Winston-Salem Journal LTE TU 06/12/12

Affected property

Well, here we go again. In a time of financial shortcomings, our fine elected officials in the Winston-Salem City Council have decided to spend more money on unnecessary projects, i.e., "Plan for greenways, bike lanes approved" (June 5). While some of our citizens may approve of the proposed greenways, I suspect that only a miniscule, vocal number of people support them. I would also dare venture that no one in the council chamber owns any property affected by this decision.

I believe that the money spent could be used for some purpose that would benefit a larger portion of the citizens of Forsyth County, i.e., potholes, etc. As a property owner along Muddy Creek since the early '70s who has toiled for many years to beautify my property only to have a sewer line run through it, thanks to the county and eminent domain, at the cost of many trees, now comes the greenway.

Well, I say "enough." I bought my acreage for privacy and solitude, not for a bunch of strangers wandering about at their leisure day or night. I find restoration of my well-being by watching the deer, turkeys, hawks and other wildlife that will disappear when the people start using this "must have" greenway.

Some may not like my stance on this issue, but I'm not walking through their yards; they want to walk through mine.

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EDWIN J. HALL

Winston-Salem

Intelligence 'leaks'

We're at war, a fact the current administration certainly knows. Yet continual "leaks" flow from somewhere in the administration to newspapers and TV.

Why are we publicizing intelligence-gathering methods, military and intelligence-operations methods, and general intelligence information about the amount of information that was gathered after the bin Laden raid; the latest "underwear bomber"; the apparent U.S. and Israel "cyber attacks" against Iran; etc., etc., etc.?

During World War II, would the administration have broadcast that the U.S. had the "enigma code machine" of the Germans, or that the U.S. had broken the Japanese code? Of course not — people would have been court-martialed and jailed, at the very least. But it seems that lately, as soon as some intelligence is obtained, there are "leaks" to the press.

Why is this happening? Doing so not only gives information to our "enemies" but places American troops and their allies in harm's way. It's time for the so-called "leaks," which appear to be intentional, to stop, and for people to be prosecuted for providing this intelligence information to the public and to our enemies.

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HOWARD W. MOFFATT

Winston-Salem

Bringing up controversy

Having had three daughters attend North Forsyth High School I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of different teachers over the years, both as a parent and as a volunteer. I was ecstatic to see that Mike Muse was named the new head boys basketball coach of East Forsyth ("New coach for East Forsyth," June 7).

However, any other time this would have been buried on page 6 of the sports section, in no more than two paragraphs, instead of on the front page. You chose to once again use the opportunity to bring up controversy from earlier this year and rehash the whole subject again instead of concentrating on the facts of what your headline stated.

Mike Muse is a talented coach who we need to be coaching our youth, but when given the opportunity, the Journal decides to concentrate on the negative. As stated in your article, Coach Muse made a mistake and has been punished and it is time to move on.

The next time a member of the Journal staff is promoted to a leadership position, will you also report any disciplinary actions that may be in that person's history? If the Journal still has a problem with Coach Muse's promotion, maybe the editorial page would have been the correct place to bring up the past events, not the front page. Of course, very few people would have seen it there and it would not be as sensational as the front page.

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KEN LEGGETT

Winston-Salem