Erosia (Letters to the Editor)

LEO welcomes letters that are brief (250 words max) and thoughtful. Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to EROSIA, 640 S. Fourth St., Louisville, Ky. 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or e-mail to [email protected]. We may edit for length, grammar and clarity.

So Mean and Nasty
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I just have to respond to something Rick Robbins said in his Erosia letter (June 7). Anne Northup’s “caring spirit” is belied by the nasty, mean-spirited campaign ads we have to endure every election cycle. I’m aware that “everyone does it,” but she’s always the first to go negative and manages to dig deeper into the gutter than anyone else. Apparently she sees no problem with running these hateful ads interspersed with the ones depicting her as a caring family woman. It was very refreshing to see the positive issue-oriented campaign John Yarmuth ran in the primary; it’s too much to hope for that other candidates from both parties will follow suite.
Paul Riley

Mr. Eversole If You’re Nasty
In his letter to the LEO (June 7), Rick Robbins has insulted my state, my education and my choice for representation in the U.S. Congress. This demands a response.
I do not know what Robbins thinks he is accomplishing by saying Indiana’s educational system is better than Kentucky’s. That argument would be like two infants arguing over who crawls slower. Why don’t we just focus on learning to walk first? While trying to explain why Anne Northup is a good representative, Robbins made his most humorous statement yet: Anne Northup supports literacy and adoption, and so does he. Who doesn’t? When is she going to take a real stand? Come out for cute puppies and pretty sunsets, if you dare!
I do appreciate Robbins attempting to answer my questions about Northup’s lack of accomplishments in Washington. He trumpeted Northup’s service on the House Appropriations Committee, which can’t get our bridges built. He also praised her support for No Child Left Behind, which has failed to deliver due to lack of appropriations. He inexplicably brings up KERA, which is a state program that has nothing to do with Washington. It is also a complete farce and waste of time. Those of us who have experienced it first hand seem to always reach this conclusion.
Above all else, I felt I had to respond to Robbins’ mischaracterization of my understanding of the historical significance of the contributions of Ben Franklin as they relate to my comparison of he and Yarmuth. Contrary to Robbins’ suggestion, I don’t need to do any research on Franklin to talk about him. I know things about Franklin that would make his “moral majority” Republican toes curl, but that is not why I feel justified in comparing Franklin and Yarmuth.
Sure, Yarmuth is unlikely to be that great statesmen Franklin was, and he probably won’t replace Franklin as this nation’s greatest diplomat, and it is almost out of the question that John Yarmuth would become one of our greatest inventors. So how can I compare the two? Yarmuth has one advantage over Franklin that just may permit him to surpass Franklin’s great legacy. Yarmuth isn’t dead yet. Franklin achieved greatness in his later years.
What this election is about to me is representation. That is why I scoffed at a Hoosier weighing in on it. I assume Robbins has his own seat in the house to vote on. Yarmuth is the first chance I have seen for Louisville to be truly represented in Congress. It is true that every couple of years the two major parties offer two choices to “represent us,” but they don’t represent me, and they don’t represent the city I know. I do not agree with Yarmuth on everything, but when I vote for him I will be voting to send a real local figure, not some party shill, to represent my community in the national government. I think the rest of the country could use some Louisville weirdness.
Oh, and Rick, my friends call me Mickey. You can call me Mr. Eversole.
Mickey Eversole

Lack of Insight
I cannot agree more with c d kaplan regarding his article about Insight Communications in the May 24 LEO. Never in my life have I seen a company so bungle an upgrade and provide such poor customer service along the way.
I decided to take matters into my own hands and wrote up my own discount that I would be taking on my bill due June 10. I even gave Insight my formula for coming up with it. It was 12 days of poor or no service (from May 2-13) divided by 30 days in a month multiplied by $49.95 (what I originally thought was the charge for monthly service). The result of that is $19.98, so I told Insight I would be taking a $20 discount on my next bill.
An Insight representative responded by noting that my actual monthly bill was only $34.95, so she would only allow a discount of $13.98 plus tax. Since May 12, I have continued to have problems with my service. And that is after hearing and seeing the CEO of Insight tell us all that the upgrades are done in various commercials.
Last week a technical support person from Insight said the upgrades would continue through June 9. Perhaps he should inform his CEO of that! At that point I realized that the poor service would surely also continue for a full month of service, so I wrote back to Insight and asked that my entire monthly charge be discounted off my bill. The reply I got back was short and sweet: “Your Insight Broadband rate is $34.95 ($44.95 less the $10 discount). Therefore, you were only entitled to receive a 12-day adjustment based on the $34.95 rate. No additional credit will be issued.”
I would agree with that if I had experienced only 12 days of poor service, but obviously I have not. So now I feel no other recourse than to simply deduct the full amount of Internet service off my bill myself. Since Insight apparently has no intention of discounting all users’ bills for this month of poor service, I would encourage all of you to deduct the amount from your own bills. One person cannot make an impact on a corporate giant like Insight, but all of us together can.
Rick Robbins

Coulter Conspiracies
What’s the deal with Ann Coulter this time? She’s savagely attacking the families of 9/11 victims, calling them greedy witches and worse things. Sounds demented.
Everyone knows Coulter is as mean as a snake and blames everything she doesn’t like on “The Liberals.” But, we also know she’s very smart and usually does her homework, or pays someone else to do it for her. Rest assured there is method to her madness.
My hunch is that Coulter knows her right-wing fans are still mad as blazes over the survivor benefit packages Congress gave the 9/11 families. She figures this issue riles up these folks as much as immigrant bashing, gay marriage and abortion. So, she’s just doing her bit to boost voter turnout for Republican candidates this fall.
Ironically, it was a Republican Congress that approved the 9/11 survivor benefits. Why does Coulter think this issue will work against Democrats? It seems she believes that every dollar the government spends can be blamed on the Democrats, because they supposedly invented “Big “Government.” So, this line of reasoning goes.
That idea worked for President Reagan. He couldn’t balance the federal budget and never even got close. What he did instead was blame his deficits on the Democrats in Congress, and the most fervent Reaganites lapped it up.
In politics, this is known as “The Big Lie.” Say something often enough and people will buy it. Spread it around with attack ads on TV and radio. This is part of our Watergate heritage.
Tom Louderback

Let ’Em Vote
I read in the paper that illegals might have voted in recent elections, and oh, what an outcry. But judging from the record low turnouts at the polls, I say let ’em. Someone’s got to make electoral decisions for us, since apparently, citizens don’t want to. Perhaps those who’ve crawled through mud and dodged vigilantes to get here will actually appreciate the privilege.
Bill Carlisle