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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 12, 2009

Jumping Gun At Sinkhole
An article in the newspaper Feb. 8 said district officials are considering pumping from a sinkhole off Morris Bridge Road.

A proposal was made at a public meeting Feb. 10 for permission to use the sinkhole. Water officials have jumped the gun and already started.

I live 150 yards from the sinkhole, and the water level in the sink is already down 25 feet. They have already built a concrete slab for a three-ton diesel pump and have already cleared a path through the woods with a bulldozer for the pipe.

Eight years ago they pumped a sink, and within three days all the wells within a quarter-mile went dry. They pumped it for six months, and we went without water for six months. I thought you had to get permission to start anything.

R.L. DeBOARD

Thonotosassa

Limit People, Not Water

Last Thursday in the Tribune the Southwest Florida Water Management District begged us not to water due to the drought, which is most notable for abnormal rainfall.

In the business section of the same day was an article seriously lamenting the huge drop in single-family home starts. There were only 932 during the last quarter in the bay area, the area most hard-hit by the drought. This very low number would amount to 3,728 new homes in a year, each to be lived in by a number of people. And our county and state governments spend our tax money to entice more people down.

Doesn't it dawn on anyone that the more people there are sucking on the straw, the less water there is to go around?

The thieves tell us we must do this to have an economy. Bull! With intelligent planning we can have whatever economy we want, without the fast-fix of shotgun development.

I will take the water problem seriously when I see our government agencies doing the same, by limiting the number of people using a very limited resource. Quit asking me to save water so you can give it to someone else.

HENRY CLAYTON

Dade City

Help The Unemployed

As the number of people not working increases, the availability of state unemployment funds will decrease and possibly become exhausted. What better way for the federal government to stimulate the economy than to support unemployment pay, which benefits our neighbors in need? This money will go directly to buying groceries, paying mortgages and keeping families together.

I have no sympathy for banks and their foolish loans, carmakers that persist in building autos that nobody wanted and Wall Street types and their million-dollar bonuses.

JIM HAYNES

Tampa

Unfair Attack On Rush

Have you read what you printed Feb 8? ("Commentator's Rush To Bitterness")

You at the Tampa Tribune are what you write and what you print, and you are printing some bad material, in this case by a man who should know better - Frank Harris III, chairman of the Journalism Department, Southern Connecticut State University.

Harris writes that Rush Limbaugh is "putting race before country." There is nothing at all racial about Limbaugh's comments on President Obama's attempt to lead the country into a socialized nanny state.

Limbaugh hopes that he fails to do that. To drag out race is pathetic, shameful, false and misleading. Harris is a poor writer and a poorer journalist, and the Tribune is equally at fault for printing such unbalanced scribbling.

IRWIN SCHUSTER

Tampa

Stop The Energy Fraud

The Senate version of the stimulus bill has $50 billion in loan guarantees for "eligible technologies." This has been deceptively defined so that most of that money will go to finance nuclear and filthy coal power plants. Please revise the bill and stop the fraud on green-energy advocates.

LISA POTTER

New Port Richey

We're Apes' Cousins

Regarding George Will's column on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (Other Views, Feb. 9): He began with an inaccuracy, quoting the wife of the bishop of Worcester exclaiming: "Descended from the apes!" as if to suggest humans evolved from apes. He then contrasted this flawed view of evolution with the Creationist belief that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form."

But humans didn't evolve from apes. According to the Evolution Library and many other authoritative sources, humans share a common ancestor, not a direct lineage, with modern African apes. Millions of years ago our ape-like descendants split into two separate lineages, one evolving into gorillas and chimps and the other evolving into our early human ancestors.

Apes are more like our cousins, not our grandparents. Such a distinction is essential to the understanding of human evolution.

STEPHEN M. FELDMAN

Valrico

JOIN DISCUSSION

The Tribune welcomes letters and e-mails from readers. The text should be original and no longer than 150 words. By making a submission, you agree the Tribune may edit the letter for length and clarity, and publish it in any medium.

Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. Mail to: P.O. Box 191, Tampa, FL 33601-0191. Or e-mail without attachments: tribletters@tampatrib.com.

The writer is a retired professor who taught at the University of Louisville.

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