Letters to the editor (11/3/09)

Your article "A driving issue" (Oct. 30) on the controversial routes to join the Seward and Glenn highways is a repetition of the same traffic problem that has plagued Anchorage for years. Spend more money, widen more streets, make it possible for even more traffic to be congested

Why not seriously try to get some of these automobiles off the highways with a program of planning train traffic from Palmer, Wasilla and the rest of the Valley? Of course, this would then take some real city planning to get internal bus routes in order so that once people get to Anchorage, there would be buses going near the places they work. This is going to be a necessity in the future, so why not get started on it now?

And do some real planning to get train and bus fares cheap enough, and routes often enough, to make it economical to use them. Let's look to the future. You don't have to destroy neighborhoods to get better transportation.

-- Peggy Benson

Palmer

Is the nation going under?

It was Ronald Reagan who said, "when we stop being a nation under God, we will be a nation gone under."

-- Frank Dahl

Anchorage

Afghanistan needs US help

Because of the war in Afghanistan, America is spending large amounts of money trying fix things there. I don't think that this is a bad thing. Afghanistan needs our financial aid, as well as the help of other countries. There are many problems such as lack of education, lack of electricity and water and poverty. America shouldn't be the only country spending money, but we shouldn't stop. We should keep spending the amount that we are spending now. My father, who is deployed right now, said that the soldiers in Afghanistan have been there for nine months, and they haven't had any financial problems.

With many countries sending money, it shouldn't be as hard to restore Afghanistan.

-- Ashlyn Smith, age 14

Fort Richardson

A reason to save libraries

I was happy to read that Joan Kane, Inupiaq poet and Whiting Writers' Award winner, attributes her love of reading to entire days spent at the Muldoon Library. Alaska may be putting children at a disadvantage by disregarding national standards for education, but let's not diminish their access to municipal libraries. For the sake of Alaska's kids, please don't cut the library budget any further than we already have!

-- Sue Scherwin

Girdwood

Interesting meaning for rogue

According to my 10-pound, unabridged "Random House Dictionary," rogue is defined as:

A dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel; a tramp or vagabond; to live or act as a rogue; to cheat; no longer obedient or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating; renegrade. Syn. villain, trickster, swindler, cheat, montebank, quack.

I wonder if the lovely Sarah was wise enough to look up the definition of rogue before she decided on a title for her upcoming book!

-- Dona Corey

Palmer

Who put antelope at airport?

What neurotic imbecile put a stuffed pronghorn antelope in the Ted Stevens airport?

Are we still celebrating the fact that men go out and shoot the strongest and largest of any given species? At least make it indigenous to Alaska.

I know, let's have Ted go out and shoot the largest and strongest of the politicians and lawyers. That should lend some color to that carbuncle of an airport.

-- Lillian K. Staats

Wasilla

Levi showing off for gay men?

Poor misguided and misinformed Levi Johnston.

Obviously he is under the impression that Playgirl Magazine is primarily read by women.

Has no one told him that it has a large gay men following? I wonder how he feels knowing that he will be the object of affection by many gay men?

-- Tony LaMantia

Chicago, Ill.

Bryant a premonition of Palin

I was watching "Milk" on HBO the other day when I had an unsettling premonition as I saw long-forgotten, wholesome, cute, god-blesssed Anita Bryant. Anita? Sarah? Oh no, not again.

-- Jon Morton

Anchorage