Budget Test

Dear Editor,

The Trump administration is beginning to address the one item that is going to cause the left and the liberals to enter the final phase of meltdown, that being the budget. And this is also going to be a test for the Republican Congress as to where they stand on fiscal responsibility and if they are listening to the people or the special interests.

Trump has proposed massive spending cuts in the form of cutting off foreign aid and eliminating funding to a variety of programs and organizations. Most of the programs are duplicates of one another, and while the actual spending level on them would not be reduced, the administrative cost of running them would be. In other words, “You’re fired!”

Domestic programs to be defunded include PBS, NPR and other such “arts” programs. And it’s about time. For those that are screaming that these are necessary programs for the sustainment of the arts, let the free market decide. If they are that important they should be able to find the private funding to operate. Now if he would start going after the various welfare programs.

The best news of all this, in my opinion, is the proposal to cut 50 percent out of the funding going to that organization that I compare to a traffic cop on Valium, the UN.

They are already starting to scream and rant, threatening to cut off our voting rights. I’m not sure if that would apply to the Security Council. But as for the rest, who cares? No matter what we vote in the General Assembly there is almost always a larger group of anti-American nations that will vote against it because we support it. The UN, when first formed, had a purpose but has since devolved into a mob that only exists to line the pockets of foreign officials at the expense of their people. As a peacekeeping organization they are a joke and have only succeeded in getting American soldiers killed, i.e. Somalia, for no reason whatsoever. The US out of the UN and the UN out of the US.

A word to the Republicans in the House and Senate. Don’t mess this up. You have a chance to lock yourself in for the 2020 elections.

And a final note. RIP Chuck Berry, rock ‘n roll will never die.

Go Galt and save the republic.

Alan Marshall

 

 

New York City?!

Dear Editor,

It seems that the longer I live the less I understand about the direction this state and country is taking.

For instance, how is it that dead people and illegal immigrants can vote, boys can use the girls’ bathroom and the ACC Tournament, which has its roots in North Carolina, can be played in Brooklyn?   Are you kidding me? Brooklyn?  That is like the Kentucky Derby being run in Kansas, or the Masters golf tournament being played in Utah.

I hold ACC Commissioner John “Benedict Arnold” Swofford personally responsible for this debacle and henceforth he is off my Christmas card mailing list, permanently.  Now how do you like them apples, Mr. Commissioner?

Glenn Buckland

 

 

Sticking to His Guns

Dear Editor,

I appreciate the editor’s note in response to my letter (“Willful Ignorance”) in the March 16 issue, but I am amazed that John Hammer is citing discredited evidence presented in the first two trials that took place after the November 1979 murders.  The discussion about who fired the first shot was an attempt to distract people from looking at what happened.  This misdirection was successful in the case of the all-white jury in the first two (local) cases, but not in the civil trial in which the Greensboro Police, the Ku Klux Klan and members of the Nazi Party were found liable for murder.

Look for yourself.  You can find multiple videos with a simple Google or YouTube search.  What you see is a caravan of cars with Klan and Nazi members driving into Morningside Homes immediately after the Greensboro police had vacated the area.  Two minutes later, five people had been gunned down in broad daylight.  If it was a “shootout,” as the Rhino Times keeps claiming, why was it that the Klan or Nazi Party shooters don’t even feel they have to take cover?  They had time to get out of their vehicles, calmly retrieve weapons from the trunk of their cars, locate their victims and fire more than 30 shots.  The shooting was not random.  The Klan and Nazi killers knew exactly who they were there to kill – activists who were organizing workers at Cone Mills.

Although there is no individual currently working in the Greensboro Police Department who was on duty in 1979, the behavior and culture of the Greensboro police continues to be affected by what took place in 1979 and is reinforced by the denial encouraged by the Rhino Times.

Gary Kenton

 

Editors Note: One thing we can agree on is that the shooting was not random. Both sides fired about 20 shots. The Communists were not good shots and the Klan and Nazis were. The fact that in one civil suit two Klansmen, three Nazis and two police officers were found responsible for one of the five deaths is not conclusive. None of the 45 defendants in the case were found responsible for the other four deaths. In the criminal trials everyone was found not guilty. I think the historical record is on my side.

 

 

Boo on Charter Schools

Dear Editor,

Public Schools First in North Carolina has been a proud tradition and a priority until the last few years when the current majority party in the General Assembly reversed this trend.

We have fallen to 44th in per pupil spending and 42nd in average teacher pay while spending millions in tax dollars to support private charter schools with many of those being religious in nature.

This is a violation of our state constitution, which states in Article 9, Section 2, “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools (italics mine) which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year.”

We raise our children to obey the law and care for others.  The majority of lawmakers in the General Assembly are modeling the opposite.  The very foundation of our democracy is built upon a strong public school system which provides knowledge to our children and youth so that they can grow to be thoughtful and discerning citizens.  For this to become a reality, we must seek change in our elected officials or change them ourselves on Election Day.

Bob Kollar

 

 

Goes Both Ways

Dear Editor,

Prayer is a two-way fellowship and communication with God. You speak to God and he speaks to you. It is not a one-way conversation. Your personal prayer life may primarily be one-way communication – you talking to God. Prayer is more than that. Prayer includes listening as well. In fact, what God says in prayer is far more important than what you say.

Prayer is a relationship, not just a religious activity. Prayer is designed more to adjust you to God than adjust God to you. God doesn’t need your prayers, but he wants you to pray. You need to pray because of what God wants to do in and through your life during your praying. God speaks to his people by the Holy Ghost through prayer.

Rev. Doc Scoggin

 

 

Make Frisbee Golf Accessible to All

Dear Editor,

Park administrators and managers, including John Gladstone and Todd Moore, recently rejected a diligently detailed proposal to repair and rejuvenate the park’s poorly conceived and constructed, and more poorly perceived and utilized, 34 holes of disjointed, discombobulated disc golf.  This plan would utilize the good that does exist, while eliminating the bad.  It is cost effective and time efficient.  Consisting of 27 distinctive, directed holes of play in the form of adjacent courses; a nine-hole novice level course and a uniquely laid out 18-hole players’ course, designed for skill levels from recreational to professional.  This plan could be implemented for use by the beginning of this summer season.  It would compact the area of play and, most importantly, would alleviate and eliminate the courses’ most prominent present problem of crossover conflict with roads and hike, bike and bridle trails.

Instead, they are allowing a largely undescribed design, which will cost much more in terms of materiel purchases as well as R&P manual and machine labor expenditures, while doing nothing to improve the current state of play, as it does nothing to improve flow or quality of play and does not alleviate any of the conflictual flaws, but only exacerbates them.  It is also a more destructive plan, in that, whereas the rejected plan calls for the felling and removal of but a few dead, dying sapling and invasive species trees, the accepted plan calls for the unnecessary killing of hundreds of healthy, native hardwoods and evergreens, and therefore, could take years to complete.  And it is being planned as a course strictly for the enjoyable use of elite level players only.

But, hey, let’s use the same foresight to fix disc golf at Northeast Park that has been used with the train out there.

Buzz Sharpe

 

 

Science Not Necessarily Fact

Dear Editor,

I feel compelled to respond to the letter to the editor in the March 16, 2017 Rhino Times from Maureen Parker.

When is the last time you heard anything about the ozone layer and all the panic and fear that outlawed Freon that was manufactured by Dow Chemical?

Well, guess who saved the planet?  Dow Chemical.  It turns out that their patent was about to expire and they were the only company that had the formula for a “safe” product to replace it.  We were all going to be scorched to death by the sun because of the hole in the ozone.  Such a ruckus was raised that Freon must be replaced immediately, so no other company had time to research and manufacture a less costly substitute.  The ozone is fluctuating just as much now as when the theory about the ozone started, but Dow Chemical has a new patent that is lining their pockets.

Now, according to Ms. Parker, we are soon going to be fried due to global warming – (PC climate change).  The scientific theories she calls facts are nothing but theory.  Scientists get all kinds of awards, grants and money for the foundations they are working for.  If the results are not what they are wanting, they are replaced by a different scientist.  If you put in one set of “facts” with a slant in them you will get results with that slant.  If you put in the same “facts” with a different slant you will get results with that slant.

Please realize that 50 percent of all scientists were in the lower half of their class.

Bob Blanchard

 

 

Unhappy with Pitts

Dear Editor,

Regarding Leonard Pitts column in the Greensboro News & Record of March 9, I believe he is the biggest racist this country has ever seen or known. I’d like him to show me one example of slavery today as compared to the number of intruders that rape young girls on an ongoing basis.

He keeps throwing this up in our faces as if it’s still going on today. However, I have never seen more prominent black people in this country as I ever have seen before. Go to Ruth’s Chris and you’ll see that 90 percent of the patrons are black. I see young and old black people driving Lexus, BMW and Mercedes Benzes. I see young black people with iPhones. I see TV shows showing prominent black families enjoying their lives in this country.

Slavery as it happened 150 years ago does not exist in this country anymore. Why does he keep bringing it up and reminding us white people who do more for black people then black people do for themselves? Why doesn’t he go to Somalia and write his columns there and let those black leaders who kill millions of black men, women and children know how he feels about slavery. Mr. Pitts needs to wake up. We do not have slavery in this country anymore. It’s been dead for over 150 years. For everyone’s sake, Pitts needs to get a life.

Jess Grassi

 

Send to letters@rhinotimes.com or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429