Winston-Salem Journal LTE SA 09/08/12

Reasonable solution

The proposed Reynolds High School stadium could be built on land that the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system owns, which is now a soccer field behind Forsyth Tech West Campus. This space has the advantage of having a parking lot adjacent to the field and the parking lot at Bolton School. Also on game days additional parking could be procured from Forsyth Technical Community College's West campus. Since most games are played on Friday night and Forsyth Tech closes at 3 p.m. on Fridays, the impact should be minimal to Forsyth Tech.

Also, residential impact would minimal. Parkland High School plays at a stadium removed from its campus without hindering the playing of sports. Come to think of it, Reynolds plays at the same stadium as well. The proposed stadium may be a gift to the school system from the supporters of Reynolds; however, it still comes with additional costs associated with upkeep and future repairs. Clearly, the foreseeable and natural consequences of operating two stadiums will diminish the funds available to meet the core reason the school system exists — education. Hanes Park is Winston-Salem's central park, a park for the whole population that should be preserved as such, unencumbered with a stadium.

There is a workable option to the Hanes Park site. It lies behind Forsyth Tech's West campus and falls well within the reasonableness realm.

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GEORGE SAGE

Winston-Salem

Bold and outrageous

The writer of the Sept. 4 letter "A vigorous call" was upset that there's a group called "African-Americans for Obama." He thinks its existence is "bold and outrageous race-baiting to the extreme." After all, there are no "Hispanics for Marco Rubio," or "Catholics for Paul Ryan."

There is, however, an organization called "African-Americans for Mitt Romney." Funny, he didn't think to check. Or maybe he just didn't think anyone else would.

I wonder if he would call that "bold and outrageous race-baiting to the extreme."

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JAMES T. FULLER

Winston-Salem

Truths told

The Republicans are telling everyone the truth. The country is spiraling toward economic disaster. The Republicans are not going to shy away from the possible calamity that is approaching.

On the Democratic side, President Obama (if he is re-elected) will then have to 'fess up and tell the American people the truth also: Our country is facing economic disaster, and the attacks on the "rich" to pay more taxes will not solve the problem.

All kinds of sacrifices will have to be made to get our country back on the right track. Yes, taxes will probably have to increase, or all kinds of current tax deductions will have to be eliminated, probably both, and all so-called "entitlement programs" will have to face severe financial cuts or elimination also. And we all know that Social Security and Medicare are about broke.

We all know that we can't continue on the path we now are on. We can't operate our household budgets this way, and the U.S. government can't, either. Doesn't anyone see what is happening to many state and city and county budgets already? Bankruptcy, layoffs, etc. It's time every citizen paid attention to what is happening to our country before it's too late.

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HOWARD MOFFATT

Winston-Salem

Divisive

I read the guest column "Women for Mitt" (Aug. 23) by Dena Barnes, the state co-chairwoman for the group, and I laughed and laughed.

She claims that President Obama is divisive. Look at all the tea-party Republicans who proclaimed "compromise" a dirty word, who insisted that if the president wanted to get along, he'd have to lean their way — but Obama is the one who's divisive.

I stopped laughing, though, when I realized that Barnes and the Republican legislators aren't the only ones who are so myopic. They've convinced a large portion of the electorate that black is white and night is day, and they're likely to vote accordingly.

This kind of dishonesty is not good for America.

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BETHANY PARE

Winston-Salem

Finish the Thought

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"Americans can strike a balance between individualism and shared effort if ..."