template

I couldn’t help but catch the Nov. 18 headline that said people don’t want to be taxed for health care, but want the rich to pay for it.
My husband and I are not rich. However, what we do have we’ve worked very hard to get. I’m sick of everyone wanting to make someone else responsible for what they are too lazy to do themselves. Most rich people worked hard to get their money and in most cases they donate quite heavily to a needy cause. If you want to eat, have insur-ance, own a home, buy a car, etc. then get to work. I’m talking to able-bodied people who are fully capable of working, even if it’s just flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant. However, our welfare system has made it too easy for people to stay home and dream up ways to get the hard workers of America to pay their way. I’d like to point out to those who take advantage of the system that some of those rich people are our employers. You take away their riches and more jobs will be lost or you tax them too much you pay more at the counter. Wake up and smell the roses. You don’t work, you don’t eat. Put your mind to how you can make money legally rather than how to beat the system. Above all, get the government out of our businesses. I don’t see any of our legislators, senators, president, or anyone making these decisions giving up their riches.

Patty Bailey
Lake City

I enjoyed the Herald & Re-view’s article “Body by Brent” on Nov. 15.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes took a course in “muscular development’’ from Sandow a popular strongman of the early 1900’s.
In 1901 Sandow had a com-petition at Albert Hall in London. The proceeds going to the British wounded from the Boer War.
The first prize was a golden statue two feet high. The sculptor and Conan Doyle were the two judges.
It was a large event and Albert Hall was filled. There were 80 competitors and it was a long evening.
A man from Sancashire named Murray won the golden statue, and the large audience seemed to think it was the right choice.
As Conan Doyle left the banquet which followed he saw the winner walking down the street with the golden statue. Conan Doyle over took the man and asked him his plans. The man told him he had no money only his return train ticket, and that he was going to walk the streets until his train left the next morning.
Conan Doyle knew this would be a very dangerous thing for him to do. So, he told the man he should come with him to his hotel.
In Conan Doyle’s own words “We could not get a cab and it seemed to me more grotesque than anything of Stevenson’s London imaginings that I should be wandering round at three in the morning in the company of a stranger who bore a great golden statue of a nude figure in his arms.’’
Thankfully they made it to Conan Doyle’s hotel, and the winner and his gold statue departed for home the next day.

David Rush
Decatur

I do not understand the objection to proposed housing of federal prisoners in a prison in our state. I do not remember any objection to the jobs created by the building of the prison. Furthermore, the people in the area are much more in danger from alcohol impaired drivers on the road than they are from federal prisoners behind bars.

Charles Weers
Pana

Please note this health care bill is not good for the Ameri-can people. It costs too much. Please do not pass this bill.

Mike Sawyer
Hammond

I am certainly against government run health care. The government should not run our health care system because we have the right to choose. The government wants to run everything. Do we live in a free country? We once did, but not anymore.
Write to Congress. We have to stop this now!

Tennie Gordillo
Decatur

Kudos to Bill Clevenger and the Decatur Park District. On Oct. 31, they allowed St. Teresa and MacArthur High Schools to host the IHSA 2009 Cross-Country Sectionals on the Hickory Point Golf Course. The course, being flat, soft and grassy was ideal for the runners. The 2 giant loops that comprised the 3 mile race course made view-ing easy for spectators. For many small schools who, in the past, traveled to Paxton, Stanford or Robinson for the sectional, this was a chance to come to the “big city,” making this race even bigger and more exciting for them.
In addition, with 80 teams and nearly 700 competitors, along with their coaches, parents, and fans, the finan-cial benefits to the Decatur area must have been appreciable. Many motel rooms were used, meals consumed, gas purchased, and probably some early Christmas shop-ping was done.
Hosting the sectionals here made so much sense on so many levels, one wonders why it hasn’t been done be-fore. One can only hope that it will continue and become an annual event for our area.

Dan Tutko
Forsyth

No burning equals clogged sewers equals flooding.
Surprised? Many people in this city can neither afford to buy leaf bags nor have the leaves vacuumed. So what do they do? Nothing, or the leaves end up in the streets with the help of the people blowing them out of the yards. It’s a no brainer. That’s ok; the city is on top of it. We citizens pay either way.
Food for thought. Let’s burn again. One day of burn-ing in the fall and one day in the spring would take care of a lot of clogging of the sewer drains.

John Karakachos
Decatur

Some letters to the editor reveal an ideology that is worthy of response. Some issues are greedy corpora-tions; insurance companies killing the sick; government control over insurance companies should be non-profit status therefore allowing lower premium; increase corporate and small business taxes; etc.
I can add to this ideology and make these particular letter writers more confident in their claims. Here are three selected issues that these writers may take as their additional causes.
1. The United States currently has a national debt nearing $12 trillion. This is a big problem and there is a solution. Simply borrow and or print $12 trillion and pay off the debt.
2. Granted a nonprofit company can surely produce, sell and service at a much lower cost that a company that is obligated to stockhold-ers to make a profit. There are many instances to be cited whereby a nonprofit company run by our government would be beneficial to the American public. For example, if fast-food hamburger companies were owned by our government and were nonprofit, then we could probably buy a double cheeseburger for 60 cents and French fries for 50 cents.
3. To help balance the fed-eral budget, the government is proposing taxing the wealthy more. This is such a good idea that this program can be enhanced. Here’s how. If the government would give a million dollars from the stimulus fund to each of many people then there would be more rich people to be taxed. Then, tax these people at a higher tax rate — perhaps 100 percent. This would increase the govern-ment’s revenue.
While creating these three ideas, I also created a slogan that is surely meaningful and timely. “There is nothing to be afraid of except afraid itself.’’ Clever and original, huh?

Don Perry
Decatur

When trying to come to grips with the latest act of mass violence, or attempting to teach my children about it, I would hope to be able to turn to a more accepted standard of behavior. How-ever in the realm of violence, there is none in this society. It is truly the one area that we abhor on one hand, and uplift on the other.
Consider the usual reactions we observe following the lasted act of mass violence: Why? How come? Could it have been prevented? Or sadly, “Let’s form a task force to investigate.” Do we truly not know anything of its cause, or is it simply that we have not, cannot, and will not cease the“ inputs of violence” we receive day by day?
We simply give hollow re-actions to violence by day, and entertain ourselves with it at night. Do we gasp among ourselves when we see an outburst of violent behav-ior, then proceed to plug in the input chords of such violence later…by then entertaining ourselves with ever higher levels of graphic violence through our TV’s, internet sights, video rentals, movie theaters, video games, etc? We are shocked by what we see, and then pay to be entertained by it later.
We input hundreds of hours into math, spelling, history, etc. fully expecting a student to grasp and comprehend what they view. We input hundreds, upon hundreds, upon thousands of hours of unrelenting, graphic violence amongst all of us, and then believe it simply has no ef-fect.
How about let’s not watch part of the multi-million dollar violence for profit material that will be bought and paid for a few days.

Rich Starshak
Decatur

I am writing about November 12 paper which included an article about global warming and cap and trade as a solution. Personally, I think it is a good idea.
Calling Al Gore a scientist environ-terrorist wasn’t quite right in my opinion though. I believe Mr. Proft went out on a limb when he made that statement.

David Baker
Decatur

Upon reading the U.S. Pre-ventive Services Task Force advice to not perform breast self exams, I felt sick to my stomach. The very same day I received my fourth of sixteen chemotherapy treat-ments for breast cancer. My Stage IIB cancer diagnosis was the result of a dimple I found while taking off my swimsuit in front of a mirror.
At age 42, I fully recognize that we only have one chance at life. Ultimately, we can not change God’s path for us; however, God has empowered us to care for ourselves.
Some people may see my bald head and flat chest and say, “that poor woman, she’s so young.” I say, “thank you God for helping me find the cancer.” Cancer comes in many shapes and sizes. My cancer could not be felt nor seen in a mammogram. A visible change in skin texture was the difference between a current Stage IIB diagnosis and a future Stage III or IV diagnosis. Translation: greater chance of watching my 6-year old daughter com-plete grade school.
Women of all ages please do not believe everything you read. Continue to do self-exams and visual exams. It is too bad survivors don’t have flashing signs that say “I found my cancer!” Then you’d see that self-exams save lives.

Diane Shankwitz
Forsyth

It would require almost three cemeteries the size of Arlington National to bury the more than 800,000 people we refer to as “Collateral Damage” in Iraq and Af-ghanistan.

Michael Bryant
Decatur

While assisting my 80-year-old father in moving to a more accessible house on Ravina Park Road I ran across a very disturbing situation. It took us approxi-mately three weeks to get him garbage service. I was appalled to discover that the city of Decatur has allowed the garbage companies a monopoly of the garbage business.
According to the city employees I spoke to each area of town is assigned to a certain garbage company and you must use that one, and when I informed the employ-ees I spoke too of the bad service and that I did not want my father to have to give his money to a company that gave bad service, I was told he had no choice.
This is a serious problem that the people of Decatur need to address.
My 80 year old father has lived and worked in this city for over 50 years and should not be subjected to this type of treatment.

Glenda Baughman
Pana

The United States House of Representatives, at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s insis-tence, passed a bill that forces you to buy health insurance that must be ac-ceptable to the government or go to jail. Now this is health care reform that you can believe in.
If you do not buy a health insurance plan with your money containing all of the provisions that the govern-ment thinks that you should have you could face serious consequences. According to an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) the consequences include a penalty of up to 2.5 percent of your income (col-lected by the IRS) if you fail to maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage.” Refusal to pay the penalty “is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprison-ment.”
Your current plan may not be acceptable under the final version of the bill. Your plan may not pay for a gov-ernment required provision that you do not need or coverage that you do not desire. Of course you can keep your plan as President Obama promised - and face prison, but that is your choice.
Our government has be-come so comfortable with taking our money through the IRS and then spending it as they see fit, ignoring the true wishes of their constituency, that now they have taken it one step further. They want us to take our money and directly spend it the way they see fit. The only involvement the IRS will have will be to monitor how we are spending our money through our tax returns, and if it is not spent according to their wishes they will impose the tax code upon us through the Internal Revenue Service.
What is next? Just how au-dacious will the government get?

Doug Antonelli
Mount Zion

I agree with Republican candidate for Governor Dan Proft who said terrorist pris-oners should not be housed at the Thomson facility. “This is a terrible idea that threatens the safety of Illinois residents. Instead of keeping suspected terrorists off do-mestic soil, the President and Governor Quinn are poised to bring to Illinois those with the ability to operate beyond the walls of any prison.”
“There are plenty of states across the country that don’t need a terrorist prison to create jobs. More than being sad, it is quite disappointing that Congressman Hare sup-ports this measure. This will put Al-Qaeda terrorists within 50 miles of our children. It is unacceptable. “
Dan Proft is right! Yes, it is unacceptable. We would never allow nuclear waste to be stored within 50 miles of our schools and children and yet placing the kind of people that are currently detained at Guantanamo would create I believe an even bigger risk in security for the local popula-tion and for the people of Illinois as a whole!
By bringing al-Qaida terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicaliza-tion. To say that we will be safe because they will be behind prison walls offers little comfort. It is not the prisoners inside that we should worry about, but rather their supporters on the outside.
I do not care how many of these detainees from Guan-tanamo would be housed there. One is too many. There is no valid reason to close the facility at Guantanamo other than a political promise. Those get broken all the time after elections and this is one that should be broken. Our security should not be for sale!

John Boline
Decatur

If the city is so interested in bringing new business to Decatur, you would think they would send someone out to the Pines at the 22nd Street intersection and tear down the burned out shell of the small building along U.S. 36 and also pick up the couch that has been thrown upside down onto the railroad tracks.
It really looks appealing to anyone interested in locating a business in that area. These eyesores have been left unat-tended for at least four months.

Gwen Miller
Decatur

Who was it who warned you we were being misled about the need to go to war in Iraq? Who was it who warned you we’ve been misled about the need to take military action many times before?
Was it radical Christians or radical members of the NRA who will support any politi-cian who panders to their radical agendas regardless of all other issues? Was it Re-publicans who will vote their financial interest almost regardless of social and eco-nomic pain inflicted on the average American? Was it Rush Limbaugh or the guys and dolls at Fox News? Was it the millions of history illiterate Americans who will unquestionably support a rush to war by any president?
No, it was none of these.
It was me, the guy who has been called un-American, a traitor and a communist because I opposed the war from the very beginning. It was me, the guy who consid-ers Ralph Nader one of the best sources of information in the country. When I read Nader said we were being misled about the need to go to war, I knew we were being misled.
Only about 15 percent of Americans had the wisdom to oppose the Iraq War from the very beginning and the cour-age to speak out in the midst of a blind, patriotic frenzy. You can bet just about all of them were liberals.
Now, I’m warning you again that the escalation of the war in Afghanistan will be another huge blunder. You’d be wise to pay atten-tion.
I suggest you save this letter and use it as a bookmark or stick it on your refrigerator door. Better yet, make copies and pass them out to school children. This information might just save their lives, someday.

Ron Adams
Decatur

I hope the people of Decatur realize what a gem they have in the Advanced Rehabilitation Center at St. Mary’s Hospital.
Congratulations to the center’s staff on their recent successful accreditation survey by the Commission for Accreditation of Rehabilita-tion Facilities.

Sharon Johnston
Decatur

To combat a recession or depression, many think that government should do certain things. What it should not do is bailouts, stimulus pack-ages, nationalizing industries, raising or lowering interest rates, public works, etc. It should undo various bureaus, agencies, departments etc. that never should have been launched in the first place. The Federal Reserve should not be fixed or replaced. It should be abolished.

Tom Walk
Neoga

On Oct.21, Barbara Minich wrote that President Bush should be vilified yet again for recent international events.
To review her points, in 2003 the Bush administration encouraged Libya to rid themselves of weapons of mass destruction and in 2006 re-established diplomatic relations, and the 2009 Libran celebration of the release of a terrorist from Scottish prison was proof of Bush’s ultimate failure after short-term suc-cess.
Isn’t a more rational conclusion that these reversals of Libyan policy came after Bush, a President of conviction and action, left office, replaced by Obama, who has yet to demonstrate any foreign policy will or action, merely a series of apologies? No wonder our enemies are more aggressive and those previously on the sidelines are more apt to revert to past stances and join them.

Gary Gray, Jr.
Decatur