Take a close look at waste of resources
The Missoula city government is bemoaning the lack of funds due to the high cost of energy (Missoulian, May 29).I am sure energy costs have impacted the city like they have every person and business in the United States. However, has the city ever considered the impact of the high cost of its own waste of men, equipment and resources?
Wednesday morning I was trying to drive to a friend’s home via Hillview Way when I met a minor traffic jam that was a result of a backup behind a street sweeper. After a wait, I was able to navigate around the vehicle and continue up Hillview Way, where after 500 yards I encountered another traffic jam caused by a second street sweeper. Again I negotiated traffic to continue on my way. I traveled another 500 yards and encountered a third street sweeper. All three street sweepers were washing the same side of the road and the same 4-foot section.
Used sweepers run $30,000 to $50,000 each, according to Internet searches. New sweepers run over $100,000. Add to the purchase price delivery charges, maintenance, tires and storage space when not in use.
Wouldn’t it be a better use of the city’s resources to schedule one or two street sweepers to systematically clean streets on a route system than to buy three different machines so they follow each other around and waste the fuel in our vehicles and endanger our lives in traffic?
Pat Gordon, Missoula
Candidate is no gun-rights advocate
Buried in Barack Obama’s Web site is this statement regarding his views on gun rights:“Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting. He also believes that the right is subject to reasonable and commonsense regulation.”
According to his Web site, Obama thinks that only hunters and target shooters have gun rights. Conspicuously absent from this statement is the fact that our Second Amendment acknowledges a pre-existing right of all citizens to keep and bear arms for purposes other than hunting and target shooting. Specifically, we have the right to self defense.
Obama’s repackaging as a gun-rights advocate is a deception. Contrary to his campaign statement, Obama does not respect the Second Amendment. The proof lies in his pattern of behavior. He cosponsored a bill to limit handgun purchases to one per month for law abiding citizens. He supports banning the sale of all semi-automatic weapons. He also wants to ban all gun ownership in inner cities. The NRA has given him a grade of “F” based on his voting record.
Obama was wrong in the past when he voted against your right to self-defense. Right now, your tax dollars pay for heavily armed security guards to protect Obama’s life around the clock. We need a president who wants to defend our rights as well as their own.
Steve Jarvis, Hamilton
Recent changes seem strange
Things are not good at the Missoula Senior Center (Missoulian, June 10).Why is it that three or four people have been kicked out and that the president of the center quit?
Why is it that the locks have been changed on the front entrance and office doors?
There are some strange things going on at the center.
The center has over $250,000 invested in D.A. Davidson and a building worth approximately $2 million. You don’t suppose someone is looking forward to profit from that?
I have volunteered at the center for the past eight years. I have worked there on an average of seven to eight hours a day, Monday through Friday. I am one of the people kicked out.
George M. Houtchens, Missoula
Presidential promises mean nothing
I am so very grateful that the framers of our Constitution did such a wonderful job of compiling it and the other documents so that I know all of the rhetoric and promises that all of the presidential hopefuls spout off is just so much hot air.I know that it is the Congress and the Senate that decide just what will pass and become law, and if they do not say OK then no matter what the president wants, in laymen’s language, he ain’t gonna get it.
If folks would just look into a little history they would see what happened to Andrew Johnson and G. Ford to prove the above.
Garth Good, Greenough
Internment of Italians was not racist
Referring to the article, “His Montana,” on May 28:This is not a criticism of Umberto Benedetti but of the reporter who wrote, “For a man who suffered the indignity of the racist policy of internment during World War II.”
Benedetti was an alien at the time Italy declared war on the United States and was only one of several hundred Italians interred as enemies at that time. There was nothing racist about the whole affair and has no comparison with the Japanese who were citizens and interred.
Benedetti was one of several Italians who stayed in this country or returned after repatriation. They were all lucky as they did not end up as cannon fodder in the Italian armed forces.
Russell L. Hartse, Missoula
Management method is cruel to animals
This is in response to “Foothold” Schutz’s letter (June 3).My husband and I own four dogs, all of which were “broke to lead” (these days we call it “leash trained”) at a young age. They receive extensive obedience training and two of them are trained for and compete in agility trials. We get frequent comments on how well-trained and behaved our dogs are.
So explain to me why my husband and I had to endure the nightmare experience of trying to release our panicking “broke to lead” dog from an illegally set snare trap eight weeks ago? Why did he panic when he was “broke to lead”? Could it be that the trap was cutting off the “blood flow to (his) brain” and the “air to (his) lungs,” as the trap was supposedly designed to do?
I am encouraged that “Foothold” admits that there is a problem with pets being caught in traps and I commend any efforts at educating the public on learning to release pets from traps. Personally, I have seen enough and do not need to be educated further.
We have set humane standards and laws for the slaughter of livestock and the euthanasia of companion and shelter animals and yet beyond our backyards, we allow wildlife and “non-target” animals to die violent, torturous, cruel and terrifying deaths in the name of management. I am for hunting and wildlife management, but using trapping under the guise of a management tool is a farce.
Traps are abhorrent in their inability to discriminate between the animals they were set for and the other innocent animals that blunder upon them. It violates the hunting ethics of a fair chase and a humane kill. No animal, targeted or not, should have to suffer in such a manner.
Natasha Osborn, Stevensvile
Review of tragedy may save lives
As a former American Canoe Association and American River College-certified river canoeing instructor, trainer and co-founder of the National Canoe Safety Patrol with over 20 years of river safety experience, I was deeply distressed by the account by Lanny O’Leary (in the May 30 Missoulian) about the terrible and preventable tragedy on the Dearborn River.As we all know by now, the Dearborn was flowing at many times the normal flow. The group’s enthusiasm for going on a trip that had been planned for months overshadowed the obvious danger of the swollen river. “We looked the river over and didn’t see any rocks.” Of course, since the river was in flood stage, all the rocks were covered. How far could one see down the river from the put in n 100 yards, 200 yards? Only a small fraction of what lay ahead down the river could be seen.
One significant rule that was broken: One never floats in waders, which fill up quickly with water and take the wearer to the bottom. And to remove a personal flotation device on a swollen river is a significant violation of basic river travel.
“The river was quick but smooth, nothing they couldn’t handle.” Until they reached a significant drop or narrowing of the river which threw up a monster wave. The rest is tragic history.
The members of this group have experienced something that will stay with them for the rest of their lives, but a careful review of why it happened can save many lives in the future.
Ron Osborn, Hamilton
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