Could be worse
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 12:38 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleOct. 8 Letters to the Editor
Could be worse
It’s 3 a.m. and here I sit, completely awake — unable to go back to sleep. Was it the train whistles blasting loud and long enough to awaken the dead? Or perhaps a police or ambulance siren? Or monster trucks at the fairgrounds? Oh, no. It’s another nuisance.
Once a month, for the past three months, a street sweeper who is paid to sweep the streets, has driven not once but three times up the alley between Freemont Village and Frontier Nursing Home. Back and forth three times each time. (I guess to make sure everyone is awake).
It rattled my windows and rumbled so loudly it awakened me from a deep sleep. And, if it affects me so I’m unable to return to sleep when I’m healthy, what is it doing to the poor patients at Frontier who are unwell?
Oh, well, it could be worse. It could be a midnight motorcycle race, I guess. Perhaps that will be next.
Veronica Deveau
Longview
Muddying the market
My delight was the Sept. 29 failure of the $700 billion bailout that would have muddied the free market. The market place must re-adjust to the socialist junk mortgages Democrats pressured finance giants to make loans to people who could not afford to repay “just to level the playing field.”
This social experiment is a flop and so is the bailout because it does not allow the free market to re-adjust itself naturally through investor confidence. In fact, the president’s plan has created a great deal of mistrust and instability in “the free market place.”
Stop muddying the market place and get back to work!
Vincent O’Rourke
Kelso
Money could be better spent
On Sept. 27 about 11:30 a.m. after breakfast, my buddy Mike and I thought we’d check out our new dog park, neither of us being pet owners, just to see the $25,000 park.
Upon entering the park, we noticed not one dog or dog owner, but the little car in front of us entering the park had one person and two dogs in the car.
As we watched, the lady driving the car drove to the other side of the dog park to the little kids playground. Not getting out of the car, she opened the door and both dogs went to the little wood chip playground and did their business. I couldn’t believe it.
Then as the dogs ran down the side of the parking lot, the lady drove slowly and followed her dogs. Each dog took turns lifting its leg on posts lining the edge of the parking lot.
After seeing that, we drove to the boat launch where we watched as fishermen and about 40 boat trailers were taking turns pulling out or putting in their boats on the single lane boat launch.
I think the $25,000 could have been better used to open up the other lane on the boat launch. Does the public really think this park will be used as much in bad weather as the boat launch?
Did I mention the lady did not get out of her car to pick up after her dogs in the kiddy park?
Bill White
Longview
A simple thank you
Saturday afternoon was beautiful and my mom and I decided to take our three dogs for a walk around the lake. We weren’t there five minutes before my bearded collie jumped into the lake and stumbled onto a hornet’s nest. I was instantly covered in yellow jackets, they began to sting me through my clothes. I couldn’t brush them off. My mom yelled to start running but nothing worked.
I became light headed from all of the stings and was yelling for help. I could see lots of people standing around not knowing what to do, understandably not wanting to put themselves at risk. The swarm was chasing me while others covered my legs and back. A women with her beautiful young daughter yelled to me, “roll around,” so I did, I dropped and rolled, the next thing I remember she was standing above me with a tree branch covered in leaves brushing the bees away as they tried to land on me. I was so disoriented from the adrenaline I just thanked her for helping, I really did not know what to do and she risked her own safety to help me.
My mom called 911 and they checked me out, gratefully I am not allergic to bees so I simply needed some benadryl and a lot of ice packs. I simply wanted to publicly thank my kind stranger, Karen, for helping.
Kala Odem
Longview
Crazy expenditure
I find it crazy that the Longview City Council would pay a police think tank $55,000 dollars to assess the police department with the goal of lowering the city’s crime rate. I thought that was why Alex Perez was picked to be our chief of police.
Dale Burleson
Longview
Waking the public
News that community action groups are having to ask the governor of Texas to extend their time to register to vote struck me as a fundamental failure of local leadership. Leaders on the local levels of government need to understand that the current discord in our country and the awakening of the American public has placed them on a dangerous precipice. Americans want action from their local leaders as much as, if not more than, we want it in Washington, D.C..
The citizens of Texas should not have to petition for an extension of their time to register to vote. Their local leaders should have preemptively provided for the protection of those affected by Hurricane Ike and should have issued notice before now of the availability and locations as well as an extension of time to afford these citizens most affected by the weather crisis the opportunity to register to vote.
Local leaders beware: You have a job and your first duty is to protect the your constituency — preemptively. As the American people slowly awake from our slumber to find that those we have placed at the helm disengaged from our basic needs requiring our action where no action should be required, leaders should be considerably more proactive in dealing with the vital matters of their constituency.
Rachel L. Paquette
Silver Lake
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