Lance Armstrong worth being hailed as a hero
Lance Armstrong worth being hailed as a hero
EDITOR:
Since Sept. ll, Americans have found solace and inspiration in the sacrifices of, among others, New York's safety service personnel and the passengers on Flight 93. Lately, however, the term & quot;hero & quot; has been overused to the point that its value is going the way of most stock portfolios.
It is regrettable that the broadcast media have all but ignored a man worthy of the name. Lance Armstrong, riding for the U.S. Postal Service team, is on pace to win his fourth consecutive Tour de France, arguably the most grueling of athletic competitions.
To accomplish this feat, Armstrong must torture himself and his bicycle 2,000 miles in 20 days over isolated mountains and along spectator-crowded roads while wearing the distinctive yellow leader's jersey. Protecting him from a terrorist attack is a logistical impossibility.
Hopefully, the courage that helped Armstrong survive cancer will see this heroic symbol of America's promise to victory today. We should all be aware of and inspired by his accomplishments.
DAVID CAMPANA
Girard
Traficant's expulsion good for revitalizing the area
EDITOR:
On July 24 the second phase of the effort to clean up and revitalize the area was started. The biggest crook in the Valley was expelled from congress. This was a good beginning, but only the start.
We still have many embarrassments in public life. We have a sitting judge who fraudulently registered motor vehicles at a false address. When caught, the judicial candidate said she didn't know it was illegal. She was elected anyway.
We have a county commissioner who used county credit cards to pay for trysts with her lover and claimed they were on county business. When caught she repaid the money. No big deal in the Mahoning Valley?
We have sitting judges who took bribes disguised as gifts. When found out they remembered the gift givers. Business as usual in the Mahoning Valley?
We have religious leaders who write letters of support for the slimeballs trying to avoid paying for their crimes. Standard operating procedures in our area?
We have the media all over the country seeking out the chowder-heads willing to spout off for the cameras supporting the disgraced ex-congressman. These people equate disrespectful vulgarity and blustery profanity for manhood.
I question if our area is better off now than before Jim Traficant: what with a couple of fancy buildings and money wasted on a useless scheme to build a white elephant arena, that will suffer the same fate as everything else our thankfully, ex-congressman convinced our government to waste our tax dollars on.
I predict this disguised crook will get a large number of votes if allowed to remain on the ballot. The upside is most of these votes will be taken from an unqualified candidate. The downside is that every vote is a nail in the coffin of the Mahoning Valley.
As long as the people who invest in new areas perceive us as an area that tolerates and even applauds corruption, we will continue to be the butt of jokes and ignored by serious investors who could help us regain our pre-Traficant affluence.
The majority of the area population agree with the majority of the rest of the country. We prefer to register our opinion by deeds not words. The loud mouths featured by the media are not the majority. They just know outrageous opinions make the news broadcast.
Remember the future of Mahoning Valley depends on continuing the great start Wednesday evening.
ROBERT HUSTED
New Springfield
No taxation without representation at issue
EDITOR:
Here is an interesting question. Do people of the 17th District in Ohio have to pay federal income taxes now that we are not represented in the House of Representitives?
Was not one of the major reasons our founding fathers fought for independence, taxation without representation? I believe that the House of Representatives took away democracy from the fine people of the 17th District by taking it upon themselves to expel our representative, whom we elected by a landslide.
We have been without a representative for a while now because he has not been allowed to vote on the floor. Should we be allowed a rebate on our taxes? If this country was founded partially on the idea of taxation without representation, how can Congress take away some people's representation?
Isn't this going away from our what our ancestors died for? How many times has a trial had a change of venue for the benefit of the prosecution?
What would happen if he got re-elected? Is he banned for life?
KEN EVERSON
Youngstown
Let free enterprise work for prescription drugs
EDITOR:
Say no to subsidized drugs for senior citizens.
We do not want the government to get involved in using tax money to make the greedy drug companies even richer. What we do need is for free enterprise to be allowed to work. Allow Canadian, German, French and any other reliable source for drugs to send us catalogs and permit us to avoid big brother's regulating them and interfering with the competitive system.
JOHN WALSH
Hubbard
Why squander limited tax dollars on attorneys' fees?
EDITOR:
Here we go again in Columbiana County. The commissioners are telling us they need more money to run the county, but when they got the 1 percent sales tax that was supposed to be enough.
Now we have the judges taking the county to court to get more money, and the sheriff wants to get on the bandwagon and sue for more money. What bothers me is is that the lawyers' fees are being paid for with my tax money. None of this is coming out of the pockets of the judges, commissioners, or the sheriff.
How is it that we don't have money to run the county, but we have money to pay lawyers?
Just to file a trespassing charge would cost $1,500 in lawyers' fees. So think how much it is costing us with these suits.
What is wrong with this picture? When the vote comes up, this is one "no" vote they can count on.
BRUCE W. FANTON
Salineville
According to ESPN, LPGA can't be near Youngstown
EDITOR:
Watching the LPGA Classic last Sunday for a couple of hours, I started noticing an omission by the ESPN announcers covering the event.
They never ever referred to Youngstown. Their descriptions were "the beautiful 18-hole layout in Vienna, Ohio, midway between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, 35 miles east of Akron, in the heavily industrialized Mahoning Valley."
The words Youngstown, Ohio, were never used. Has the very mention of these words become so negative, even to Squaw Creek and the LPGA that they requested they not be used for the rest of the world to hear? How far down can we go?
JAMES D. SENTERS
Berlin Center