Balancing concerns
We turn on the news or open the paper and brace ourselves for the dark side of daily events. But our Winston-Salem Journal has chosen to put local- and regional-interest stories on the front page. What a breath of fresh air!
Thanks, Journal for balancing the concerns of the day with front-page stories of determination, heroism, humility, kindness, creativity and whimsy by Kathy Norcross Watts.
ELIZABETH O’MEARA
Winston-Salem
Candidates’ wealth
So much has been said in the media about the wealth of Mitt Romney, implying that this would prevent him from understanding the needs of average Americans. Yet, account after account has been aired of the many people he has helped over the years; people from all walks of life, and there were no cameras around. His tax returns showed that he has given 30 percent of his income to charity, which follows the conservative approach to helping those in need: give generously of our time and money directly to charities, where funds are more likely to reach those who really need it. I am not as concerned with what Romney does with his money as I am with what President Obama does with mine.
Looking back, I do not recall that much was said about the vast wealth of John Kennedy or John Kerry when they ran for president. However, there is a difference. John Kennedy inherited his wealth, John Kerry married his, but Mitt Romney earned his. Isn’t that what we need in America today — a man who knows how to earn money and help others do the same?
JOY J. FAIN
Clemmons
Importance of voting
I noticed that the entire country seemed to be united in its vocal displeasure over substitute referees during NFL football games. These united voice caused the strike to be ended immediately and the professional referees will be in place for the next game.
I wish that the whole country would be as vocal in exercising their right to vote in the 2012 elections. This is our country and it is, in my opinion, much more important than any football game. Everyone seems to agree that the U.S. is in a mess right now. So I hope everyone will register (they can register online) and vote (early voting or absentee ballots are available) for the people that they feel best qualified to guide us through the next four years.
Their vote is their choice, but I encourage all to vote Romney/Ryan and also to vote for a Republican House and Senate, since “A house divided will not stand.” But the most important thing is that each of us should exercise our right to vote and vote without fear of losing our lives in the process, as is the case of some other countries.
ELIZABETH KISER
Winston-Salem
The difference
The writer of the appropriately named letter “I’m confused” (Sept. 26) says that the “biased media” is making a fuss over Mitt Romney’s wealth, while she never heard such complains about Sen. John Kerry or President John Kennedy. She thinks the obvious explanation is that Romney is a Republican while Kerry and Kennedy are/were Democrats. (It couldn’t possibly be for any other reason, huh?) Well, she’s right, but not in the way she thinks.
Nobody dislikes Romney because he’s rich; he’s criticized because he’s a stuffed shirt who has used his money to insulate himself from common people and their concerns. In recent statements, he wrote off half the country as thinking they’re “entitled victims” (“Romney defends video remarks,” Sept. 18). He obviously knows nothing about the hard-working American people — and less about airplanes.
Kerry and Kennedy, on the other hand, rubbed elbows with everyone. And they legislated for everyone, trying to make life better for all Americans. Neither ever decided that they were only supposed to serve half of America.
And in that sense, Romney is like most Republicans. And Kerry and Kennedy are like most Democrats. So, yes, Romney is criticized because he’s a Republican.
So the letter writer is right. And less confused now, I hope.
HANK BOLES
Winston-Salem
LTE #1 - All newspapers in the US have been struggling for years because the internet has made it difficult to operate at a profit. Each has had to find its own way to stay alive.
ReplyDeleteFor a newspaper the size of the Journal, the cost of maintaining a set of top notch reporters, plus a modern print operation, which includes a relentless increase in paper prices, is overwhelming. Dozens of similar sized and larger newspapers across the nation have gone out of business over the last decade.
Some months ago, the Journal came to the realization that their best bet was to focus on what they do best, local reporting, and leave national and international matters to the larger operations for the most part. Other local papers in NC and throughout the nation, including the papers in Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Asheville, Wilmington and other s have followed the same example.
That approach is working, and it includes the sort of reporting mentioned in LTE #1. Kathy Watts is not the only person involved in such reporting…Mary Giunca, Tim Clodfelter and Scott Sexton also come to mind…I know all of them and they excel at what they do.
Of course, there are always a handful of noisy malcontents who think that they know better how to run a newspaper, but they actually have no idea what they are talking about…newspapers have always had to endure their mindless rants since the day that the first newspaper was published over a thousand years ago.
Kathy Watts is not employed by the Journal. Her contributions come "over the transom" as free-lance submissions. She is the wife of the County Manager, Dudley Watts, who, in a time of trouble, has done a magnificent job of delivering county services so that no county resident is even aware of how tight the budget really is. If every citizen of Forsyth County contributed 1/100th as much to the community as the Watts do, we would be living in paradise.
Rush, you're amazing.
DeleteDo you ever defend something that is worth while, and is working? The Journal's circulation is obviously way, way down from what it was. It was on the verge of bankruptcy, that's why the staff changed the Journal's format and compelled people to subscribe to their online website.
What happened, and the readers recognized it, is that the Journal got stuck in mode of trying to sell papers by dwelling on racial controveries-like Darryl Hunt's. Instead of giving some specific stories a reasonable amount of coverage, like it should, the staff at the Journal beat certain stories to death in hopes of increasing black readership.
I'm sure a bunch of white readers said, if the Journal is going to turn the paper into another W-S Chronicle, I'll just drop it.
Now, add in the Journal's liberal bias, and other people said enough is enough. I'll give just one example. Gov. Bev Perdue is widely regarded throughout the NATION as the worst governor in America. The Journal, on the other hand, rarely wrote any negative stories about her or her policies for four (4) years.
So you can continue with your nonsensical, liberal, jibber jabber, as I'm sure you will. But please try to interject a few shreds of factual reality into your BS once in a while.
Thanks in advance. Yours truly, Bucky
LTE #2 & 4 - Yet another FoxLies®, Limbaugh, Beck parrot. Romney's "charitable giving" is almost 100% to the Mormon church. Barely more than 1% of money given to the Mormon church actually ends up in the hands of real charities. Most is spent on ridiculous salaries for church leaders and very profitable "church" business ventures.
ReplyDeleteAs to his "earned" wealth, most of us did not have the advantage of having our way paid through elite prep schools and colleges, despite Ann Romney's whiny and totally dishonest story about living in a basement apartment during grad school. While Mitt's contemporaries were doing their Mormon missionary time in far flung parts of the world, Daddy was financing his "mission work" in France, for godsake. Brie and good French bread…what hardships! And Daddy even bought them their first house. Give me break.
Ms. Fain's lack of "recall" is a bit selective. Senator Kerry did not grow up exactly poor. His mother was a member of the Forbes family, and a wealthy aunt paid his way through prep school and college. His father was an upper middle class Foreign Service officer and attorney.
The difference is that Kerry's parents both served in WW II, his mother as an Army nurse, for godsake, and he himself served in combat as commander of a Swift boat in Viet Nam. All this while Romney and W were busy dodging the draft and Dick Cheney "had better things to do".
And there was plenty of comment on his and his wife's wealth during the 2004 campaign.
The same for JFK, and add that the slimeball Norman Vincent Peale led a nasty and secret campaign characterizing Kennedy as a demon for his Catholicism.
Then there is this:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what…my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Mitt Romney, Boca Raton, FL
LTE #3 - And more FoxLies®, Limbaugh, Beck parrotry.
ReplyDelete1. The NFL referees never went on strike. The league locked them out in an attempt to destroy the union, something that has been a part of the agenda of the US Chamber of Commerce and big business in general for over a hundred years, an agenda that has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams for all unions…one of the reasons that real middle class income in the US has been in decline for nearly 40 years.
2. The hysterical nonsense said that NFL officials are ridiculously overpaid at an average of $149,000 per official. This while the average pay of an NFL player is around $770,000 . Many get hysterical about that, but the owners are squeezing everybody, including the players. The fans don't come to the ballpark to see the owners, but they are the ones who really make out, the average take being $10-15 million per team, this for folks who are already mostly billionaires.
The actual amount in dispute came to 0.04% of league revenues.
3. The NFL was counting on football "fans' " natural hatred of officials, because every foolish fan thinks that they could do a better job. Of course, that is ridiculous. The average "fan" wouldn't last 90 seconds on the field.
And anyone who actually knows anything about sports knows that for every "mistake" made by a competent official, the players and coaches make dozens and dozens of mistakes. What a joke!
3. So there was no "strike" to end. Essentially, the NFL capitulated because the scabs that they had hired were incompetent.
Among Lizzy's other errors:
4. "They can register online." Not in NC they can't.
5. "A house divided will not stand." Obviously, Liz has a very poor grasp of the origin of that term. It is first used in Matthew, quoting Jesus, and has nothing to do with Liz's BS. But it is a rare "christian" who knows that.
The modern origin is far different:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South."
__A. Lincoln, June 16, 1858, accepting the nomination for Senator from Illinois
Any one party controlling the White House and both houses of Congress has been rare in American history, and thank goodness, because that is a recipe for disaster.
The longest period of single party control of all three since WW II was 1961-1967, when the Democrats were in control, one of the most prosperous periods in modern history. But that also led to the war in Viet Nam, one of the worst disasters since the Civil War.
Rush, I figured you'd come back with a bunch of liberal propaganda today. If I had to bet, I would bet you were typing like an old teletype machine last night.
DeleteYou never did say if you are going to enter that 'corn hole' tournament in China Grove, like I suggested.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLTE #2:
Delete"...account after account has been aired...and there were no cameras around.": HUH?
"His tax returns showed that he has given 30 percent of his income to charity,..."
Charitable contributions are tax deductible. Additionally, while 30% of HIS income is just a drop in the bucket to HIM, if the 47% Mr. Romney readily disparages were to give 30% of their own income, it would be a bucket of water.
" I am not as concerned with what Romney does with his money...":
It's HIS money; he can do with it whatever tax loopholes will allow him to do.
"... as I am with what President Obama does with mine.":
It's MY money, too. If you can come up with a viable way of separating YOURS from MINE, I would DEFINITELY have no issue with what YOU do with yours.
Here's liberal CNN telling readers what to look for in tonight's presidential debate.
ReplyDeleteI guess CNN thinks its readers are too stupid to figure that out on their own. Kinda makes sense.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/03/politics/debate-five-things/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Good afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: With the internet and cable tv becoming the source for national and international news, newspapers have had little choice but to focus their efforts on the local scene. Buffett understands this which is why he's concentrating on purchasing papers that have a heavy local emphasis.
LTE 2: Wasn't this same LTE published last week which generated LTE 4's response? Did some talk radio pundidiot raise these points and his good little dittoes decide to respew to the local papers? Geez people, how about being original for a change.
LTE 3: The election season began over a year ago, and after being bombarded with a zillion ads (thanks a lot, SCOTUS), mail, phone calls and wall to wall ocverage, fatigue set in a long, long time ago. Of course, people are not excited about the elections. They are sick of it and want it to be over. Btw...epic fail over the misuse of the phrase "A house divided will not stand". We've seen what happens when one party is in complete control.
LTE 4: Aside from the generalization at the end, a decent response to last week's (and today's) LTE. In regards to Romney being a "stuffed shirt", I get the feeling that Romney is far more comfortable in the business environment where he's rubbing elbows and making deals with other wealthy business owners than he is in the political environment where he's having to deal with the concerns of blue collar workers who live paycheck to paycheck. Romney has served only one term as governor and hasn't shown any inkling for any other public office other than POTUS. It seems that his wife wants him to be POTUS more than he does.
Re: LTE4 Why should we look down on Romney because he's more comfortable in the business world. We need that type of person NOW! Because we need more 'jobs'. Something Barack Obama has failed to deliver on even though he promised it.
ReplyDeleteWe need the most qualified person for the job at hand, not some business world dope, like Rush, to create the jobs we need for this country, particularly during this economic depression.
New racially tinged Obama video tape? Where has it been? CNN had the tape for five years, and didn't show it?
ReplyDeleteCNN is doing a 'wonderful' job campaigning for Obama.
Oh boy!
The speech was reported on or discussed multiple times on CNN over a three day period.
DeleteCNN
____________
CNN, in a Rush like fashion, struggles to defend the news channel over where the tape has been for five years.
Three days....boy they really looked into the speech didn't they? During the speech, Obama praised his racist pastor, Jeramiah Wright.
Middle Class has been 'buried' for the last four years-Joey Biden
ReplyDeleteBoy, that debate was ugly for Obama. It was like me picking Rush's nonsense apart.
ReplyDeleteWow!
Obama's body language was terrible.
DeleteIn his closing, he didn't even look into the camera. I guess he was ashame of what he has done to America.
CNN poll.........67% said Romney won the debate.
DeleteWooooooowieeeeeee!
Who is the stronger leader 58% said Romney in the CNN poll. Stronger leader the POTUS? Wowie!
DeleteThis is big folks, because this is CNN reporting. CNN is the most liberal name in news.