Sidewalks? No!
I was furious to hear about new sidewalks along Route 9. I’m tired of the “Commonwealth” wasting my hard earned tax money on things that I don’t use. Why should I have to pay for sidewalks that are only going to be used nine months out of the year by a few poor people? Walkers don’t need sidewalks; they can use the bike path.
A better, free market solution would be to give those people vouchers so they can buy their own cars. Building sidewalks only encourages pedestrianism and is unfair to the real Americans who drive cars. Sidewalks are the first step of anti-car extremists. First they want sidewalks on cross streets, then crosswalks on side streets. Where will this end?
The truth is that walking is bad for you. Just yesterday at the drive-thru, I saw someone on a sidewalk and almost ran them over. It’s a well-known fact: the so-called studies that tout walking as “good exercise” are funded by the shoe industry for the sole purpose of increasing foot traffic. But I digress.
I’m calling for a protest march to curb the expansion of sidewalks. Once they see us all marching past the mall, they’ll think twice. Except it might be kind of dangerous to walk there with all the cars whizzing by. So maybe we should wait to protest until after the sidewalks are in place, because that will be a lot safer.
Andy Morris-Friedman
Hadley
Dedicated to Worthington
In regard to Maureen Turner’s story on the Conwell School (“Going Public,” April 10): this is a school I greatly believe in. I do not have children in this school or live in the town. But am very much behind this, as well as many other things in Worthington. I went to Worthington in 2009 to build a home for a deserving soldier and his wife. I left my heart here, while falling in love with the town. So I have had to return many times. I try to volunteer or do other jobs here to stay close to the community and its residents. This school is truly a great school. I buy from each fundraiser to help. I sell as many of the items to my family, friends and clients—everyone is very involved in helping out the school on my end. But we still need many more on board, so please help! You don’t need a child to give, just a belief in the concept and its teachings.
Catherine Salisbury
Web Comment
Tax Entertainment
One of the most disturbing facts about our capitalist nation is the misappropriation of funds directed to the salaries of entertainers. Everyone should agree that the value an athlete, movie star, talk-show host, team-owner, etc., brings to the average citizen is very small. Granted, they do offer diversion from our daily trials and tribulations, as did the jesters in the king’s court during the middle ages. But to allow these entertainers to horde such great amounts of wealth at the expense of more benevolent societal programs is unacceptable. They do not provide a product or a service, so why are they rewarded as such? Our society is also subjected to the “profound wisdom” of these people, because it equates wealth with influence. Perhaps a solution to this problem and an alternative to defeated school levies, crumbling infrastructures, as well as all the programs established to help feed, clothe and shelter those who cannot help themselves, would be to tax this undeserved wealth. Entertainers could keep 1 percent of the gross earnings reaped from their endeavor and 99 percent could be deposited into the public coffers.
The old ideas of the redistribution of wealth have failed, and it is time to adapt to modern-day preferences. People put their money into entertainment above everything else; isn’t it time to tap that wealth? Does anyone think this will reduce the quality of entertainment? It seems to me that when entertainers received less income, the quality was much higher.
Joe Bialek
Cleveland
