Too late to be prudent

Too late to be prudent
EDITOR:
This letter is in regard to one from the communications and public relations director of the public library. If the library is being so prudent, it should have started being prudent before building the Poland library on a flood plain. Building that library where it is was one of the most stupid things that was done in this Valley, and there were a lot of stupid things done here.
The taxpayers are the ones who suffer for those stupid mistakes. Now there is talk of closing the North Jackson and Lake Milton libraries. What's going on here? They cost next to nothing, but, then, someone has to pay for the Poland mess.
We "way out here" probably don't count for much, but just watch out. Your part of the county seems to be getting overpopulated. Guess where all the people are building homes? "Way out here."
MARJORIE PITTMAN
Diamond
Choices have to be made
EDITOR:
The city of Girard has had more than one article recently in the paper about implementing plans to get out of fiscal emergency over the years. This is the same Girard asking for a new school with a large price tag for the city residents.
I am not 100 percent against the new school, but there has to be a way to get the school, the police levy, keep the firefighters and balance the budget. I don't think it will all happen if we are expected to pay for a college campus instead of a high school. Is it really necessary to be paying $5 million for the lot to put the school on?
My main concern is it is not fair to put the school levy up for vote in August and leave the others in November. Put it all on the same ballot and let the residents decide what they want to pass.
We might need a new school, but we also need to keep it in order with a fully staffed police force, firefighters and hopefully find a way to get the ambulance service back.
VICTORIA L. PARDON
Girard
Media only give people what they want, which is scary
EDITOR:
Your June 23 editorial about the "hour-long, kid-glove interview by NBC TV's Katie Couric," with the runaway bride hit the mark. I hope everyone reads it, because it reveals a sickness that is creeping in our culture. At one time this illness destroyed the mighty Roman Empire.
Recently I watched a T.V. program on "Grand Theft Auto," a violent video game. The program showed a youth who apparently was addicted to this game and who subsequently committed murder.
Once I attended a writer's conference in Columbus. Someone had done a study on the types of books that publishers accept for publication. According to this study, 85 percent of those books contained violence, sex or both. I do not blame the publishers or the TV stations and their workers. They are simply the messengers trying to make a buck, and present to society what it wants. It seems like society has an insatiable hunger for sex, the bizarre, and the violent.
In the same editorial, you also mentioned the human tragedy in Zimbabwe and the "war on the poor." But those people are only numbers, in a far away Africa. Spending one full hour of TV prime time to awaken our conscience to this human tragedy would not improve ratings. We get only what we want.
Our hunger for the bizarre and the violent is perhaps more dangerous than any perceived enemy; it is the terrorist within. How long can we last?
RASHID A. ABDU, M.D.
Canfield.
Watch out, America
EDITOR:
In response to a recent letter, CAFTA will kill agriculture in the United States. This year is the first year in many decades that the U.S. has had a trade deficit in agriculture. The South American countries can produce anything they and we need. Wait until the large corporations start farming down there. We'll be flooded with their produce.
Shoes gone, Clothes about gone. Steel way down. Computers gone. I bought garlic at a flea market without looking: grown in China.
Watch out, America. This country is for sale.
BOB SLOVKOVSKY
Youngstown