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Letters

  • Americans are tired of useless Middle East wars

    Republican Sens. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona did not approve of Chuck Hagel, criticized his selection as secretary of defense, and now have been invited to the White House to counsel the President.

    I imagine there will be cigars, brandy and maybe a bawdy joke or two will be told but little else will be accomplished. The two “tough guys” will return to their respective constituencies with another chevron on their sleeves for having been to the seat of power and actually making it all the way into the Oval Office.

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  • More rehab, not bigger jails, will help addiction

    I saw on TV and read in the newspapers about the rehabilitation program at Brushy Mountain.

    If the cities and county court system had this program, these people might not be in prison. Addicts to drugs and alcohol are put in jail and have to pay bail and court costs. If they can’t, they are stuck in jail and can’t get jobs.

    Bigger jails are not the answer. These addicts need rehab to productively return to society.

    Lives might be changed or saved.

    Mary Boseley
    Harriman
     

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  • U.S. EPA needs to take over ash spill handling

    I was shocked to learn about a federal lawsuit filed against  Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., a company employed by TVA to remediate the ash spill site in Roane County.  

    The allegations set forth in the suit are serious.

    Early on in the spill aftermath, I raised concern about the impact on the health of the Roane County residents due to the toxic constituents in the coal ash.  

    We were told time and again by the TVA that the ash was harmless.  

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  • You can benefit from supporting Dunn Center

    Do you realize how fortunate you are to live in Roane County?  

    Not only do our citizens have the benefit of a new, first-class hospital to treat people with a multitude of illnesses, but we also have the Michael Dunn Center to care for people with a multitude of disabilities.  

    The Michael Dunn Center provides services for more than 300 people each day, and is one of the largest employers of trained personnel in Roane County.

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  • Too much focus on sports, too little on studies

    Allow me briefly to respond to the most erudite column of the honorable Gerald Largen in your paper of Aug. 9.

    I consider Mr. Largen to be a friend for whom I was permitted to write historical columns, from about 1993 to the phasing out of The Standard in late 1996.

    It was a great learning experience for me for which I will always be grateful to him.

    Mr. Largen is a wordsmith without peer and well versed in many fields of endeavor of which sports is an exception.

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  • Testing the best way to measure what is taught

    “Students are more than a test score, and so are their teachers,” headlines a recent Roane County News article.  

    Of course, but that’s not the point of the article.

    The point of the article is that judging teachers by how much the teacher’s students have learned during the year is unfair.

    I attended grade school, high school, college and graduate school.  

    Nearly all the teachers I had believed they could tell what I learned by giving me a test or, usually, several tests.  

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  • Misspelled sign photo troublesome for Tea Party

    A couple weeks or so ago, the Roane County News chose to print a picture of a Tea Party member holding a sign with the word “Impeach,” as in “Impeach Obama” — except the sign was spelled wrong.
    Since the photographer took many more pictures of Roane County Tea Party members holding the signs, why was the only one that was misspelled make it into the paper?
    The girls who made the signs ran out of room for all of the letters only on that one sign.

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  • Old Blackie — time to ditch her or save her?

    Lawns, loyalty and luck — they are three things that would seem at first to have no connection to each other.

    But I am a loyal person with a car parked on my lawn, and for the life of me, I cannot imagine life without the old black Honda. It’s sitting there, depriving the grass of sunlight, rare though it has been these past months.

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  • The sting of that attack still burns — and itches

    Like Middle-Eastern terrorists, they were lying in wait, armed and dangerous, with revenge on their minds.

    Territorial, yes, and very capable of serious damage and inflicting terrible pain.

    Camouflaged by bands of colors —  dull reds, yellows and darker tones against a background of dull grays — they were virtually invisible.

    Unaware of their presence and intent, I blundered into their field of fire.

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  • Immigration reform both pro-growth, pro-agriculture

    Earlier this year, the U.S. Senate passed a commonsense immigration reform measure in a strongly bipartisan fashion. This was an important step in the right direction – especially for producers, farm workers and rural communities.
    The historic legislation passed by the Senate provides a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million people who are in our country today without authorization. They will have to go to the back of the line, pay fines and settle taxes they owe our nation.

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