Winston-Salem Journal LTE TU 01/08/13

A new life

Eleven years ago I was an orphan in Russia. There were about 50 children in the orphanage including my four sisters, my brother and me. We had a place to sleep, clothes, and food to eat. We had common necessities, and not much else.

My life in the orphanage provided me with no vision of my future, until my younger sister and I were adopted when she was 4 and I was 5. The new life gave us the opportunity to go to school and to be loved by my new family.

Some of the reports that Russians are made to believe about the treatment of adopted children has made me wish to refute such reports. Russian citizens are made to believe their children are being used for their organs, as sex slaves, or as child soldiers. I have known that Russians also fear their children are abused by their new American families.

Now such rumors have affected Russian parliament’s decision, and has immediately altered the lives of more than 50 children and has taken away future opportunities for countless other children and families (“Family’s adoption dreams blocked: Russia’s Putin signs anti-U.S. adoption bill into law,” Dec. 29). I would like to speak up as a child who has been adopted from Russia and has lived a happy life with a family I love. I am proud of my origin, but it hurts me to know that so many children will now miss out on the opportunities I am given.

LERA FULP

Kernersville

Spending and revenue

Conservatives like to rave about the need for drastic spending cuts unless it has something to do with guns. Who most favored the wasteful war with Iraq or favors expensive armed guards in schools - even though schools are the safest place for children, compared to the numerous daily firearm deaths of children that occur at home or on the streets?

Do we have a spending problem or a reduced revenue problem? Have not the ultra-rich upper class received big tax breaks for many years that enabled them to double their net worth while robbing the nation of needed revenue? If the trickle-down philosophy really worked, please explain the current high unemployment rate when taxes for the wealthy have never been so low? Do we really have a spending problem or a problem of rigidity and extremism in a certain faction of the Republican Party?

Have not the extreme (let the country go into default type) positions of the tea party recently weakened House Speaker John Boehner’s ability to gain more spending cuts in dealing with President Obama and hurt public sentiment in their favor? Can you not attract more flies with honey than vinegar? Will the warm sun of compromise and respect for opposing viewpoints persuade a person, or the general public, to take off their coat of resistance to your ideas quicker than the cold bitter wind of extreme political positions and rigidity?

BARRY CARLTON

Winston-Salem

Keeping clean

I have been a volunteer member of the “Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful” campaign for three years. In that length of time, I have recovered lots of trash and garbage from roadsides and the Little Creek Recreation Area.

It has been an amazing experience. I started off thinking that most people were slobs and not at all concerned about what their neighborhood looked like. One day I saw a man drive onto his driveway, roll down his window, and throw a white Styrofoam cup onto his own lawn.

I have picked up diapers from the side of the road and also from the playground area of the Little Creek Recreation Area. This is too much!

For most of my three years I continued to think that people who threw things out their car windows were slobs, but one day it dawned on me that they weren’t slobs, but rather they have a major compulsion for neatness and cleanliness. They cannot tolerate any garbage near or around themselves, so consequently it gets thrown out to the side of the road, on their own front lawns or in a public playground.

I take pride in my neighborhood and go to great lengths to make sure that my area is neat, clean and refuse-free. Come on, all you people, let’s get together and make an effort to really “Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful.”

JAMES F. SCHWARZ

Winston-Salem

Ridiculous suggestion

I try very hard not to write a disagreeable letter. We have way too much disharmony in the world. But I found the Jan. 1 letter “Scapegoats” ridiculous.

I don't believe anyone, including Mike Huckabee, suggests that "their god...requires the blood of children." This is just more faddish Christian-bashing. So far as I know, the adherents of every religion and all atheists believe that little children should not be slaughtered, but heaven forbid that we should teach "thou shalt not kill," because the very sensible Ten Commandments are associated with Judeo-Christian heritage.

Our country suffers from a spiritual vacuum, and this carries over into the behavior of its citizens.

I tried to find the amorphous "they" to whom the letter writer referred, and found only "conservatives" as an antecedent. She paints with a broad brush, doesn't she?

ROMAINE S. POINDEXTER

Kernersville

Adoption dreams blocked

The front page photograph of the family hoping to adopt two boys from Russia (“Family’s adoption dreams blocked: Russia’s Putin signs anti-U.S. adoption bill into law,” Dec. 29) brought to mind the plight of children much closer to home. A visit to the website of N.C. Kids Adoption and Foster Care Network reveals more than 200 children here in North Carolina waiting for a permanent home with a caring family.