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We welcome letters. Please include your full name,
address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters,
Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958;
e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PANTRY We here at the First Presbyterian Church Food Pantry want to thank Springfield for supporting food pantries throughout town, including your cash support to the Central Illinois Food Bank warehouse operations, from which pantries are able to purchase food at a very low cost. People may visit the First Presbyterian Church Food Pantry once a week. We are open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. until noon. While we are not an especially huge operation, each month we are able to serve about 330 adults and 180 children and hand out over 150 sack lunches. And these numbers continue to rise. We encourage you to continue to support all the food pantries of this city, including ours, with food and cash donations.
Rhonda Dowling,
Food-pantry volunteer
First Presbyterian Church Springfield
ADD POUNDS, LOSE LIFE I am overweight. I work in an office/warehouse. One of the big traps is that people are always coming up with excuses to throw a feed. I have noticed that usually the organizers are people who do less work that everyone else. Last year I opted out. I do not participate in them. I don’t bring food and don’t eat the food. It is one of the wisest things I have decided in a while. I bring a sandwich and either fruit or a vegetable for my lunch. I can’t stick to a diet. I feel that every time I turn down an all-you-can-eat deal or the offer of a snack, I add five minutes to my life and at least 10 minutes to the quality of my life. Overeating may kill me, but I don’t want my last years to be spent immobile or blind. Every time I refuse some snack, I allow myself to enjoy my days a little. Patrick Johnopolos Springfield
TO REALLY SUPPORT OUR TROOPS I keep hearing people saying how they support the troops and veterans. Supporting the troops is more than a bumper sticker or helping with bingo. According to a new GAO report, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that 196,000 veterans were homeless on any given night in 2006. The same report states that the VA has quadrupled beds for homeless veterans all the way up to 8,200. Who is kidding whom? You want to support the troops and veterans? Demand that your representatives stay at their jobs and work on these problems more than a few days a year rather than coming home to campaign all the time. Half-a-million VA claims for benefits are backlogged. Many of those are homeless veterans who are unable to work and thus unable to rent places to live and support their families. Valid claims are consistently denied, appealed, and denied, taking far too long to adjudicate. A soldier is found unfit for duty by the military, given a small amount of money and discharged, then thrown to the wolves at the VA. When is enough enough?
Dan Cedusky Champaign
RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN “Not in my black yard” is a great story of the human spirit on so many levels [Dusty Rhodes, Sept. 27]. I am glad Ms. Reeves and her family found their place in the world. Everyone wants to be accepted and everyone needs help at times. This woman and her family have been through enough that they should not have to face any adversity in their neighborhood, wherever they chose to put down their roots. And kudos to the neighborhood people for seeing past color and embracing these people and offering their assistance. As we can see from time to time, rules are made to be broken because not everything in life fits in a perfect square. Julie L. Becker Springfield
THE LIES WON’T WASH Poor Gen. David Petraeus! He can’t help being a liar: His commander in chief is a liar (a pathological liar at that). The general is a soldier and as such his loyalty is to, and his orders come from, his commander, George W. Bush, the “decider.”
The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been cooking the books from the start! It is not Gen. Petraeus alone who is “betraying us”; it is this administration and the entities it serves: the military, the multinationals, and the energy industry. To be a part of it, lying is a prerequisite. One of these days the lies will no longer wash, and the perpetrators will pay. I hope it is sooner rather than later. Robert Waldmire Rochester
THE HILLS AREN’T ALIVE Recently you published an article on longwall mining, which I read with great interest [see Bruce Rushton, “The return of King Coal,” March 23, 2006]. I am an avid nature lover, so anything that is harmful to the planet angers me and motivates me to take action. Well, the reason I am writing: I just saw a story on TV about mountaintop removal. It’s a form of mining, and the damage it does to the environment is devastating. It’s currently taking place in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. These forests that these mining companies are destroying are among the most biologically diverse temperate forests on earth. Basically it entails stripping the entire mountaintops of all trees and vegetation, transforming lush green forests into barren wastelands. All this destruction and abuse of our natural resources is taking place so that these mining companies can get to the small amounts of low-sulfur coal that lie beneath the surface. It’s time to send a message to President George W. Bush and these greedy mining companies that these resources belong to all Americans. We need to band together and protect and preserve these natural areas that have been entrusted to us. William Maas Springfield
AMY ALKON SPEAKS THE TRUTH I have never written a letter to the editor before, but I just have to respond to the comment made by Amanda Helm [“Letters,” Sept. 27]. She wants you to get rid of Amy Alkon (who I love, by the way) because Amy stated that fatherless children grow up to be criminals. Perhaps Amy read the same article that I did. I had to hunt this down. From the angelfire.com Web site “The Sociopath”: “Some 70 percent of sociopaths come from fatherless homes. Father absence produces many consequences similar to the symptoms of sociopathy — early, precocious sexuality; antagonistic, deprecating attitude toward the opposite sex; lack of interest in bonding with a durable stable mate; aggressive acting-out; excessive boasting and risk-taking behavior. Some 30 percent of children today are born out-of-wedlock and another 30 percent live in divorced homes. These conditions — a problem of unsocialization — produce sociopathy.”
If you look at the prison population, many of these criminals did grow up without fathers. This is just a fact. Perhaps if Helm had done some research, she would have seen there is a factual basis for the statement Amy made. Please keep Amy Alkon. She speaks the truth, and sometimes that is hard to hear.
Teri Zucksworth
Springfield
THE CONDITIONS FOR PROGRESS A World Bank study recently found that when they added up the value of the world’s natural resources, machinery, equipment, buildings, roads, and land, it did not equal the world’s total wealth, the difference being “intangible wealth.”
The World Bank found that that intangible wealth, made up of human capital and the value of institutions, makes up the largest share of wealth. In fact, it makes up about 80 percent in rich countries and 60 percent in the poor. Moreover, it concluded: “Countries are rich largely because of the skills of their population and the quality of their institutions supporting economic activity.” It went on to state that both of the preceding are the result of the rule of law (which includes such elements as minimal/consistent regulation, minimal/consistent government, maximum/consistent freedom, maximum/consistent responsibility, and maximum/consistent property rights) and a quality education. This finding is valuable in two respects. First, it supports economist Peter Bauer’s findings about foreign aid — that if the conditions for economic development are present, progress will occur, even without foreign aid. If those conditions are not met, progress will not occur, even with foreign aid. Second, it tells us what to expect when we support and vote for politicians who want more government, more taxes, and more government control of our lives. Kim Rogalin Naperville
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PANTRY We here at the First Presbyterian Church Food Pantry want to thank Springfield for supporting food pantries throughout town, including your cash support to the Central Illinois Food Bank warehouse operations, from which pantries are able to purchase food at a very low cost. People may visit the First Presbyterian Church Food Pantry once a week. We are open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. until noon. While we are not an especially huge operation, each month we are able to serve about 330 adults and 180 children and hand out over 150 sack lunches. And these numbers continue to rise. We encourage you to continue to support all the food pantries of this city, including ours, with food and cash donations.
Rhonda Dowling,
Food-pantry volunteer
First Presbyterian Church Springfield
ADD POUNDS, LOSE LIFE I am overweight. I work in an office/warehouse. One of the big traps is that people are always coming up with excuses to throw a feed. I have noticed that usually the organizers are people who do less work that everyone else. Last year I opted out. I do not participate in them. I don’t bring food and don’t eat the food. It is one of the wisest things I have decided in a while. I bring a sandwich and either fruit or a vegetable for my lunch. I can’t stick to a diet. I feel that every time I turn down an all-you-can-eat deal or the offer of a snack, I add five minutes to my life and at least 10 minutes to the quality of my life. Overeating may kill me, but I don’t want my last years to be spent immobile or blind. Every time I refuse some snack, I allow myself to enjoy my days a little. Patrick Johnopolos Springfield
TO REALLY SUPPORT OUR TROOPS I keep hearing people saying how they support the troops and veterans. Supporting the troops is more than a bumper sticker or helping with bingo. According to a new GAO report, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that 196,000 veterans were homeless on any given night in 2006. The same report states that the VA has quadrupled beds for homeless veterans all the way up to 8,200. Who is kidding whom? You want to support the troops and veterans? Demand that your representatives stay at their jobs and work on these problems more than a few days a year rather than coming home to campaign all the time. Half-a-million VA claims for benefits are backlogged. Many of those are homeless veterans who are unable to work and thus unable to rent places to live and support their families. Valid claims are consistently denied, appealed, and denied, taking far too long to adjudicate. A soldier is found unfit for duty by the military, given a small amount of money and discharged, then thrown to the wolves at the VA. When is enough enough?
Dan Cedusky Champaign
RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN “Not in my black yard” is a great story of the human spirit on so many levels [Dusty Rhodes, Sept. 27]. I am glad Ms. Reeves and her family found their place in the world. Everyone wants to be accepted and everyone needs help at times. This woman and her family have been through enough that they should not have to face any adversity in their neighborhood, wherever they chose to put down their roots. And kudos to the neighborhood people for seeing past color and embracing these people and offering their assistance. As we can see from time to time, rules are made to be broken because not everything in life fits in a perfect square. Julie L. Becker Springfield
THE LIES WON’T WASH Poor Gen. David Petraeus! He can’t help being a liar: His commander in chief is a liar (a pathological liar at that). The general is a soldier and as such his loyalty is to, and his orders come from, his commander, George W. Bush, the “decider.”
The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been cooking the books from the start! It is not Gen. Petraeus alone who is “betraying us”; it is this administration and the entities it serves: the military, the multinationals, and the energy industry. To be a part of it, lying is a prerequisite. One of these days the lies will no longer wash, and the perpetrators will pay. I hope it is sooner rather than later. Robert Waldmire Rochester
THE HILLS AREN’T ALIVE Recently you published an article on longwall mining, which I read with great interest [see Bruce Rushton, “The return of King Coal,” March 23, 2006]. I am an avid nature lover, so anything that is harmful to the planet angers me and motivates me to take action. Well, the reason I am writing: I just saw a story on TV about mountaintop removal. It’s a form of mining, and the damage it does to the environment is devastating. It’s currently taking place in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. These forests that these mining companies are destroying are among the most biologically diverse temperate forests on earth. Basically it entails stripping the entire mountaintops of all trees and vegetation, transforming lush green forests into barren wastelands. All this destruction and abuse of our natural resources is taking place so that these mining companies can get to the small amounts of low-sulfur coal that lie beneath the surface. It’s time to send a message to President George W. Bush and these greedy mining companies that these resources belong to all Americans. We need to band together and protect and preserve these natural areas that have been entrusted to us. William Maas Springfield
AMY ALKON SPEAKS THE TRUTH I have never written a letter to the editor before, but I just have to respond to the comment made by Amanda Helm [“Letters,” Sept. 27]. She wants you to get rid of Amy Alkon (who I love, by the way) because Amy stated that fatherless children grow up to be criminals. Perhaps Amy read the same article that I did. I had to hunt this down. From the angelfire.com Web site “The Sociopath”: “Some 70 percent of sociopaths come from fatherless homes. Father absence produces many consequences similar to the symptoms of sociopathy — early, precocious sexuality; antagonistic, deprecating attitude toward the opposite sex; lack of interest in bonding with a durable stable mate; aggressive acting-out; excessive boasting and risk-taking behavior. Some 30 percent of children today are born out-of-wedlock and another 30 percent live in divorced homes. These conditions — a problem of unsocialization — produce sociopathy.”
If you look at the prison population, many of these criminals did grow up without fathers. This is just a fact. Perhaps if Helm had done some research, she would have seen there is a factual basis for the statement Amy made. Please keep Amy Alkon. She speaks the truth, and sometimes that is hard to hear.
Teri Zucksworth
Springfield
THE CONDITIONS FOR PROGRESS A World Bank study recently found that when they added up the value of the world’s natural resources, machinery, equipment, buildings, roads, and land, it did not equal the world’s total wealth, the difference being “intangible wealth.”
The World Bank found that that intangible wealth, made up of human capital and the value of institutions, makes up the largest share of wealth. In fact, it makes up about 80 percent in rich countries and 60 percent in the poor. Moreover, it concluded: “Countries are rich largely because of the skills of their population and the quality of their institutions supporting economic activity.” It went on to state that both of the preceding are the result of the rule of law (which includes such elements as minimal/consistent regulation, minimal/consistent government, maximum/consistent freedom, maximum/consistent responsibility, and maximum/consistent property rights) and a quality education. This finding is valuable in two respects. First, it supports economist Peter Bauer’s findings about foreign aid — that if the conditions for economic development are present, progress will occur, even without foreign aid. If those conditions are not met, progress will not occur, even with foreign aid. Second, it tells us what to expect when we support and vote for politicians who want more government, more taxes, and more government control of our lives. Kim Rogalin Naperville
