Ready for change I can believe in after Afghan airstrike
Thank you Alissa Rubin and all the other news people who contributed to your report on the bombing of a Doctor Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. I believe we Americans deserve to know the truth regarding what is occurring in other parts of the world. Unlike Jeb Bush I do not believe "stuff just happens" is a rational explanation for our actions. Instead I see it as an attempt to avoid responsibility for actions we do not want to own up to.
I know there are Americans who do not want the truth published about our actions around the world. They will have long, drawn-out investigations and either no one will be held accountable or someone low on the hierarchy will be thrown under the bus. Or spin will be applied like "collateral damage" to minimize the tragic deaths of innocent men, women and children. Or they will direct our attention to the need for gun control to stop our domestic crimes like recently were committed at the college in Oregon.
I doubt if you are any more numbed than I am. I am ready for a change that I can believe in.
— Hugh R. Hays
Veteran for Peace and Justice
Soldotna
More baseball needed in ADN
St. Louis won the National League Central division championship a couple of days ago with their 100th win, and the best record in baseball. Perhaps it isn't the biggest news; they have won the World Series second only to the Yankees. Nevertheless, St. Louis does have its partisans in Southcentral Alaska and I know we weren't the only ones looking in the paper yesterday for some notice. They did it this year with an exceptional number of injuries and a team that has no stars, just a team that has played like a team with a different player stepping up night after night to be that game's star. And all has been done by the young manager, Mike Matheny, who has taken his team to the postseason for every one of his four years managing. Nothing that morning except the box score and the league standings. Thank you for having those at least.
But until the season is over, I don't like to see baseball crowded out of the paper by football, basketball, hockey and other sports. Perhaps you really do need a couple more pages in the sports section — already crowded with comics and advice columns.
— Vincent Rozkydal
Palmer
Seward Highway upgrades within Chugach State Park
Alaska Statute 41.21.121, Chugach State Park established, states in part that "The park is established to protect and supply a satisfactory water supply for the use of the people, to provide recreational opportunities for the people by providing areas for specified uses and constructing the necessary facilities in those areas, to protect areas of unique and exceptional scenic value, to provide areas for the public display of local wildlife and to protect the existing wilderness characteristics of the easterly interior area. The eastern area of the park shall be operated as a wilderness area, the central area as a scenic area, and the periphery areas as recreational areas."
The parking lot at Bird Creek certainly meets the above criteria. The enhancement of the transportation corridor along Turnagain Arm is aimed at not only increasing public safety, but has the added benefit of increasing recreational opportunities. It would seem that the construction of quarry sites that support recreational opportunities is in conformance with the statute.
The appropriate location of such sites is certainly debatable, but they should not be rejected out of hand.
— Eric Fuglestad
Anchorage
Knowledge lost with departure
Re: "Staffer who approved her own Seattle trip …" by Nathaniel Herz, Oct. 3.
So … Sen. Lesil McGuire is supposed to be off the hook because she didn't authorize the trip for her aide, Ms. Wojtusik?
And now this staff person is gone. Good thing, people are supposed to say?
But maybe the aide had learned something at this conference — which must have been the intent, one would think, of attending. Something to, in some way, justify the state paying the money to send her there, but now that she has been fired, or had to resign or something, we'll never get anything for that money.
That makes it even worse. We citizens get absolutely nothing, and the senator, feeling neither responsible or accountable, considers herself exonerated.
Unfortunately, Truman was before Sen. McGuire's time. That "buck" came to her desk but then continued on … to outer space, perhaps.
— L.L. Raymond
Homer
Pope should protect innocent
It amazes me that the pope comes to America and then tries to use his authority to get Americans free from being executed. So far he has tried to get a woman freed from execution who had her husband murdered. That request was denied, thank God, but now he is trying again concerning another death row criminal.
Why is it he feels his time should be spent first of all in being so concerned about changing the minds of American courts instead of helping free those who are in jail and beaten with no crime committed? The Rev. Saeed, an American pastor, has been in an Iran jail for 3 years. He is continually tortured and in very bad health. His crime? Not willing to give up his faith in Jesus. No, he hasn't taken a life, but believes in one, Jesus Christ, whose life was taken for him.
How about freeing those who are not guilty of anything instead of freeing those who have robbed someone of life and causing families tremendous sorrow from their loss? Another example of the twisted world in which we live.
— Pastor Marlan Schoenleben
Joy Christian Center
Anchorage
Tired of Hillary, ready for Joe
Three questions:
1. How many hours or days did Hillary have to practice in front of the mirror to say the words "sorry" and "mistake" for her lame apology regarding the email scandal? (Those two words are foreign to her vocabulary.)
2. Tired of Hillary Clinton or just the Clintons in general?
3. Where's Joe?
— Burt Neimeyer
Palmer
Vital skills taught in preschool
Articles on early education are always welcome and needed. Thank you Mr. Poage for your Oct. 3 commentary.
Many children are not developmentally ready for an academic preschool setting. However preschools need to prepare all children with the following skills vital for kindergarten success.
1. Sustain self-control in a group of peers
2. Follow verbal directions
3. Share time, space and materials
4. Be at ease with children and adults other than family
5. Take care of personal needs and belongings
6. Be comfortable using imagination and creativity
7. Know how to play
We agree the bridge to success begins with quality preschools.
— Jacquelyn Sparrow, staffer, and Miranda Mundell, director
St. Mary's Creative Playschool
Anchorage
Conservatism could fit Jesus
In response to imagining Christ as a conservative, I think Jesus would, in fact, be a conservative. During his time on Earth he showed himself to be a pretty savvy guy. He would have observed that the free market capitalist system has provided the highest standard of living to the masses during the entire history of mankind. He would have seen that socialism, the evidently preferred alternative economic system of the liberal (see poll results) Bernie Sanders. Although its objective seems to fit the Jesus ideal, wherever it has been tried on a national scale, has resulted only in misery, tyranny and death.
It has become almost a knee-jerk reaction for a liberal to bash the "1 percent," and then use that bogus phrase "trickle down" to diminish the free market concept. It is true the 1 percent accumulate wealth. That is because they create wealth. This would be harmful to the
99 percent only if the 1 percent hoarded their wealth. But they don't. Rather they either spend their wealth, but there is only so much that a billionaire can buy. So, in the interest of accumulating even more wealth, they invest it, usually wisely, thus creating employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for creative and ambitious individuals within the lower 99 percent, some from the lowest rung on the ladder.
I, near the bottom rung of the 99 percent, am forever grateful for the 1 percent for providing the quality of life I and most others like me have enjoyed.
Of course there is that other matter. Would Jesus agree with the extreme conservative view that the unborn child is human life thus worthy of legal protection? Would he celebrate or mourn the 56 million unborn children sacrificed in the United States alone, in the name of the mother's "the right to choose," a right that these children, because of their particular status apparently have no say about. So to my liberal friends, I ask, how do you think Jesus would come down on that one?
— Ron Michelson
Wasilla
The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter for consideration, email letters@alaskadispatch.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.