Letters to the editor (6/20/09)

Someone is going to get seriously injured on the heavily used bike path on the Eagle River Loop Road if the sand is not cleaned up. It is not possible to ride a road bike safely on the bike path from Eagle River Road down to the bridge. The safest place to ride down the hill to the bridge is in the actual road lane. It is difficult enough stopping on the hill when it is wet, as evidenced by the fence that routinely gets taken out at the intersection of Driftwood Bay Drive and the Loop Road.

The state is responsible for the cleanup of the road and bike path. A Department of Transportation employee advised there is a contract for the cleanup and the state has no input into its priorities, as long as it is completed by July 15. If this is correct, whoever wrote and approved the contract should be removed. It is unsatisfactory that this danger to the community on our heavily used bike paths is allowed to continue.

-- Sheela Abarr

Eagle River

Joke the price of political life

Sarah Palin's complaints toward David Letterman are rather two-faced. I do believe Mr. Letterman and his staff should have researched their material before running the monologue and the commentary was done in poor taste. But, Mr. Letterman has apologized for the mistake and it is time to move on.

Gov. Palin didn't have a problem exploiting Bristol and Levi for the vice presidential seat, John McCain and the Republican agenda. Is Palin naive enough to think that her family's private lives are off limits? The American media feeds off such stories. This is the price one pays in order to achieve so-called political rank. If anything, Mr. Letterman's comment helped draw attention to Gov. Palin's diminishing popularity. If Gov. Palin doesn't want to compete with the "big dogs," then she better stay on the porch and take in the view of Russia.

-- Michael Kief

Anchorage

What about Obama's kids?

The Palins are being criticized for making too much of a fuss about Letterman's sexual remarks about their 14-year-old daughter. Can you imagine the outcry if similar remarks were made about Obama's daughters?

-- Sara Davis

Anchorage

Discrimination is ugly

As I was driving down 36th Avenue tonight and saw all of those people wearing red and working so hard to prevent the nondiscrimination ordinance from passing, it occurred to me that I would be breaking the law if I refused to hire or rent to them because of their belief. Hmmmmmm.

-- Ann T. Market

Anchorage

Same-sex marriage, divorce, hurt society's foundation

Clarence Page opined that compared to other human failings, same-sex marriage is no threat to traditional marriage (June 17).

Divorce is not a welcomed event in people's lives. Co-habitating often enslaves a woman and makes a man less of one because of his lack of respectful commitment. Children born into a single-parent home due to an out-of-wedlock birth suffer socioeconomically and emotionally. Now add the confusion of a child trying to explain why s/he has two moms/dads, or answering a young boy, with two moms, why he doesn't have a dad to bond with.

Explaining to your children why mommy is leaving the family for another man or woman, or why your siblings all have different fathers is disturbing. Whether it's divorce, adultery, abuse, out-of-wedlock births, or same-sex activity, society should not be pleased. It all needs a face of repentance handled with truth, grace and love.

Mr. Page doesn't address the pain that goes with what he terms "lame" threats towards traditional marriage. All these relational dysfunctions are threatening to traditional marriage, as well as to the foundational social structures that support our children, families, and relationships in general. -- Rhonda A. Hubbard

Seward

Church ought to be taxed like any other political group

The Anchorage Baptist Temple canceled Wednesday night service so members of the church could picket, speak and make their presence known at the Assembly hearing on the anti-discrimination ordinance.

I am outraged that this "political organization" is allowed to maintain its tax-free status. Make Jerry Prevo pay the taxes on his huge political estate. Jerry Prevo is nothing more than a political animal of the same ilk as George Wallace or Jesse Helms, both of whom used their bully pulpits to discriminate against American citizens for their many years in the political arena,

It is tragic that hatred and anger have been, and continue to be a part of the political landscape in our country. Nearly 150 years ago at his second Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln, looking out on a nation torn in half, filled with hate and rage, tasked our forefathers to go forth "With malice toward none, and charity for all." I ask that the assembly listen to the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln rather than the hateful ranting's of the ever-present, ever-political Jerry Prevo and pass AO 2009-64.

-- Mary Ann Chaney

Anchorage

Knik Arm Bridge a waste

I am responding to Anna von Reitz's letter regarding the bridge ("Knik Bridge won't hurt Anchorage," June 14).

The Knik Arm Bridge is a boondoggle if ever there was one. Ms. von Reitz says that "eleven thousand daily commuters need a break." I suggest the following alternative to add jobs and provide relief to Valley commuters. For less than the cost of building this behemoth, we could construct a light rail system to the Valley and significantly upgrade the bus system in Anchorage. Other benefits of this alternative include cleaner air, less traffic, and fewer dead moose on the highway.

Best of all, when gas prices go sky high again, as they surely will, we will all appreciate having a good public transportation option available.

-- Susan Abbott

Anchorage

Opponents of code change want to keep discriminating

Paul Jenkins' recent Voice of the Times column stated that the sexual orientation amendment to the city code would address "what essentially is a non-existent problem." Non-existent?! When I asked Barbara Jones, executive director of the Equal Rights Commission, about sexual orientation discrimination complaints, she said, "We turn them away at the door." Investigators listen, she said, "but we can't open a file if sexual orientation is the basis of the discrimination complaint."

Jenkins also failed to mention that members of the Equal Rights Commission recently voted in favor of supporting the amendment, even though it would increase their workload.

I sense that many opponents at the June 9 meeting were not protesting because the Assembly was wasting its time considering an amendment that isn't needed, as Jenkins claims. I believe opponents are against the ordinance because it would take away their opportunity to discriminate, and they are fearful of losing what the current law unfairly gives them.

-- Janet L. Steinhauser

Eagle River

To be a great country, US should provide health care

More than one hundred years ago the people of this great country decided that all children should have access, free of charge, to a basic education. It came with a cost. The quality of that education wasn't equal (it still isn't today). But each child had a guarantee of school.

Today, for the U.S. to be a "great" country, all of its citizens should have equal access to quality health care. Health care in this country is good, but expensive. The lucky can afford care, afford health insurance or work for companies that provide coverage. But tens of millions of Americans find the cost of health care or health insurance out of reach.

Making health care available to all will be expensive. Taxpayers will have to pay more. Doctors and nurses may make less. The bottom lines of drug companies, hospitals, insurance companies and all those who feed off the health care needs of this country may be a little thinner.

But like universal education, universal health care is worth the cost.

-- Elliott Barske

Anchorage