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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 10, 2009

The History of Rails

Regarding "Trains Could Save Car Manufacturers" (Letters, Jan. 3) by Dianne Agster:

The railroads of the U.S. were built by the so-called Robber Barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Up to and including the war era of the 20th century, they were the backbone of our nation. After that period a new mode of transportation arose - the modern airline industry. At that point in our nation's history, our government saw fit to subsidize this new industry and cut off most help to railroads.

As the airlines grew, railroads shrunk and were forced to eliminate all passenger service. The government took control of the passenger trains under the name Amtrak, and they still try to run the same today. And while other nations were creating high-speed rail lines, we were building more airports. Today we have more than all the countries of the world combined.

Look at it this way: The airlines own nothing. They lease their planes. All airports are owned by the respective governments where they are located.

With air transportation, it is all about lease. Railroads own all the land they traverse and also so pay property taxes. Their rolling stock is usually leased through some trust deal with a bank or insurance company, and they also must fight for any government subsidies they need.

This seems to be quite a conundrum with Amtrak, since it is wholly owned by the government and yet they almost always want to cut the funding.

LENNART C. GADDE

Lithia

No Degree In Football

In following the developments on Robert Marve, the football hero from Plant High who had a football scholarship from the University of Miami, I read that the family or a representative for them reportedly contacted LSU, Tennessee and the University of Florida about the possibility of transferring prior to this problem becoming public knowledge.

It seems he does not want to attend classes as expected by those who gave him this scholarship. He is not majoring in football.

I was on a music scholarship in undergraduate studies and was expected to attend classes. I was successful, and now have both masters and doctoral degrees.

The Golden Rule for success in life is: "The one with the gold makes the rules." I believe his family should insist he attend classes as expected, as I never saw this item mentioned by the parents, and he will find success.

H.E. DAVIS

Tampa

Control Water Flow

Every time I visit Tampa there are water shortages and restrictions.

It should be mandatory here that new faucets control the flow rates. The shower control where I visit is a single lever that turns right to left, controlling temperature, but the water flows at a preset rate and can't be adjusted down. I often want to decrease the warm water flow but can't due to the faucet's design.

I checked Lowe's and The Home Depot. Of about two-dozen faucet designs, only one or two allow you to adjust the rate of water flow as well as temperature. This can't be due to either scalding dangers or expense. It's much faster and easier to slap the lever forward to off than to crank it from left to right, through warm to cold to off. One that had adjustable flow cost the least.

Much water would be saved by requiring that faucets' design allow you to decrease the preset rate of flow. It is inexcusable that this has not been required.

MIKE DEVANE

Rocky Gap, Va.

Taxpayers' Burden

Historically speaking, your article "Downtown's Crown Jewel" (Jan. 3) was really interesting. However, since rousting all the industry from Ashley Drive the downtown riverfront has been nothing but a burden to taxpayers.

When will it all end?

JOHN SHAFER

Tampa

No Fennelly Fan

Regarding "Road Race Is On" (Sports, Jan. 3):

Would someone please either get rid of Martin Fennelly or transfer him to BayLife?

This is the Sports section, not open-mic night at the Improv. I need facts and statistics, not his feeble attempts at humor and one word/sentence paragraphs. I want to read about the topics he covers but feel no desire to wade through his continuous repetition of phrases and weak endeavors in the arena of comedy.

To quote the man himself, "How crazy is it?" Pretty stupid if you ask me. At least Daniel Ruth wrote in a forum that lent itself to humor, and the Tribune canned him. There's little comedic about sports beyond the occasional idiot millionaire who commits a felony for which the average Joe would go to jail, while the athlete usually walks free to continue reaping more millions (read: Howe, Strawberry, Gooden, et al..).

While I like comedy, I don't usually like it when I'm trying to find out who won the game or what the prognostications for the playoffs are. Put Joe Henderson in command of the sports page, please.

CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN

Tampa

Where's The Comeback?

I have been a fan of Martin Fennelly, but both he and your paper used very poor judgment on your Jan.1 article about Stephen Garcia ("Comeback Kid Comes Home To The Outback"). If I got this right, a spoiled, immature high school quarterback graduates early, goes to the University of South Carolina, drinks and parties for a couple of months, gets arrested for underage drinking and doesn't learn his lesson. And when a professor doesn't realize how important he is, he keys his car and is suspended from the team.

During the same period he gets his high school girlfriend pregnant and doesn't marry her. Finally, he gets a starting position only when the other quarterback can't throw the ball to his teammates.

Where's the comeback? This kid hasn't learned a thing. Yet, Martin and the Tribune deem him worthy of the front page.

Where are your values? What message do you send? It should have read, "The Dumb Back Kid."

Shame on you for glorifying a mixed-up kid.

J. PATRICK

Tampa

Keep Sports In Sports

I'm sorry; I just don't get it. I seem to recall a time when "front-page news" meant something of world-wide, national, state or local importance.

How, then, does a football bowl game between two unranked universities, both of which are outside Florida, regardless of the Steve Spurrier and Stephen Garcia connection, rate front-page coverage, while 20,000 additional U.S. troops being deployed to Afghanistan is relegated to the page 22?

Wouldn't the sports' section be the appropriate location for Outback Bowl coverage?

I believe the citizens of the Tampa Bay area, especially those purchasing the Tribune, deserve more serious prioritization of what is news.

DANIEL SZLAG

San Antonio

No Free Pass

The turnpike authority thinking that they can limit toll roads to E-Pass holders only, in the name of safety, sounds like a backhanded way to eliminate jobs and do away with toll attendants.

How stupid it is to limit traffic on the Crosstown Expressway to only E-Pass holders. What about out-of- towners and tourists, not to mention the men and women employed on the toll roads.

It's time to put a stop to this stupidity. Fire the person who came up with this idea.

LAWRENCE A. BURNHAM

Odessa

Financial Ineptitude

After being strong-armed by the crooks who lined their pockets and turned their heads to the consequences in Congress, we have "bailed out" the savings and loan thieves so they can horde our money and refuse to loan it to the ones who truly need it - people who actually work and pay taxes.

To compound this insult, we have bailed out the union machine in Detroit for its inept behavior over the past 40 years. Our illustrious government leeches announced they will be receiving 5 million shares in GM - for loaning our money, not theirs, to these thieves.

And on top of this insult is the audacity of the Capitol Hill Gang to give themselves a $4,700 raise. With an 8 percent public approval rating, who thinks they deserve a raise besides their greedy selves?

While the working class is chastised by these elitists to "cut back," "learn to sacrifice," "change your lifestyles," etc., these union and government people continue to grease their own wheels with no concern for taxpayers. And don't forget, we weren't allowed to vote on any of it.

When is enough enough?

GARY KEELER

Plant City

Robbed Of Faith

Greed is insidious. Its tentacles strangle and corrupt the morality of those who bow to its power. We have watched greed in action over the past 12 months as corporate executives, elected leaders and union officials walked away with "golden parachutes" and filled election coffers, having fleeced millions of workers, voters, homeowners and market investors.

Each of us owns a share in the greed. Through greed, ignorance and inaction, we voters do not force our elected leaders to solve Medicare, prescription drug, Social Security and national debt debacles. Now, we will allow our leaders to enact a $2 trillion dollar cash infusion to shore up defective and greedy corporate managers and investors. Rather than have them pay for their follies, we choose to spread their failure as a "national debt" for payment by our children and grandchildren.

The hard-working people of this country are outraged at the moral and ethical culpability of those in whom we placed our trust. Those responsible not only robbed us but also altered our trust and confidence in the capitalist system. Their actions are deplorable, and their abuse of power unconscionable.

Future generations may or may not recover financially, but their faith in our government and its sponsored institutions are perhaps forever gone.

NANCY RIPLEY

Apollo Beach

Lawmakers' Morality

With the Legislature meeting to deal with the budget crisis, ruling out first and foremost any look at Florida's inequitable system of ad hoc tax preferences while concentrating on cutting funds to children's health, hospitals and the developmentally disabled, the question isn't whether our legislators are prudent. It is whether they are even moral.

To prefer that major corporations be free of sales taxes on the hundred-dollar-per-plate goodies they eat in sky boxes while cutting health care funding for children is immoral.

And if our legislators' priorities are immoral, it is because we allow them to be. Their values represent ours.

DOUG BEVINS

Dade City

Homeless Chickens

If someone wanted to devise an economic system that would practically guarantee the ruination of a country, they couldn't improve over what we have now.

There are 435 representatives and 100 senators whose first priority is to bring home the bacon to their districts. Who is going to pay for the bacon seems not to be a consideration.

Have the chickens finally come home to roost, only to find many of them don't have a roost left?

JACK PEEL

Tampa

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.

Also, read and participate in the Tribune editorial board's blog, "Thinking Out Loud," at www.tboblogs.com/index.php/thinkoutloud/categories....

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