Stuck on TARC
It is in the nature of repression to come up with fanciful ideas to block out the truth. The bigger the problem, the bigger the fantasy must be. I am referring, of course, to the state of the public transportation system in Louisville. I have been to Third World countries where the bus system is more functional than here. However, instead of working on solving this issue, we are talking about acquiring an NBA team. Getting an NBA team now would be the equivalent of not owning shoes and then going out to buy an expensive hat. An NBA team would tie the city together, perhaps in spirit, but it definitely would not solve the physical problem of getting around. Perhaps those who spend three hours a day stuck in the TARC system to get to a 12-hour shift will get by on the fumes of other people’s excitement.
Eric M., Crescent Hill
Fighting for All
Attn: Ricky L. Jones (regarding March 19 column):
My first experience in Louisville was in the late 1950s. I came to town with a few other basic trainees from Fort Knox. We all were far-north Yankees, and when we were refused service at the fountain in the Heyburn Building — because some of us were black — we left the building in bitter shock and disgust. We were training in the U.S. Army, without respect for color, to fight for all Americans, including those who had just refused us service at the soda fountain.
Now, the confederate flag and other such symbols should be banished. Clearly these symbols represent a nation that, as most historiographers concur, fought to preserve a culture that embodied slavery. That nation lost the fight. As long as people here fail to recognize that slavery and segregation are now against the law of the United States of America, they, too, in every sense of the word are losers.
John Little Sr., Highlands
Individual Responsibility
I think Earthjustice and the Sierra Club’s intent to sue LG&E over their “occasional discharge” of coal ash wastewater into the Ohio River, though well-intentioned, is misguided. Suing the company will only hurt the stockholders and, ultimately, the rate-payers. What’s needed is legal action against the decision-makers: the CEO, the Senior Executive Vice President In Charge of Dumping Crap In The Environment, et al. Only when these individuals are held accountable for their company’s disastrous policies will we see real change. Remember the greed-induced banking crisis in Iceland? Bank presidents went to jail; they got the message!
John Norton, Highlands
Bad Math
I think you used some bad math in “What a Week” in the March 12 LEO. When a local politician hoists a rifle above his head at a national forum in a “guns for everybody” pose (as McConnell did), it would LOWER the city’s world-classiness. Instead of a plus 4, you should have scored a minus 4 in my view.
It looked like something Vlad Putin would do. Sometimes the goofiness of Kentucky politics makes me glad I moved across the river to become a Hoosier.
Larry Mehler, Greenville, Ind.
Judging Putin
In the March 19 Inbox section, Robert Zoeller from Louisville in the letter titled “Putin Has a Point” stated that the U.S. government and its citizens (Americans) have no moral right to criticize or condemn the Russian Federation for invasion and illegitimate annexation of Crimea. I think the question of such rights regarding U.S. government is not that obvious and simple due to the quite complicated geopolitical nature of the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
As for the American people — many protested against the actions of the U.S. government in Iraq or in general in the Middle East — it is logical to assume that they, indeed, have the right to call Putin an invader. I understand that Zoeller was only expressing his opinion. Nevertheless, I find it inappropriate and even disturbing referring to Putin and giving him any credit regardless of the fact whether the United States and its citizens have or don’t have a right to judge the actions of the Russian government. The president of the Russian Federation is the personification of the neo-imperialistic and chauvinistic politics of the Russian Federation in the last 15 years, and he is one of the main constructors and guarantors of the oppressive and corrupted authoritarian regime. There is no need to follow Putin’s speeches in order to understand or assure oneself again about the sad fact of the opportunism and hypocrisy of the foreign policies of the United Sates and some European Union member states.
Andriy Sherehiy, Original Highlands
