Only one side of the street

The article in the DRC on Saturday presented a very one-sided picture of the Church Drive widening.

Firstly, the Texas Department of Transportation mandates that all oil roads such as Church do not meet specifications for a two-lane road with considerable traffic. The road is dangerous to drivers. The city is following the TxDOT guidelines.

Secondly, the trees being cut are what can be called brush trees, not stately elms, oaks, etc. I have walked the road many times and observed the trees.

Thirdly, I am sure some of the people protesting have accepted very generous checks for their property involved. It is like getting your cake and eating it also.

The city of Corinth is improving the city by providing a safe and wide enough two-lane road that citizens use to cut their driving time getting to I-35.

Dr. John Admire,

Corinth

Torture, a moral disease

Several have written to defend the Bush administration’s use of torture against suspected Islamic terrorists. These writers are correct when they state that terrorists are not deterred by the Geneva Convention or international law and that constraint by us does not persuade terrorists to show mercy.

Dick Cheney still openly advocates the use of torture, saying that it kept America safe. There is not one shred of evidence that a single attack against America was prevented by information gained by torture. Professionally trained U.S. Army interrogators warn that intelligence gained by torture is mostly worthless because torture victims will confess to everything, including things they did not do or plan. Other methods of gaining valid intelligence are far more successful.

With no Biblical support for torture, we cannot present ourselves as righteous people to the world when we force Islamic prisoners to undress and pose lewdly while we photograph them, or slam their heads into walls and kill them, or when we nearly drown or actually drown them, or when we beat them mercilessly.

Torture was committed with the connivance of Democrats like the back-pedaling Nancy Pelosi and with the advocacy of top-level Bush appointees who now enjoy cushy jobs.

President Obama pretends the past will go away if we just ignore it, but this untreated wound in the collective American conscience will fester, and the next time we face the moral disease of torture, it will be even worse.

Walter Lindrose,

Denton

If you can’t afford to live

Mr. Horrell (Letters, June 19), you got so hung up on a test that a health care corporation calling itself an HMO denied you that you couldn’t see the point I made!

It’s not about a single instance of a corporation denying a test: It’s about cherry-picking only the people who aren’t likely to need care.

It’s about pre-existing condition exclusions. It’s about denial of coverage for “undisclosed” pre-existing conditions. It’s about rescission of coverage when someone gets sick. It’s about deductibles so high that you don’t go to the doctor because of the cost, even when you have coverage.

It’s about physician visits being more costly when you have coverage than when you don’t. It’s about 62 percent of personal bankruptcies being directly related to catastrophic illness, even when over 88 percent of those bankrupted had health care coverage. It’s about over 45 million citizens and rising, your neighbors and my neighbors, not having coverage. It’s about premiums so high that you can’t afford to pay them and eat or pay rent, too.

It’s about being laid off because you are too old and premiums are too high for your employer. It’s about having unemployment of $365 a week and premiums for COBRA of $865 a month. It’s about when you get sick, you go to your doctor and get help. It’s about “If you can’t afford to live, you die!”

Have a nice day, if you can; many of your neighbors can’t.

Franklin “Mac” Poe,

Denton

Honor all religions

Several questions arise about the “change” being initiated by our elected president. Do I like them? No, I do not, but the way to change this will be the elections in 2010, where some changes of the current political officials can be voted out of office, and a new president in 2012.

I feel everyone has the right to honor religion as they desire and I will not condemn any religion, including Islam. However, we do not need to have our president tell the entire world that we are “no longer Christian,” and stress how he wants to change our government, which is leading directly toward socialism.

We, in America, should be able to retain our freedom without massive government control. I travel the world and I will depart this week for a strong Muslim country. I am taking more than 70 boxes of needed supplies to donate to them, and I never question their religion nor do I try to change them.

I will be critical of our elected officials, but never of any religion of anyone or any country.

Ray Roberts,

Denton

Fact-free diet

Roger Horrell, you wrote June 19 “‘the millions of people in this country who cannot afford basic health care. ….’ Yet $180 a month for Marlboros and $30 a month for candy?”

That statement is a new low for right-wing fact-less rhetoric, even for you. Tell me, when statisticians were determining the number of people without insurance, was there an area to check that said “Smokes $180 a month” and another that says “eats candy bars $30 a month”?

Do you think sensible, reasonable people will actually believe that millions of people without insurance are in that condition because every one of them burns up $180 per month on cigarettes and $30 per month on candy?

Did you think before you wrote that, or is this another case of you engaging the gears in your mouth before you engage the gears in your brain?

June 17, you wrote about waterboarding “not your limp-lame idea of ‘water torture.’” Anyone would take this to mean that you believe the Cheney line that waterboarding isn’t torture.

I am offering you an opportunity to prove your point. Would you volunteer to be waterboarded in public for 15 minutes?

If you will agree, we can arrange a time and place and maybe alert the press to report on your findings.

Roger, you have been challenged. It’s put-up or shut-up time.

WLS talk-show host Mancow Muller tried it May 22. He lasted six or seven seconds and said it was absolute torture.

John Nance Garner,

Denton