built women on this planet.) The images cannot be stored or retained. And any passenger may decline whole-body imaging in favor of a pat-down instead.”
The last two sentences may be open to question since the technology is new and policy seems not to have jelled. I have read that images may be stored or retained, which seems logical if we are ever to learn to share dangerous intelligence. As far as pat-downs are concerned, not only might they miss vital clues but could be even more offensive to some.
Several decades ago I was hospitalized because of a serious intestinal problem. The assigned gastroenterologist was female. Imagine how a sexist male would have reacted to a female administering a colonoscopy! The procedure was not pleasant, but I was neither a sexist nor squeamish about the gender of the physician. Just appreciative of her expertise, as I was several years ago when two female nurses saved my life.
After an angioplasty heart procedure when I was wheeled back to my hospital bed, the nurses discovered my sheet was covered in blood and found I was bleeding from the groin where the incision was made for the catheter. After reviving me with an oxygen mask when I was losing consciousness, they worked for at least 10 minutes (it seemed 10 times as long) trying to stop the bleeding. Just as the main nurse called for a clamp, the hemorrhaging finally stopped.
Again I was most thankful for the female expertise, despite the uncovering of my bottom half.
Throughout history, before the gains of the emancipation movement, women were treated by male doctors and had no intimacy problem, even with male obstetricians. When you’re faced with a serious illness, the danger of death, or the birth of a child, there are more important things to worry about.
Why on earth should male patients take umbrage at the reverse when we are living in an age of professional females, whether astronauts, scientists, CEOs, engineers, etc., no less than physicians.
Two years ago, because of pneumonia, I was again in the hospital. Shortly after my arrival an elderly man was wheeled into my room, which had two beds separated by a curtain. Apparently in great pain, he was praying like crazy (he did seem almost out of his mind). Three female nurses lifted him into the bed and started to remove his street clothes. Sounding half delirious, he resisted, all the while praying loudly to a Higher Power as if for help.
Nurses are not wilting violets. They were not to be denied. “For God’s sake,” one pleaded, “you’re in a hospital. We’re nurses and we’re here to help you.”
They prevailed.
Chauvinists, sexists, or other males who are neither, such as Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a critic of the new imaging machines, whether you are in an airport or a hospital, what would you prefer? The preservation of your modesty or your life?
Like it or not, whole-body imaging seems destined to become de rigueur in airports across the country and overseas as well. Neither is likely to please Rep. Chaffetz, who argues, “You don’t have to look at my wife and 8-year-old daughter naked to secure an airplane.”
Harrop protests, “As a matter of fact, you do. The very technology that makes Chaffetz so indignant might have detected the bag of powerful explosives sewn into alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear.”
Oldtimers may remember the famous gag about the infamous skinflint and comic, Jack Benny. A mugger sticks him up and demands, “Your money or your life!” A pregnant pause follows, perhaps the most famous in the history of showbiz. Pressed again, Benny shouts, “I’m thinking! I’m thinking!”
Today it could be “Your modesty or your life!”
Tough call?
— Saul Rosenthal
Terre Haute
Get the attention of Washington
Every American should be looking at Washington very closely. We have two wars, a drowning economy, and our nation’s leaders fighting over whom has playground rights, and all on our money.
Washington plays Russian roulette with our lives, as if they are their own. So with that being said, I would like to say a few words on the wars, our economy, health care and Washington.
Our first priority should be finishing these two wars; bring our people home. We have the greatest military force there is in the world, we have the best military leaders, equipped with the skills and personnel needed to defeat the enemy. Give them what they need to get the job done and get them home. If Iraq or Afghanistan wants any more help from us, tell them to get their checkbook out. We are the land of the free, but freedom does not come cheap.
Our second priority should be putting the American people back to work. We have to build our own economy while we still can. We need industries; “Made in America” should be on the shelves in every store, or we should be paid to sell when items are made in China, made in Indonesia or made in Mexico. We have to invest back into America. If we don’t, America is going to disappear.
We (the American people) bailed out the banking industries to keep this country from a financial collapse. The same American people that bailed the banks out have lost and are still losing their homes. They have lost and are losing their jobs, and they have lost and are losing their faith in the people we put in office to look out for us.
That is the question each and every American in this country should be asking. Are these people really looking out for our best interests and/or the country’s best interests? Or are they looking out for the interests of the big corporations that pour thousands and sometimes millions into re-electing these “Mad Hatters”?
I say actions speak much louder than words. And Washington, your actions are telling me that you are looking out for Corporate America. It is screaming, we are in it for us and the hell with you!
One year after the Great Bank Bailout, these banks are once again giving their top employees bonuses. The same banks we bailed out because they were close to bankruptcy. Now these banks are doing so well that they can afford to give their top employees thousands in bonuses. But they are being very careful about how they are giving these bonuses.
In their failed attempt to lure us from the truth and save themselves backlash from the American people, they are giving most of the bonuses in stock and a little in cash. Really? Well if these banks are doing so well, they should be paying back every cent of the bailout money before any CEO gets a bonus.
So where are our government officials? What are they doing about this? What are they doing to protect our investments?
Moving on to health care. If a health care plan is good enough for the American people, then it is good enough for the people that wrote and voted on it.
That’s right, Washington, I am talking about you. Put up or shut up! The health care plan should be good enough replace the one Washington has right now. It should replace the insurance for the presidents, the Senate, the House of Representatives, etc. That is the kind of health care we need. We want your health care at your cost.
Please, wake up America!
— Tracy McDaniel
Terre Haute
Lack of respect from the GOP
I haven’t seen anything in the local news about the Republican strategy to raise money. A recently uncovered Republican National Committee fundraising document divided Republican donors into two groups — small and large donors.
In the document, the Republican fundraisers were told how to get the cash flowing from small donors, and it wasn’t by using sound reasoning or good policy alternatives. The appeal to be used for small donors is fear — to scare the pants off them and catch the cash that falls out of the pockets.
The document portrays President Obama as the head of the “Evil Empire”, Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Harry Reid as Scooby Doo. It refers to their small donors as “reactionary”. If you don’t know what a political reactionary is, look it up — it isn’t a term you use to complement a friend.
The appeal to large donors is different. Large donors want “access” and are described as “ego driven” types who react to “peer to peer” pressure.
This sounds like they are trying to win over teenagers.
I’m not saying Republican donors are driven by fear or ego or they can’t be swayed by reason. The Republican National Committee is saying it.
If the donors of cold, hard cash are referred to as reactionary or appealed to like teenagers, think how much the Republicans must respect the rest of us.
The letter of March 6 titled “Election gives us a chance to change” brings this to mind because of its plea to support the Republicans in the coming election.
Everybody grab your checkbook and start writing.
— John Macke
Marshall, Ill.
Thanks for great care from doctor
I was writing in hopes that you will print this letter for me. I wanted to thank Dr. James L. Hilaire a professional of podiatry.
Dr. Hilaire, thank you for fixing my feet and my toes. You gave me my life back. I suffered for years with severe heel pain and my toes were crippled with severe hammer toe deformity and I couldn’t walk or have any life which in turn causes me to suffer with depression.
Dr. Hilaire, thank you, for being so nice to me and explaining everything to me. Everyone else said “there was nothing to be done to help my feet and toes, and told me I had to live with it”.
Now “I don’t have to live with it”. You gave me my life back and I wish I could do something nice for you to show my appreciation.
I couldn’t find a thank you card wonderful enough. I wanted to thank you this way by writing to my local paper to thank you, Dr. Hilaire, and thank you, Nurse Sara, for your kindness you showed me. You both are awesome!
— Lori E. Carson
Terre Haute
