The Endicott Enquirer News from the Southern Tier

12Sep/090

From the Herald Mail Letters – Don’t Brainwash Our Kids! Signed the TEA Party

Thanks to school system for not showing speech

To the editor:

The Hagerstown TEA Party thanks Washington County Public Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Morgan and the school system for listening to parents and for providing a common-sense solution regarding Tuesday's speech to students by President Obama.

With this decision, the school system empowered parents to make decisions regarding whether or not their children would view the president's speech. This decision allowed parents to watch the program with their children and have a healthy discussion afterward.

Red flags regarding the speech appeared when the press found out the U.S. Board of Education was asking students to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President." Workbooks and activities have since been modified to remove objectionable content. We are thankful this partisan politicization has been exposed and removed from the U.S. Board of Education's curriculum guidelines.

Locally, the superintendent of schools has made the right decision to not politicize the school system by airing President Obama's speech live. It appears the school system just learned about the speech on Thursday. Morgan has used caution and wisdom rather than bowing to political pressure to air the broadcast.

The school system has appropriately listened to the parents that they serve and said "no" to unfettered access to Washington County's most precious resource, our students. This type of unfettered access to school students would set the nation's school system on a very slippery slope. The temptation for a president to politicize the school system to achieve political goals may prove too great to overcome. We are thankful and proud to know that our school system will not be participating in this activity.

Neil Parrott
Hagerstown TEA Party

Are you kidding me? How can I respect someones opinion on a matter that clearly is already so biased towards one side of the political spectrum that there is no point in even trying to reason with them? Do I need to remind them that George H. W. Bush did exactly the same thing and no one was running around claiming that it was going to corrupt our children. Nope, when the true red Republicans do this stuff they can do no wrong...

Clearly this opinion is not based on the content of the address, but on the politics of the writer. Our children deserve to hear from our national leaders, the deserve to know that the entire country is working for their future and that it is important for them to work hard. The only reason the school board didn't air the speech is because they have a weak stomach for people like Neil who writes into the Herald-Mail to rail against something that he really doesn't have much interest in other than that he is a Republican and the President is a Democrat.

If this country is to the point where people censor the president's speeches at the local level then we truly have entered a era of political upheaval. Personally, you respect the office that the President holds, I trust him to not do something stupid when talking to my kids and I think it is important that they understand he wants them to do well. I am ashamed of the weak willed folks at the school board that shut the access to a speech by our president, the leader of our country, the man or woman who we are all supposed to look up to and respect for who they are and what they represent.

16Aug/090

Herald Mail Makes a Play for More Balanced Commentary

The Herald Mail (http://www.herald-mail.com) recently announced that it is bringing in Rush' Limbaugh’s younger brother to balance out their commentary each week but I have yet to see the value in bringing in either far left or far right columnists to a paper. They are guaranteed to do only one thing, make 50% of the people at least somewhat happy, and 50% of the people at least somewhat unhappy. What ever happened to the value of having someone with a more balanced and thoughtful viewpoint? Why can we not find some more centrist columnists that don’t take one extreme or another but actually logically think through an argument and make real insights into the situation at hand.

Not once has a Rush Limbaugh or a James Carville done this because they are paid to create controversy. Unfortunately this is rarely helpful for the task of having a civil conversation about a topic. Me personally, it has come to the point where I don’t read or watch or any of them. Once people realize that the center is actually the way to get things done, the sooner this country can actually move forward and stop wasting time worrying about whether the right or left is more crazy.

Here is a compromise to get you thinking: Guns should be legal under the bill of rights but clearly the spirit of the document was not to allow people to keep high-powered assault rifles in their homes and create dangerous situations for their fellow citizens. People should be able to keep their hunting rifles and their handguns but turn over their AK-47s and AR-15s.  You can protect your self filth an handgun or hunting rifle, but you don’t need to mow down the entire neighborhood with an assault weapon.

2Mar/080

Hillary Clinton: Not the Bra Burner This Person Thinks She Is

"For all the women who wanted women's rights in the '60s: Now you have a chance at having a female president with many years of experience, and you're messing it up. You're voting for the wrong candidate. You're a lot of talk. If you're into women's rights, vote for Clinton." - Hagerstown

The Herald-Mail

And if you mean by "women's rights" you mean a woman who stays with a cheating husband to further her own political career then I guess you are right. Hillary Clinton is not a women's rights advocate, or if she is then it is only because she is a woman. She is the most conservative democrat in the race currently and last time I checked the 60's bra burners were not overly conservative. The only thing you'd be messing up by not voting for Hillary Clinton is the chances for her ruining the country.

26Feb/080

Letters to the Editor: Why Do We Publish These in the Herald Mail?

National parks are in danger

To the editor:

Do we want to see "Keep Out - Contamination" signs when we visit Grand Canyon National Park?

The Forest Service is being allowed to gamble with this national treasure, and future generations stand to lose. Americans must understand that Vane Minerals' plan to drill for uranium three miles outside the park is just the beginning.

In the past five years, more than 800 claims for uranium, gold and other minerals have been staked within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park. Now that the British- owned company has started to move on their claims, other companies will follow.

Grand Canyon National Park must remain open and protected for all Americans, not sacrificed to profit foreign companies. The House of Representatives passed the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007 (H.R. 2262), which will protect all our national parks from toxic mining. Bottom line, the Senate must do the same, because too much is at stake!

Tommy Landers
Environment Maryland
Field Organizer
Baltimore, Md.

The Herald-Mail

I'm sorry Herald Mail, but this letter to the editor has absolutely nothing to do with anything that has been reported on in the community or even located near this area. Now don't get me wrong, I am for keeping the Grand Canyon preserved for everyone, but why do we need to turn the letters to the editor section of the paper into a place where environmental lobbyists can post their material free of charge? The letters to the editor section should be used for relative commentary about what people see going on in the Hagerstown and Washington county community not for publicizing special interest groups agendas. If you want to save the Grand Canyon then that is fine, but either hold an event in Washington County that the Herald Mail can report on or take out an ad in the paper to push this kind of information, don't abuse this section of the paper.

13Feb/086

Letters to the editor – If Smoking Doesn’t Kill You Then Something Else Will

Smoking isn't our only worry

To the editor:

Here is some things to think about, although they probably will not change your mind: Chemicals in the air you breathe from cars, trucks, factories, even your home. Chemicals in the food you eat. Chemicals in the water you drink. Lead in your childrens toys.

People who have a few drinks and get behind the wheel of a car. People who shoot innocent people just because they are there. People selling drugs to our children. Guns in the hands of children. People driving and using their cell phones. Road rage. Speeding.

All these can change a person's life forever. But let's run the smokers out of Maryland and all will be well. As you can see, second-hand smoke should be the least of your worries. We all know smoking is a bad habit, but think about all these things - people will still die from one thing or the other.

Lisa Cosens
Smithsburg

Letters to the editor - The Herald-Mail Online - News for Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia

Do these people work in packs? Stating the obvious is not a good argument to make in order to convince people to love breathing second hand smoke. I guess since we all will die from something I ought not to try and eliminate one of those causes from the list? Just because you have a defeatist attitude doesn't mean that the rest of us don't want to do all we can to cross some of these things off our list.

We are getting close to doing this with smoking each day and that is a good thing. Lets address a few other of the items you mention in your letter that you use to argue I shouldn't care about smoking.

  • Guns and Children - Once parents stop putting the guns in the hands of children we will be all set but I can't really control this any more than you. If people used their head a little bit more often that would solve this problem.
  • Stop shopping at Wal-Mart and your kids toys will stop having lead in them. If you want cheaply made goods then be prepared for the consequences.
  • Stop buying SUVs and reduce the amount of chemicals in the air you breath or reduce your power consumption and reduce the greenhouse gasses going into the atmosphere. Smoke is an air pollutant too as you might have guessed so your argument applies to the very thing you are arguing against as well.
  • Buy organic food and discourage the use of Chemicals in what you eat. Again, if you want cheap food, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
  • Educate your children about drugs, if you are worried about your kids then I would argue you haven't done enough to show them what happens when they are used.
  • Filter your water, avoid the chemicals that you are worried about. Better yet, stop voting for big business republicans and vote for a democrat in Washington County that might actually care about the environment.

Lastly, smoking is not just a bad habit and if I guessed right you are probably a smoker who doesn't want to admit that what you do actually is killing your self and those around you. Just because you don't care about my health does not mean you have any right to take it away from me and if you think smoking doesn't do that, you'll find that you are terribly wring when you are 65, have cancer and can't breath.

30Jan/081

Was Your Vegetarian Letter not Good Enough for the Post?

To the editor:

Think a small serving of meat each day is harmless? Think again. A new study from the National Cancer Institute showed that the more red and processed meat you eat, the greater your risk of developing a variety of cancers becomes.

In the study, the average red meat consumption was about 2.5 ounces of red meat per day for a person consuming the average 2,000-calorie diet. This study found an association between high consumption of red and processed meat and an increased risk for myeloma and colon, esophageal, liver, bladder and lung cancer.

The good news is that scientific studies also show that fruits, vegetables and other vegetarian foods can help prevent cancer. In addition, following a plant-based diet can help people trim their waistlines and maintain a healthy weight - another key factor in preventing cancer.

Jennifer K. Reilly
Washington, D.C.

Letters to the Editor - The Herald-Mail Online - News for Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia

Remind me why this was printed in the Herald Mail? I don't think anyone living in Washington DC is considering Hagerstown a huge media outlet for announcing National Cancer Institute findings. I would assume from this letter that your are a vegetarian and I would point out that humans are omnivores for a reason. We eat meat, we eat fruit and we eat vegetables because they all contain things we need. I bet if you ate oranges your entire life laced with all of the crazy pesticides they use you would have an increased risk of getting cancer too. I'm not a big red meat person, I prefer chicken myself, but people have been eating this for millennia and it hasn't seemed to kill off the majority of us yet.

Try taking a swim in the Anacostia and see what that does for your cancer risk and get back to me on whether I should worry about red meat.