Letter carriers should stick to a schedule — or risk getting bit

Letter carriers should stick to a schedule — or risk getting bit

My dog and I went out on our porch at 12:30, and he nearly bit the mailman. On our street there is at least one dog for every other house. At one time we had a regular mailman, and we all knew when our mail would be here. The last few years we have not, but we eventually realized that they either came at 11 a.m. or 5 p.m.

I just found out that we now have a regular, but she’s doing another job, so we have a different one every day. To make it worse, whenever someone misses a day, our mailmen have to pick up the overtime. Under new policy of the post office, our mailmen have to do overtime routes first. This screws up our 11 or 5 times.

If I get sued for a dog bite because of post office policy, please be informed. I have free lawyers, and the post office will be sued for five times what I am sued for — and it will be a jury trial.

It isn’t any wonder that the post office is in trouble?

Dennis H. Mason, Youngstown

Police did their job well

I’m writing this letter to ex- press publicly the gratitude, appreciation, and respect that I have for the Vienna Township police officers who were assigned on July 16 to deal with the protesters at the injection well site. Their demeanor was fair, but firm. They were very professional and clearly explained to us why they were handling their assignment in the way that they were. Through them, I think that I learned the difference between power and strength. Their authority and power were granted to them by society, but their strength was of their own doing. They gave themselves this strength. I’m not referring to their obvious physical strength, but to their strength of character.

In a calm but assertive tone, they told us that we could not protest on the private property on which the injection well is operating, but that we could protest on the other side of the road. Looking out for our safety, one of the officers told us that we could not be on or too close to the road either because the road is heavily traveled and dangerous. We told the officer that we would stand back and be careful. We lined up single file on the shoulder of the road, held up our protest signs, and listened to the Rev. Monica Beasley-Martin preach a sermon that contained passages from the Bible. Then, we returned to our homes. At least, most of us did. A few went to jail.

Wouldn’t it be a better world if all public servants — every policeman, teacher, government official, and anyone who is granted power and authority by society — displayed the same professionalism?

All of you who silently understand and appreciate what we are trying to accomplish by our protests are invited to join us in Washington D.C. on July 28 ... and be less silent.

Steven J. Beck, West Middlesex, Pa.

Bringing power to the people

Kudos to all Ohio Edison workers who worked long and hard on July 7 in sweltering heat to restore power to McDonald and many other areas. At 5:30 p.m. the inside of my car read 100, and that was with air conditioning. God bless you one and all.

Patricia M. Fedyski, McDonald

The choice should be clear

The joke goes like this. So a clown gets up in front of a crowd and says, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a joke. Barack Obama really said that to a group of people in Virginia. Perhaps it is a joke — a joke on all of us.

That socialist rant by Obama could have been lifted directly from the pages of the novel “Atlas Shrugged,” in which Ayn Rand, having fled totalitarian socialism, wrote to warn us what happens if we allow ourselves to be misled by the Barack Obama-types in society, men of limited intelligence and no ability whose only purpose in life is to convince men of even less intelligence and ability to hold a gun to the heads of life’s achievers to make them surrender their genius and ability in support of the lazy and the corrupt.

The Barack Obamas of this world produce nothing and are not capable of producing anything. But Rand’s book ends on a positive note with the promise of a new Renaissance when the achievers will return and rebuild — but no such hope exists for us if the path of Obama is followed.

The election will give us a stark choice between the lazy and corrupt (Barack Obama) and the achiever (Mitt Romney).

Joseph K. Waltenbaugh, New Castle, Pa.

Beware the hyphenated candidate

Do the majority of middle- class, hard-working Americans really believe that off-shore money-hiding, tax-avoiding, job-outsourcing, company-killing multimillionaire Mitt Romney is really one of us?

If so, I have a really good deal for them: The tooth fairy and I own a bridge in Brooklyn, N.Y., that we’ll sell them — cheap.

Lee Guy, Boardman