HEY, YOU! Yes, we have opinions. And we know you do too. So why don't you send us your thoughts? We. want to hear your take on the issues. COMTECK.COM SPEAK UP HOW TO CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMEN: SEN.
EVAN BAYH Mail: 131 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: 1-202-224-5623 (Indianapolis office phone: 1-317-554-0750) Fax: 1-202-228-1377 Web site: http://bayh.senate.gov SEN. RICHARD LUGAR Mail: 306 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: 1-202-224-4814 (Indianapolis office phone: 1-317-226-5555) Fax: 1-202-228-0360 Web site: http://lugar.senate.gov REP. DAN BURTON Mail: 2308 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C.
20515 Phone: 1-202-225-2276 (Marion office phone: 1-765-662-6770) Fax: 1-202-225-0016 Web site: www.house.gov/burton WEB SITE OF THE DAY www.gasbuddy.com This site offers breakdowns of gas prices by state and zip code. It also offers recent and historical gas price trends and fuel saving tips. Do you have a Web site to share? Tell us about it, and we may pass it along. CTEDITOR COMTECK.COM SPEAK UP Cast your vote Log in the daily on online poll at www.chronicle-tribune.com, then check out the next days print edition of the C.Tto see the final results. Today's question: Do you believe educational opportunities for Grant County students are improving? What you said Wednesday: Do you believe that ISTEP test results are an accurate measure of a school's performance? Yes 369 votes total (as of 4 p.m.
Wednesday) NOTE: The C-T's informal Web polls should not be considered statistically or scientifically reliable. Chronicle Tribune editorial board Neal RONQUIST president and publisher David editor Patricia GIBSON presentation editor Andrea SMITHSON night editor: a Adam WIRE day editor citizen board member. MARION 30, 2009 A8 Vie Viewpoints nts YOUR TAKE: -mail Mail Fax If you have an Viewpoints, 668- opinion, we'd like comteck.com P.O. Box 309, 4256: to hear from you: Marion, Ind. 46952 OUR TAKE We should all strive to be more like Hodson Men like Arthur Hodson built much of the world we enjoy and take for granted.
In these days of trepidation, our community remains of comfortable means, and we should look to his example of how to improve this world even after having left it behind. Hodson died in 2007 after. serving us as a Grant County banker, farmer, community leader and Christian philanthropist. His estate gave more than $27 million this week to Taylor University, Indiana Wesleyan University and White's Family and Residential Services in Wabash County. He was a small-town banker, a Quaker, a servant of others.
He was a founding partner of Star Financial Bank, often referring to himself as the in "STAR." The bank derived its name from the first names of the early principals: Selah Thomas Marcuccilli, Arthur Hodson and Ralph Marcuccilli. "He was extremely conservative and frugal," friend and former Taylor University President Jay Kessler said of Hodson. Just meeting him, befriending him, one would never have known how wealthy he was. Hodson didn't spend a lot of money on himself, but he did much for others. His giving was legendary.
He was always trying to help young people. One them was Kessler. The future president of Taylor got bank loans from Hodson as a young student to pay for school and buy a car. Kessler said he thinks that ARLEN SPECTER HAS SUITCHED, SIDES. the Great Depression made a deep impact on Hodson, in the way he treated money and people.
"His whole life was aimed at others rather than his own desires," Kessler said. America's strength in the past century was formed by such a selfless attitude from hard working people the Greatest Generation of capitalists in places like Hodson's hometown of Upland. It was made by people who continued to eat at local diners, worship weekly and buy their clothing off the rack. It was not created by the Bernie Madoffs of this world, those who live off what others built. Our times call for more Arthur Hodsons.
He gave us more than money. He gave us a model for living a a a a a a a good life. We are grateful. HE's A CONSERVATIVE Now? RIcHLE EAGLECARTONG SYNDICATED COLUMN A virus is not an illegal immigrant Let's not confuse the two issues SAN DIEGO Some of what is being said about the possible swine flu pandemic that seems to have originated in Mexico on strates that ignorance is infectious. Among the infected: Rep.
Duncan D. Hunter, R- Ruben who Ruben Navarrette recently proposed that San Union-Tribune: Diego President Barack Obama consider restricting travel between the United States and Mexico and prepare to close the border to "ensure this virus does not spread any more than it might already have." According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, about half a million people move between the two countries each day and that's just at the San Ysidro port of entry south of San Diego, the world's busiest border crossing. The economic cost of restricting cross-border travel would be enormous. And to what end? As Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently noted, "You would close the border if you thought you could contain: disease the spread of the disease, but the disease already is in a number of states within the United States so the containment issue doesn't really play out." Also infected is CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, who irresponsibly spouted off this week about how Americans would be much safer had.
we secured the border after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, www.chronicletribune.com LETTERS Redshirts (or redcoats) will fail "But just remember the red shirts are coming" is the wrong political effigy, sir. It refers to the British coming. They were known as the redcoats during the revolutionary war. Red is also the Republican color and refers to Republicans in general.
You do nothing but lend credibility to the article you say is wrong. The problem with long fuses is they get wet and burn out without ever getting close to thier target, just like the so called Republican tea party. And like the redcoats of yesteryear, they will fail because Americans are smarter and will always fight a red invasion force back to where it belongs. Americans fought the redcoats by disguising them selves as Indians, not as the redcoats they opposed. Just remember, history has a sad way of repeating itself, over and over again, and the redcoats lost.
You should have started this eight years ago, when all this spending started, not this year as it is being reversed. If the tea party had been eight years after the tax raise on tea, we'd still be under British rule. Your battle cry should be, "The Americans are coming, the Americans are coming," because we are finaly back in the drivers seat, so redcoats be aware. Dennis Johnson, Marion Burton job fair partisan event Instead of "Burton plans job fair," the headline should have said, "Republicans play politics with the unemployed." I hear the Grand Obstructionist Party whine on TV every day about "bipartisanship." But when Danny Burton decides to hold a "job fair," he invites Republican officials only. We have a great Democrat state Rep.
in Joe Pearson. Maybe Danny Burton does not know that (seems Burton's only around when he has competition for office). Where was our great bipartisan Mayor Seybold in this mess? He was playing politics as well. This bunch, busy sending our jobs to Mexico, busting unions and obstructing President Obama's efforts to save the American middle class, is now trying to sound like they care. Even then they can't stop playing politics.
Republican "bipartisanship" is on display. Lisa Johnson, Marion WRITE AWAY: Length: Letters should be 400 words or less; all may be edited for brevity and clarity. Letters of thanks should be 200 words or less. (Thanks to private businesses for services should be sent to the ID: Each letter must include the writer's name, address and telephone number for verification. Because of space considerations, please limit the number of signatures to a maximum of four people.
Fact vs. opinion: Publication is not an endorsem*nt of the opinions of the writers, nor is publication of letters a validation of facts or statements contained in the letters. What's not allowed: Private solicitations, poetry, personal attacks, unfair criticism of private individuals, businesses or organizations or inappropriate language will not be considered. Rights: Letters to the editor, columns and other material submitted to the Chronicle- Tribune become the property of the newspaper and may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms. because of "all these illegal immigrants who let come in, (some of whom) may have brought this in." The operative phrase being "may have" since we don't know how the disease which, as of this writing, has infected at least 64 people in the U.S.
and more than 1,000 in Mexico. came to this country. Although Cafferty used the word "secure," from the sound of it, what he really wants is to "seal" the border. With 2,000 miles between Brownsville, Texas, and San Diego, good luck. Also, for those eager to blame the spread of the disease on illegal immigrants, the odds don't: add up the way they might have a few years ago.
Illegal immigration into the United States is down dramatically thanks to the sour U.S. econo-. my. The Los Angeles Times reported last month that arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border have decreased 24 percent from last year, representing the lowest level of apprehension since 1975. Meanwhile, studies show that for those illegal immigrants who are already in the United States, very few of them go back and forth between the two countries.
More often, they stay on this side of the border rather than pay additional smuggling fees or risk their lives trying to reenter the United States. In fact, it's just as likely that, if someone did indeed carry the swine flu into the United States from Mexico, it was someone who could travel freely between the countries such as a U.S. citizen or legal immigrant. In New York, American students who went to Cancun for spring break fell ill. Now there have been at least 28 confirmed cases of swine flu.
Given the large quantities of fear and xenophobia that Americans digested during the immigration debate, maybe it was too much to ask that we could confront an international health crisis originating in Mexico without slipping back into old habits. We could have guessed that some Americans would be trying to convince themselves that the United States can shut out Mexico and, if need be, the rest of the world. Just as we could have guessed that opportunists would seize on the swine flu outbreak to try to bolster their contention that the U.S.-Mexico border is porous. But in a situation such as this, what do those words even mean? When I visit the border, I see steel bars and fences and walls traditional barricades that make immigration restrictionists feel good but which an airborne virus would easily go through, around or over. And, as Napolitano pointed out, even if we do 'a better job of stopping people from entering the United States illegally something we should do anyway as a moral and practical matter -we still have to confront the reality of as many as 12 million illegal immigrants who are already here.
Not to mention all the legal immigrants and U.S. citizens who might frequently travel. back and forth to Mexico. So, let's guard against the ugliness and resist the temptation to reach for simple solutions. And let's deal with one issue at a time, leaving illegal immigration for another day.
After all, that debate always seems to produce fear and anxiety. And, as Americans try to contain an. outbreak of swine flu, we already have. ample stockpiles of both. Ruben Navarrette writes for the San Diego: Union-Tribune.
E-mail him at ruben. TRIVIA What happened on this date in 1789: George Washington took office in New York as the first president of the United States. 1803: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for 60 million francs, the equivalent of about $15 million. 1812: Louisiana became the 18th state of the Union. 1859: The Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities was first published in serial form in the premiere issue of All the Year Round, a literary magazine owned by Dickens.
(The novel was presented in 31 weekly installments.) 1904: The Louisiana Purchase Exposition opened in St. Louis. 1939: The New York World's Fair officially opened with a ceremony that included an address by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1945: As Russian troops approached his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler committed suicide along with his wife of one day, Eva Braun.
1948: The Charter of the Organization of American States was signed in Bogota, Colombia. 1970: President Richard M. Nixon announced the U.S. was sending troops into Cambodia, an action that sparked widespread protest. 2004: Arabs expressed outrage at graphic photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by U.S.
military police; President George W. Bush condemned the mistreatment of prisoners, saying "that's not the way we do things in America." 2004: Michael Jackson pleaded not-guilty in: Santa Maria, to a grand jury indictment that expanded the child molestation case against him. (Jackson was acquitted at trial.) Birthdays: Actress Cloris Leachman (83). Singer Willie Nelson (76). Actor Gary Collins (71).
Actor Burt Young (69): Singer Bobby Vee (66). Singer Merrill Osmond (56). Movie director Jane Campion (55). Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (50), Florida International University basketball coach Isiah Thomas (48). Actress Lisa Dean Ryan (37).
singer (36). Singer-musician Cole: Deggs (33). Rapper: Lloyd Banks (27). Actress Kirsten Dunst (27)..
