Our weekly round-up of letters published in the Greensboro News and Record.
Least among us
I would like to respond to the writer of the letter “Immigrant wave” (May 12).
He is right that immigration is a serious problem facing our country’s leaders. And it would be wonderful if our political representatives would work together to come up with a sensible plan to deal with it. However, this is not going to happen with the divisiveness in our country today.
My main problem with the letter was the complaint that tax dollars are being use to provide food, housing and health care to these people. I was raised in a Southern Baptist church, received a seven-year perfect attendance pen, went to a Southern Baptist Seminary and continue serving my Savior.
One thing that was made crystal clear to me was Jesus had great love for the poor. To him, how we treat the poor is the measuring stick of whether we really are Christians. I wonder what would happen if God suddenly made the letter writer an immigrant in a country where he and his family’s lives were in danger and he came to the U.S. seeking help.
Would he still feel the same way about President Biden and the Democrats?
Lee A. Gable
Greensboro
NO for now
A “Vote NOForNow” sign is in my yard opposing the $1.7 billion bond. As a daughter of educators, a former teacher, a public school parent for 21 years, an avid volunteer in the public schools for 43 years ... how could I be against it, when crumbling schools need repairing, renovating or rebuilding?
Guilford County Schools has no respect for the citizens, ignores that they work for us and fritters away our tax dollars, even as a huge percentage of our children are reading well below proficiency level.
GCS couldn’t do repairs in our school buildings, but they did spend a huge sum to redecorate their board room.
As of a few weeks ago, $24 million of the 2020 $300 million bond had been spent on “design and some site work.”
$700,000-plus in maintenance funds was reallocated to a recording studio at a magnet school.
This board has given this superintendent decision-making power on projects of up to $500,000. Unheard of!
Students and staff are leaving GCS. We need a new board and superintendent first. Fix it from the top down. Then bring the bond back around!
Susan Tysinger
Greensboro
Budd and Trump
Ted Budd is campaigning for the U.S. Senate with Donald Trump’s endorsement. Their association should steer North Carolina voters away from supporting Budd.
Unfortunately, Budd supporters don’t realize (or care) that Trump’s attempts to subvert one of our most profound rights, voting in open and transparent elections, as was the 2020 election, was Trump committing treason.
Trump is the enemy of the people. He is poison.
Budd, by embracing Trump, becomes toxic also. And so do the Republicans who show allegiance to the man who would steal the election for president of the United States.
Robert Gerhart
Summerfield
Not a fair tax
I oppose the school bond for the simple reason that it is to be funded by the most regressive of taxes, the sales tax.
Our legislature boasts about reducing the income tax, a progressive tax, while allowing local governments to continually raise the sales tax. Wake up, people! The sales tax hits the least able to pay hardest. Each time you go to the store you pay 7%-plus in sales tax. That is higher than the state income tax.
The income tax places the burden on those who can more easily afford to pay.
Get rid of the sales tax altogether. Collect enough income tax to pay for what we want and what we need. You folks who are getting robbed by the sales tax need to get to the polls.
Richard Shope
Greensboro
Bumbling Biden
When Donald Trump was president, gasoline was $2.38 a gallon and the inflation rate was 1.4%.
The Democrats did not like Trump, so they elected Joe Biden, a man who had not done anything in 50 years in Washington.
As a result we have war in Ukraine, gas at more than $4 a gallon and an inflation rate of 8.3% with no relief in sight.
Shortages are everywhere and President Biden has no answer, just as he didn’t for the previous 50 years.
The Democratic voters cannot be happy. Sadly, they will vote for him again anyway. Go figure.
J.P. Lester
Reidsville
The facts about guns
Both pro- and anti-gun owners tend to be overly zealous when stating their point of view. I find this to be the case with the statement in an April 24 letter (“Pass the ammo”): “The No. 1 problem is the sheer number of lethal weapons (guns assumed, my italics) owned by our citizens — more than 400 million and growing daily.”
This suggests the removal of gun ownership would reduce our deplorable gun death rate. Using that as an example, removing vehicle ownership would reduce accident fatalities as well as reduced carbon consequences. Eliminating medications would reduce overdoses. All makes sense if you believe vehicles, medications and firearms killed.
Let’s look closer at the 400 million lethal weapons in the U.S. quoted above. Very close, it’s 393 million as of the end of 2021. However this number includes police and the military as well as private ownership. Further, 32% of Americans attest to owning firearms (44% including family members). From my point of view that’s democracy speaking.
Lastly, the question not asked, at least to my knowledge, among homicides by firearm: What percentage were legally owned? (Source: Google “American Gun Facts.”)
Michael Lopez
Summerfield
Rights lost
A recent article in the paper described the latest violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories that has claimed the lives of 18 Israelis and 30 Palestinians. For too many, there is little understanding of the roots of the violence.
Last week I witnessed one source: the loss of a homeland. While on a visit to Jordan, my wife and I toured biblical Gadara, now the village of Umm Qais. It is a pilgrimage site for many of the majority of Jordanians who are Palestinian in descent. From the heights of Gadara, they can see the Sea of Galilee and the surrounding area that once was British Mandate Palestine and their home, lost in 1948 in the creation of the modern state of Israel.
That memory lingers, exacerbated by the continuing loss of what remains of those territories through Israel’s policy of settlement expansion and land confiscation — and the loss of what remains of Palestinian hopes for their own state or equal rights in one state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
Max L. Carter
Greensboro
Cashion’s recordCommissioner Kay Cashion’s vision, endless energy and ability to work collaboratively to address needs in Guilford County continue to amaze me.
Among her numerous accomplishments, her leadership in establishing the Behavioral Health Centers in Greensboro ranks among the greatest. The facility that arose out of the support of the Sandhills LME, of which she was a board member at the time the funding was approved, is a partnership among Sandhills LME, Cone Health and Guilford County, the first of its kind in North Carolina. Open 24/7, this facility provides acute behavioral health for children and adolescents; a second one, owned and operated by Guilford County and Cone Health, provides services for adults. The comprehensiveness of services within these facilities are extensive and impressive.
At a time when mental and behavioral health services are in high demand, this state-of-the-art facility is available to all who need the services. Thank you Commissioner Cashion for your vision, hard work, tireless energy and willingness to work with Jeff Phillips and other Republican colleagues on this important project.
It is one among a long list of worthy accomplishment by you as our at-large commissioner. Your reelection is essential to the forward direction of our county.
Mike Schlosser
Greensboro
Thurm listens
When readying to vote for those who will led us in elective office, we may have varying takes on the characteristics we want in a candidate, but we do have some shared values we want: trust, honesty, competency, sound reasoning, fairness, objectivity, caring and a strong sense of public service.
Tammi Thurm is running for reelection to the City Council from District 5 and in her first term she has been quite effective with a knack for resolving smaller issues and concerns of the people while at the same time working hard to remedy the broader challenges of affordable housing, job training and job creation. Giving those a hand up can help ease both poverty and crime in our city.
Importantly, Tammi is a better listener than talker and takes her responsibilities as a public servant seriously. With all this being said, let’s do ourselves and our city a favor and do all in our power to keep Tammi Thurm on the City Council.
Bob Kollar
Greensboro
Comparable?
In Afghanistan, all women are required to wear full burqas. In the U.S., wouldn’t requiring women to carry all pregnancies to full term be too similar for comfort?
Rodney Jackson
Greensboro
Immigrant wave
At current rates, illegal immigrants who cross the U.S. southern border could replace the entire population of High Point in six days and 16 days to replace every resident of Greensboro.
Government data estimates that 18,000 people each day or 540,000 each month will illegally cross the southern border if Title 42 is eliminated, as some Democrats have promised. At this rate, it would take just four months to replace the entire populations of Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Cary and Wilmington.
In 2018, there were 1,378,800 members in the U.S. military. If 540,000 illegal immigrants enter the U.S. each month, it would take less than three months to replace every one of them.
If only 1% of these 540,000 illegal aliens have COVID or are criminals, 5,400 infected people and 5,400 criminals will illegally invade our country each month. That’s almost 65,000 infected and criminal illegal immigrants every year.
Right now, Democrats are using your tax dollars to give illegal immigrants food, housing and health care. Is this what you want? Call your senator and congressman now! Demand that Joe Biden and the Democrats stop this lunacy!
Ken Orms
Greensboro
Time is now
There has never been nor ever will be the “right time” for a bond referendum. During my 15 years on the Guilford County Board of Education, we passed two bond referendums for school improvement and new facilities. With both bonds, we heard the phrase, “This is not the right time.”
My feeling is that this is “not the right time” to ignore the condition of our public schools. Delaying this bond will only add time for the facilities to further deteriorate. Unless you have been in our schools across the county, you have no idea how inadequate and substandard they are.
Guilford County has seen much progress and growth with new businesses investing in our county. We’ve seen so many journey to our county for sports events such as ACC tournaments, swim events at the Greensboro Aquatic Center, great entertainment at the Tanger Center, and, of course, our wonderful Greensboro Science Center. All of these are bringing in jobs and money into our economy. Not supporting our public schools is a deterrent to attracting more businesses and special events.
Our school system will soon have a new superintendent. Let’s give her or him the important message that the voters of Guilford County want what is best for our students, teachers, principals, staff and classified employees. They all deserve modern facilities and equipment in which to learn and work. Vote “Yes” on May 17.
Kris B. Cooke
Greensboro
The next step
This is an important time for us to support our public schools. As a community, we took the first step by passing the November 2020 bond referendum which was based on needs identified in the Facilities Master Plan developed by the school board with input from the community. Now is the time to continue the effort to reach all schools by supporting the current bond proposal and the fraction of a penny (0.25%) sales tax supplement.
Strong public schools are a vital component for a healthy and vibrant community and, as such, are important to all of us. I encourage everyone to vote YES in support of the school bond referendum and the sales tax supplement.
Alexa Aycock
Greensboro
We’ll all answer
Has it ever occurred to pro-abortionists that in order to keep the law “out of their drawers” they need to consider the sins of adultery and fornication? Don’t add to that the major sin of murdering another human being.
God will one day judge and we will all answer for the good and bad decisions. Then one day, they’ll be old (likely) and need their kids to help meet their needs. What goes around comes around. We do reap what we sow.
God bless America!
Carol M. Pulliam
Oak Ridge
On depression
It has been well documented that there is a mental health crisis among U.S. teenagers. I am an educator, not a psychologist, but I think it might be helpful for parents to recalibrate their approach to their troubled kids.
Yes, young people can be impulsive and dramatic, so we must be alert to signs of self-injurious behavior. But even as we show our concern, we’d do well to understand that they are growing up at a time when depression may be a quite reasonable response to what they are experiencing.
Unlike us older folk, many youngsters haven’t learned to compartmentalize. They can’t learn about climate change and then behave as if dating and sports are the most important activities in the world. They can’t escape the cesspool of addictive social media.
The pandemic has not only been isolating, but another invisible threat over which they have no control. And how can we explain that they live in a country in which women do not have equal rights?
I know we want to be pillars of strength for our children, but maybe the best thing we can tell them is that we’re depressed too, and that we need them.
Gary Kenton
Greensboro
End the dog ban
I request the immediate lifting of the temporary ban on dogs on interior trails at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park and the restoring of access to all trails by humans and dogs.
A better solution would be for park leadership to enforce the existing rules regarding cleaning up after dogs and keeping their dogs on a maximum 6-foot leash. I walk my dog in the park every day. The vast majority of dog walkers I see follow these rules.
The ban on dogs on interior trails significantly increases risk of injury and death to pedestrians and their dogs. There are no sidewalks for walkers. The park road is narrow, one lane, and crowded with pedestrians, dogs and vehicles. The park road speed limit is neither adhered to by vehicle operators nor is it enforced by the park rangers. Vehicles, including and especially bicycles, regularly travel at speeds over 20 mph. These same vehicles frequently do not yield right of way to pedestrians.
There are a number of blind corners on the road that exacerbate the risk of injury or death to pedestrians. The ban on dogs on interior trails unfairly puts responsible dog owners at risk. Remove the ban at once.
Kenneth Marion
Greensboro
Rotten apples? Really!
I found the food situation at Andrews High School appalling (“Members of debate class at Andrews take on bad food at school,” May 6)! This vendor is selling unacceptable food to our students and expecting them to eat it.
Kudos to:
1) The students in the speech and debate class for using the skills they learned in civil discourse to right a wrong.
2) The teacher who directed the students in using civil discourse to bring this horrifying situation to the forefront.
No kudos to:
1) The assistant principal who tried to curb the student learning experience and their efforts to bring this situation to the forefront. You should visit the cafeteria more often!
2) Guilford County Schools CFO Angie Henry. I suspect the food contracts specify quality food and obviously the vendor did not fulfill that part of the contract. Specify exactly what you want and stick to your terms and have an out!
3) The Board of Education and the county office employees thwarting the students from advising the board of conditions at their school.
The school administrators in this situation represent another example of adults in our society not taking responsibility for their actions.
Debbie Feulner
Summerfield
Ridgill’s record
It has been my honor and privilege to serve the citizens of District 2 on the Guilford County Board of Education since 2016, as well as from 1990-2008. I have worked to support and represent the bests interests of the students, teachers, staff and parents.
As I complete my final term, I wish for these efforts to continue.
Marc Ridgill has eight years of experience working inside a GCS school and with members of the entire school system staff, developing numerous professional contacts in all areas. He has actively advocated for school safety and system accountability for the past 16 years. He will prioritize the best interests of the students, teachers, parents and school campus staff.
Please join me in supporting Marc Ridgill to be the elected the District 2 school board representative.
Anita Sharpe
Greensboro
A ‘Handmaid’ reality
I remember watching the television series “The Handmaid’s Tale” and thinking that the most horrifying scenes, even beyond those depicting graphic torture and cruelty, were the flashback images of the protagonists’ day-to-day activities and interactions as they transitioned from living in an open, progressive society to a restrictive, controlling theocracy.
In a short amount of time, the world around them took on a hideous new shape that was, in equal measure, incomprehensible and familiar. The relatability to current days, living through the steady, persistent machinations of the GOP and recent Supreme Court rulings, as they enact and enforce laws that eliminate one’s rights and protections based on extreme ideology, is all too real.
Restrictions are being put in place and forced on society by a small group who, while claiming to be people of faith, demonstrate zero compassion — people who vote against child tax credits, nutritional programs, lowering drug costs, anti-poverty initiatives and education-expansion bills, while clinging to their cherry-picked interpretations of the Bible.
Criminalizing what a woman decides to do with her own body based on her personal situation and consultation with her own doctor is truly moving us into dangerous territory. Watching “The Handmaid’s Tale” was stressful. Living through it will be horrific.
Brian Goldberg
Greensboro
UNC’s not troubled
You knew it was coming, the News & Record headline, “UNC is ‘in trouble’” (editorial, May 6) agreeing with the American Association of University Professors’ assessment of the state of our public university system. And why this assessment? Because the system is now governed primarily by those mean, old Republicans, and their appointed Board of Governors.
And how did the Republicans get this power? Why, they were voted into office by the taxpayers of our state, and we can’t have that!
The report specifically cites “racial tension” in our handling of the “Silent Sam” issue and the botched hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones. Excuse me, but Silent Sam has been satisfactorily dealt with, and Hannah-Jones should never have been offered a job in the first place. But, because of these two issues, and the griping of certain unhappy professors/staff, UNC is now beset with “institutional racism” to which I say BULL!
UNC is still cranking out thousands of graduates of all colors for the betterment of our state and society in general, and the Board of Governors is doing all it can to make sure the university remains in excellent fiscal condition. For this we should all take pride instead of smearing a strong but imperfect institution.
Sam Howe
Greensboro
Roses for the living
What amazingly good news that a statue will soon be erected to honor the enormous community contributions of Judge Henry Frye and Mrs. Shirley Frye. Other leading local citizens such as Dr. George Simkins have been honored with a public monument but usually long after they had passed on. This is a case of a grateful community symbolically giving roses to the living while they can still enjoy them.
A timely recommendation from the News & Record! A timely implementation of the idea by the Joseph M Bryan Foundation!
Joanna Winston Foley
Berkeley, Calif.
Patients’ rights
In The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse wrote an opinion essay (“Women Are Invisible in Justice Alito’s Opinion,” May 5) and quoted a summary statement of Justice Harry Blackmun’s 1973 opinion: “The decision vindicates the right of the physician to administer medical treatment according to his (or her) professional judgment up to the points where important state interests provide compelling justification of intervention.”
The Roe decision was about the right of doctors to make decisions for the patient’s best interest without fear of prosecution and prison.
This fear led to the tragic death of a woman in Ireland who died of sepsis. Her story was instrumental in changing the law there.
“Pro-abortion” is the wrong language. Criminalization of abortion by the state is just another way to keep women down and prop up patriarchy. Women have a right to protection against harmful laws. Doctors and patients should not be criminalized for making the best decisions in each individual case.
Women’s lives depend on it.
Mary McConnell
Greensboro
Just say no
It is often quoted that “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Although the Republican Party has yet to achieve absolute power, it has successfully demonstrated that perverse power will preserve power perversely.
Like a drug cartel, the current Republican Party relies on human susceptibility to substance abuse as the basis of its operating model. In the case of the RNC (Republican National Cartel) their reliance on that susceptibility leverages the euphoric effects of grievance and resentment as the means by which to achieve and maintain loyalty, funding and power.
In effect, right-wing media, conservative columnists and the vast majority of Republican elected officials have formed a highly effective supply chain that purposely abuses and distorts the substantive realities and challenges that face our nation … and yes, our very democracy. (The events of Jan. 6 were nothing more than “legitimate political discourse.”)
When the former first lady, Nancy Reagan, was asked how to combat substance abuse, her terse, albeit naïve response was … “Just say no.” For principled Republicans who continue to support the RNC out of “habit” … is it finally time to acknowledge and say no to what your party has become?
Howard Becker
Greensboro
Our addiction
The world faces twin crises: a war in Europe and increasingly severe impacts from climate change. Both threaten to destabilize our economy and undermine our security. Both are linked to our dependence on fossil fuels. Our dependence on oil means the American economy is at the mercy of world oil markets — where the price of oil is set whether it’s produced in Russia, Texas or anywhere else.
It’s time to finally get off this roller coaster and control our own energy future.
That’s why we need Congress to act quickly on major legislation to invest in clean, American-made energy — to protect our health, wallets and national security.
The war in Ukraine is causing gas prices to spike, which means financial hardship for American families. Whenever there’s a big crisis overseas, the price of gasoline goes up. And oil companies are giving billions in extra profits to their investors, instead of using it to build American-made clean energy.
In the long term, being so dependent on oil makes us vulnerable to global instability — it’s happened over and over again — so we need to move to clean energy that we control. That’s how we stop this from happening.
Chris Gilly-Forrer
Greensboro
Cost-effective
A challenge before our community is to approve the $1.7 billion school bond and tackle long-term maintenance, safety and accessibility problems in our schools. We can modernize our schools, renovate and rebuild as appropriate, and make our schools tech-smart. This is appropriate action for the third-largest school district in North Carolina, the 47th largest of more than 14,000 in the United States, and a district serving 73,000 students at 126 schools.
As a former Latin teacher at Southeast Guilford High School and Southeast Middle School and the parent of two Guilford County Schools graduates, I believe there is nothing more important than the public education of our young people.
It is hard to believe that our children are attending school in buildings constructed before the first lunar landing. Yet it is comforting to know that newer schools are 1.5 times more efficient to operate.
Approval of the school bond will lead to long-term cost savings and 21st century environments for students, teachers, principals and all school employees. Please join me in voting for the school bond to ensure that our young people have every opportunity our community can provide.
Jean Cornwell
Greensboro
‘Pro-choice,’ defined
Are “pro-choice” and “pro-abortion” the same concept? The resounding answer is no.
Men making decisions about women’s reproductive choices is ludicrous. Until a man is forced to carry a child in his body, impacting his life for nine months and beyond, this writer wonders how he could understand being pregnant with an unwanted child.
One also wonders why, once a child is born, the very people who would protect a cluster of cells in the womb forget about child welfare: health care, education, safety and well-being for that child and the mother. They call this being “pro-life”?
A decision to abort a pregnancy surely must be a very difficult one for any woman. Some women could never make that decision regardless of the circumstances. But in both cases they should have that choice and it should be respected. The key words are “choice” and “respect.”
While pregnancy is a wonderful thing for the majority of men and women, that certainly is not the case for every pregnancy.
Women’s own bodies and futures should be governed by women. They are the ones upon whom the consequences of this “choice” fall.
Miriam Hamill
Greensboro
Investigate!
I wholeheartedly agree with George F. Will’s condemnation of the person who leaked the draft opinion indicating the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the 49-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling.
In his column published May 5, Will wrote, “The leaker probably got into a position to commit this infamous betrayal by swearing to never do such a thing.”
I’m sure Will would agree the investigation should start by questioning people in the courthouse whom we already know are just the kind of liars who say one thing and do another. Such as — oh, I don’t know — people who have testified before the U.S. Senate that they had a respect for Supreme Court precedents and that they considered Roe v. Wade to be the established law of the land.
Who, to use Will’s words again, is leaving such a “lingering stench in the building”? The most obvious suspects are Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Let the inquisition begin.
Dave Stroble
Burlington
Bumbling Dems
Marines have an appropriate term, but let’s be nice and call it “cluster-failure.”
Despite being urged by everyone to resign and allow President Obama to replace her on the high court (she had cancer), Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused — she was having a good time! Fast forward a few years: The Democratic establishment forced the nomination of a widely disliked and distrusted politician named Hillary Clinton, a decision that cost three high court seats, including RBG’s.
The unlikely election of Donald Trump “released the Kraken” in American politics, a veritable Pandora’s box of anarchy, hate and vitriol not seen since 1860. We may never put it back in the box, but Democratic insanity continues: “systemic racism,” critical race theory, more and more “diversity” (read racial quotas!), extreme transgender rights (what pronoun must we use now?), slavery reparations, wide-open borders, all criminals are victims, all victims are criminals.
And Republicans are laughing all the way to the “Oligarch’s Bank” as they further gut our tax base!
As Alice said, “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.” I think we’re there.
Bob Gaines
Greensboro
Put out the fire
I am a Guilford County Schools teacher, as well as a parent of three GCS students and a product of this system. In conversations about the $1.7 billion school bond on the current ballot, I have been hearing concerns about transparency and accountability in terms of how the money will be spent.
Given the sum, such concerns are understandable. However, they should not prevent us from passing this critical bond.
Consider this analogy: a building is on fire, with people inside. Outside, folks are arguing over whether or not to douse the flames because they can’t agree on the type of buckets to use. Maybe it’s true the buckets are slightly faulty, or overpriced. But such concerns are not a reason to let the fire burn.
Our schools are on fire, and there are people inside: my kids, your kids, your grandkids, the kid who will grow up to be your nurse, and many more, all of whom deserve safe buildings in which to learn. Doors that open, ramps without holes in them, pipes that don’t leak, doorknobs that don’t fall off.
No widespread investment has been made in the infrastructure of these schools since I attended 30 years ago. It’s time.
Anne Beatty
Greensboro
