DOWN THE STREET
Just read the article on the potential Jackson Street rehab (“Forging a new path,” Patrick Yeagle, July 24). This is as useful as a new hole in the head or tattoo!
Better suggestion: Fix Governor Street from Walnut to Amos. That original brick street tests car axles with all its drops and dips.
Thank you. May the angels bless you – and me!
Mary L. Midden
Springfield
SHOW THE WAY
I have an idea on what can be done regarding the YWCA. Why not put a movie theater downtown? I don’t know why the city planners haven’t considered it.
It would increase downtown revenue. Also, it would be good business for the restaurants downtown as well, as so many people have dinner and a movie or vice versa.
Even the smaller towns have at least one theater downtown. And we’re the capital city!
Nancie Simmons
Springfield
TRASH CAN CARTOON
The “This week” political cartoon by Chris Britt in the July 24 issue of Illinois Times was one of the most ignorant, bigoted, unjust and hateful anti-Catholic cartoons I have ever seen. You should be ashamed to print it. I can’t believe a community newspaper would deliberately alienate a large part of its community with such lying garbage. A trash can is where I deposited this issue – exactly where Illinois Times belongs.
Kevin Aldrich
Springfield
MENTORS MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Police officers are well compensated for their professionalism to the extent that they can own homes, have a family and live the American dream.
What happened to professionalism in the case of Eric Garner’s fatal encounter with the New York Police Department and paramedics?
Despite all their professional training, two purported police officers not wearing required police uniforms appeared at the scene of a quality-of-life complaint wearing street bum attire, not uniforms. The officers wrestled and applied an excessive fatal force chokehold to the victim, ending his life on a New York sidewalk for selling 50-cent cigarettes.
Not a single police officer appeared to respond to “I can’t breathe.” Neither NYPD nor paramedics bothered to perform required on-site CPR.
A NYPD officer cheapened this man’s life by stating on video that Garner was still breathing, which clearly was not the case. CNN cheapened Garner’s life even further by reporting that he died in the ambulance en route to the hospital.
Knowing these injustices are an omnipresent statistic, if you’re a white taxpayer, you may carelessly label Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s anti-violence program a state-funded anti-police program or state-funded stupidity. If you’re a black taxpayer, you’re most likely to label the program a necessary state-funded anti-violence program designed to prevent youth from facing potentially deadly law enforcement encounters by staying out of trouble.
Regardless of color, if your child habitually finds himself or herself facing similar circumstances, a mentor could have saved his or her life. If Eric Garner had the benefit of a mentor in his younger years, that benefit could have saved his life today.
I disagree with Rich Miller’s CapitolFax view that Quinn’s state-funded anti-violence and mentoring initiative is state-funded stupidity.
Tim L. Thornton
Springfield
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2014.
