Greg Cravens
About Tommy Volinchak’s letter to the editor on female birth control …
Tommy Volinchak’s letter seemed to take issue with “liberals” equating pregnancy with health care: Did you print that in the name of fairness or was it a Jerry Springer moment?
Maybe Volinchak wrote his letter as a form of black humor, using gross insensitivity and exaggerated ignorance to parody those Bible-thumping wingnuts who actually believe this crap. Otherwise, he would be one of them. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
We all know that if tomorrow men became the gender that got pregnant, there would be no debates — free, easily accessible birth control would be the law of the land immediately.
It is difficult to determine these days whether such public expressions of opinion are really sincerely held delusions or merely cynical, manipulative posturing to shock, entertain, or influence the gullible. It has become such a zoo out there.
Richard Owen
About the city’s use of out-of-state contractors …
I hate to talk trash about something so petty as the limbs that have been sitting on my curb for seven weeks, but the city’s difficulties in picking up yard waste point out a larger problem: Paying out-of-state contractors to work in Memphis, thus catapulting our tax money out of the grasp of local citizens and the local economy.
At a time when the city’s resources are so strained, it is a no-brainer that we keep our tax money inside our community. Instead, in the case of curbside pickup, we contracted with an outfit in Texas for $4.25 million, of which half or more will go to Austin for “overhead, profit, and administrative costs.”
Memphis elected officials and our geniuses at Legislative Plaza in Nashville have adopted this insane policy to sell out to outsiders who will take our money and run, while giving us worse results than we had before. The charter school mania is another example, as we hire entities from California and Arizona to come into our communities. Keep our tax money in the hands of local people and businesses, and we will all have less waste to deal with.
Gary Moore
About Toby Sells’ story, “Hidden Cameras Catch Illegal Dumpers” …
Here’s an idea. How about increasing the county services budget and expanding trash service. If the service was appreciable there would be no reason to illegally dump! Since the county is spending money finding ways to criminalize their citizens!
Tee Toe
Whatever happened to just taking your trash to the nearest fast food dumpster?
Natalya1299
About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor on “rebooting” local politics …
Sadly, it seems that there are many voters who don’t read, don’t research, and don’t give a damn about the candidates’ behavior, in or out of the public office. They vote for the name and/or race of the candidate. I appreciate the information that Jackson Baker and the CA reporters have researched to provide us, the voters. I learned quite a bit about some of these candidates I didn’t know before. It’s a great help when going to the polls.
Pamela Cates
I look forward to the election postmortem, especially for the local Democratic Party. If once again they are swept by the local GOP for the county executive positions, there will need to be some serious soul searching.
My current guess is that there will be more votes in the Democratic Primary than the GOP Primary for Shelby County. I highly doubt that a case can be made for Republicans voting in a Democratic Primary due to the Alexander vs. Carr match-up. I believe the most recent early voting numbers showed 52 percent of voters voting in the Democratic Primary.
Charlie Eppes
Hate never gets you anything. And pandering to hate will only work so long as folks hold onto it. There already is a reboot in progress, but a lot of the older generation can’t see it.
OakTree