Dearly in Debt
In a sad and reflective response to “Here lies the dearly forgotten” (LEO Weekly, Oct. 30), I must juxtapose the lack of funding and general maintenance of our local cemeteries to where we have federally spent our funds and, more importantly, the lives of our fellow American citizen patriots.
We have lost 6,749 American service men and women in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since post-Sept. 11, 2001. The total cost (of actually borrowed money) to our nation to fight these wars is now estimated in excess of $6 trillion, according to Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. One out of every two veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have now applied for permanent disability benefits.
This equates to $75,000 for every American household, and considering that 47 percent of American households do not pay any taxes and receive some form of government assistance, that burden now falls on the minority of American households who work, take no assistance and who are now funding not only the social-service burden at home for the majority, but who solely fund, in perpetuity, the cost of these two failed and pointless wars.
It is unconscionable that we now live here, in our Louisville community, and where we cannot even maintain our local cemeteries. How has this come to pass? How is this even acceptable or ignored? We cannot, as Louisvillians, let this stand. This is not acceptable. This is not who we are. This cannot be our normal.
Mark McWane, Middletown
Classic Toons
Regarding the news piece on the cartoons of Hugh Haynie (LEO Weekly, Nov. 6): I looked forward to The Courier-Journal every day. Not only would Dad and I read it together, we also looked for the hidden name of “Lois” in Mr. Haynie’s cartoons. Not sure when he stopped this or why.
Mary Embry, South End
Serve and Protect
I am still frankly outraged by the Senate’s failure to make an important and delayed contribution to the state of women and men who are affected by domestic violence today. Not being able to get a simple EPO is a travesty, to say the least. I appreciate Joe Sonka’s positivity in his article regarding protection orders (LEO Weekly, Oct. 30) by calling to mind the simple 7-1 majority vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but as Brandy Norwood would say, “Almost doesn’t count.” Look at the more than 200 cases that land on the Louisville Metro Police Department regarding sexual assault and domestic violence on a weekly basis. Let’s get it together, senators.
Althea Tangco, Los Angeles to Louisville
Short on Cash
Here we go again. The state cuts the schools’ budgets, so property owners take another hit. The water company needs to upgrade its equipment, so the rate climbs ever higher. As a final insult, now cities are whacking shoppers for their share of our paychecks, yet we ignore the dead horse in the room: Every year, the brigands in Frankfort confiscate two-thirds — yes, that’s 67 cents out of every dollar — from both the state and federal income taxes paid in Jefferson County. And why do they need our money? To support the supernumeraries who run Kentucky’s 120 counties, while California, with nine times the population, has only 58.
And we wonder why Louisville is always short on cash!
John Gamel, St. Matthews
Misleading Mistrust
The NSA listens to our phone calls and reads our emails. The Department of Health and Human Services awards a no-bid $678 million contract for a new health care website to a Canadian company whose biggest previous effort was a dud and whose executives have ties to Michelle Obama and to fundraising for the president’s campaigns.
Those who look toward the leviathan state for succor for the poor, solace for the oppressed or to shield us from corporate greed would do well to study the implementation of the Patriot and Affordable Care acts for indications of how their misplaced trust will continue to be abused.
Rich Mills, Shawnee
