Passport mess easily avoided

6/30/2007

Why is it the government's fault that people decided to wait until the very last minute before turning in their passport applications? The change wasn't sudden. It was announced long before it was scheduled to take effect. When I first heard of the new regulations, I immediately filed the paperwork in order to miss the inevitable rush of late applicants. At the time, I was not even planning on traveling internationally, but thought it would be a good idea to get a passport anyway, just in case. I received my passport in a little less than six weeks, and I did not even request expedition.

The process is not difficult, the cost is minimal, and the passport is good for 10 years. There is no reason why someone should not have a passport, unless, of course, they cannot afford the passport fees, in which case they probably should not be traveling internationally anyway.

Sometimes things are actually your fault, not everyone else's around you.

William Fotoples

Cloister Road

As long as unions give blind, drooling support to one political party, they will be taken for granted as evidenced by the recent fuel economy bill, unfair to domestic automobile manufacturers, which sailed through Nancy Pelosi's "new Congress in town. "You cannot blame the "Bush/Cheney oil-hurricane-money cartel" for this one. Haliburton is pushing 75 mpg cars? As a union member for 37 years, I see this latest congressional fiasco as further proof of the power unions have lost. But we still have the power to make significant differences in reasonably close elections.

The National Rifle Association figured all this out long ago. They have fewer members than unions do, but every single one of them vote either for or against politicians who oppose their agenda. A Labor Party could do the same, with the same results. But, oh no, we keep getting played for suckers, and keep electing the same crowd. During the time I have been a union (UAW) member, total union membership has declined by what, 75 percent?

My guess is that the unions are going to keep using the same old tired tactics, and watch the other 25 percent of its membership disappear.

Charlie Bleckner

West Manhattan Boulevard

We should look over the people running for president very carefully so we don't get another incompetent in the White House.

Melvin F. Lane

Napoleon

As Austin Powers would say to Mayor Finkbeiner, "BEHAVE." As always the citizens of Toledo love his enthusiasm but not his ranting and raving. The mayor of Toledo should hold himself to a higher standard when it comes to matters of propriety.

George W. Weidner

Barrows Street