TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Letters To The Editor

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 22, 2007

Many Americans In Need

As we sit down to enjoy our Thanksgiving Day dinner, we all should count our blessings but ponder our future. When it comes to spending, Washington is all acceleration - the brakes are gone.

We have a national debt of $9 trillion, and it's climbing. Nowadays, fractured lives abound in America with vastly increased bankruptcies, hardship cases, soaring homelessness, etc.

Do we not need a square shake and justice for the working class and those in indebted penury? Has not America lost its manufacturing muscle? Has not crime seriously undermined our social and personal security? Medical care is an illusion for uninsured millions nationwide.
Mainstream America would be thankful on this Thanksgiving Day if there would be more spending in the public sector instead of our government's costly intervention patterns overseas and our wasteful foreign aid programs to ingrates which totals billions of dollars yearly.

Is it fair that hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this unnecessary war in Iraq while the social state and infrastructure of our own country is in a shambles? Domestic need is everywhere while the wasteful, spendthrift schemes of politicians continue unabated.

ROBERT B. FLEMING

St. Petersburg

Thank Our Military

Every day our servicemen and women put their lives in harm's way to protect the life we live.

Sadly, thousands have paid the ultimate sacrifice while others sustained multiple traumatic, emotional and disfiguring injuries that are permanent and will scar them the rest of their lives.

Yet after giving so much, they come back to a system that attempts to put a number on them and conveniently gets them lost in the shuffle.

Even though they volunteered for military duty, our government sent them over there and they did their duty honorably, valiantly and heroically.

Our government has the moral and legal obligation to swiftly, fairly and justly compensate them for their injuries for as long as they have to live with them.

This holiday, as we sit down to give thanks, please think of our servicemen and women, the sacrifice they make and let us fight alongside with them to ensure they are treated just as heroically when they return as they were when they left.

JAMES MANN

Valrico

Unappreciative Of Aid

Regarding "Katrina Victims Push For Tests Of Trailer Air" (Nation/World, Nov. 18):

It's not good enough that the U.S. government is providing free housing and other benefits to displaced residents as a result of Hurricane Katrina. These "victims" have been living in units for over two years now and it's obvious that a great number of them are milking every dime out of it.

Of course, appreciation isn't a consideration, so now they have attorneys involved to wring even more money out of the government who shelters them. A group of recipients to this free aid have decided that the air quality isn't acceptable and are forcing the government to dispatch federal scientists to evaluate the condition.

For those of you who may feel disenchanted, I can tell you that our local, state and federal government provides an infinite amount of programs and subsidies that are nothing short of amazing. Count your blessings and be thankful you live in the United States of America.

I doubt very seriously that the poor people affected by the tragedy in Bangladesh - or anywhere else for that matter - are or will be contacting attorneys today whining about their air quality suspicions.

ROBERT R. SOLOMON

Tampa

Call It Christmas

Just a brief note to our local retailers: The holiday season we are about to enter is Christmas. It is not some wintertime, generic holiday. If you would like to participate, and reap its rewards, then please call it what it is - Christmas.

Other religions have their holidays and we respect them and do not ask them to change their names. Why must Christians watch while their holidays are diminished?

Do you realize that 70 percent of Americans say they are Christians? Is that a market you feel you could serve proudly?

TED WHITAKER

Valrico

Skip The Turkey

Here are five good reasons to skip the turkey this Thanksgiving:

1. You will pardon a turkey - just like President Bush, but for the right reasons.

2. You won't suffer nightmares about how the turkey lived and died.

3. You won't have to call the Poultry Hotline to keep your family alive.

4. You won't have to sweat the saturated fat and cholesterol.

5. You are what you eat. Who wants to be a "Butterball"?

This Thanksgiving, let's give thanks for our good fortune, health and happiness with a life-affirming, cruelty-free feast of vegetables, fruits and grains.

My family's Thanksgiving dinner menu will include a "tofurky," lentil roast, mashed potatoes, corn stuffing, stuffed squash, chestnut soup, candied yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. An Internet search on vegetarian Thanksgiving got us more recipes and other useful information than we could use.

SUSAN WEILAND

Alachua

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT