LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Common sense is not common

3/24/2014

It’s common sense that a person is not going to leave a gun around the house unlocked that a minor might get hold of (“Uncommon sense,” editorial, March 19). What is uncommon sense is that we need another law like House Bill 31.

It would be nothing more than a feel-good law, where once again the nose of the government’s camel is under the tent. It’s once again where government will expand its power in the hope of accessing and controlling your life and property.

Our government needs to stop passing useless laws that do nothing but extend the power of government. It instead should copy Australia, where the government is looking to repeal laws and regulations to hand people and businesses back control over their own lives and operations.

JIM BOEHM
Drummond Road

‘Religious rights’ bill was a travesty
The so-called “religious rights” bill vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona was a travesty of epic proportions (“Bill called anti-gay vetoed in Arizona; Governor says legislation could have unintended consequences,” Feb. 27). It was a shameful bill.

This bill in Arizona was nothing more than ignorance and hatred wrapped in a thin veil of “religious rights.” Is discrimination based on sexuality any better than the discrimination African-Americans faced with southern Jim Crow laws?

I hope intelligent and compassionate heads prevail in defeating any future proposed laws of this sort. Do we really want a law that is more in keeping with the laws of Russia and Uganda than with the United States? I hope not.

BEN DUMAS
Scottwood Avenue

 

Media merger keeps us in dark
In response to the purchase of Time Warner Cable by Comcast: Media corporations control what we see, hear, and read, as well as, what we don’t see, hear, and read (“Skeptical customers worry about cable merger; Price, monopoly fears follow Comcast deal,” Feb. 15).

The disinformation by the media, coupled with Washington’s lucrative position of allowing industries to influence and greedily profit from public policy decisions, has left U.S. citizens in the dark about what’s really going on in the world.

The debate about whether these media corporations should become one pales in significance to the fact that the planet we inhabit is warming, that humans are causing that warming, and that the consequences are extreme.

GRETCHEN THOMAS
Northwood

 

Rehab Clarion for the homeless
As for tearing down the vacant Clarion Hotel, why doesn’t the city of Toledo take the $842,000 it’s estimated to cost to buy and raze it to instead renovate the place for people to live or as a rehab hospital (“Council OKs plan to raze blighted hotel on Reynolds; Grant money will pay for demolition of Clarion,” Feb. 26)?

The same should be done with the former Riverside Hospital. It seems like city officials forget about the poor people in this town.

JOYCE MOORE
Paine Street