Make a well-informed choice

To the editor:

I am writing as a Wayne county resident who is deeply concerned about our community’s future. After nearly two years of the gas companies’ low profile presence in our district, suddenly the majority of our citizenry is made aware of them. We are told that it is safe to allow multiple wells to be dug across our landscape, but is it?

So far, we’ve heard only from the representatives of the gas companies. There is a great need for counterbalanced information about the environmental and health hazards of gas drilling that ordinary citizens can understand. Although objective reports are available, they are out of the mainstream of the popular media and sometimes require wading through obscure technical or industry terms.

I would like to point out that a completely local grassroots effort to look more closely into the issues raised by gas drilling has fortunately resulted in an organization, Damascus Citizens for Self-Government and Friends (DCS). The self-funded organization with the goal of community education has created a website, DamascusCitizens.org, where well-documented, clear information on these subjects has been assembled. We need a moratorium on permits and leases to give the community time to become more informed of the pros and cons. When all the issues are addressed and understood, the emphasis on our future as a community must be to involve the health of our residents and our environment, since these are intertwined.

Apparently a lot of effort has gone into making the DCS web site a careful and clear presentation, and it is very enlightening. As a result of what DCS presents, I urge people to look at DamascusCitizens.org. We need to help ourselves now as we wait for the congress to deal with the effects of Energy Policy Act of 2005. No less than our children’s future is at stake.

Pennsylvania matters

To the editor:

Not since 1976 has the Democratic Presidential primary in Pennsylvania mattered as much as it will this April 22. The polls show Senator Clinton leading, but with several weeks to go, we Pennsylvania Democrats have an opportunity to disprove them.

It is time for change in our country, and Senator Barack Obama represents the kind of change we need. For the past two decades, two families have presided in the White House. Should Hillary Clinton become the Democrats’ nominee, we run the risk of having more of the same. What the United States needs instead is a new family in the White House and a leader with new ideas and new energy.

Obama exhibits so much of what the United States should be about. He is the product of the union of a white woman from Kansas and an immigrant from Kenya. He was greatly influenced by his working class Midwestern grandparents. His family was not affluent, but his parents valued education, and Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

Most of us heard this eloquent American spokesman for the first time when, as a senator from Illinois, he delivered his rallying speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Over the past few months, we have heard him speak once again as he travels across the country campaigning to be President. The American people should be thrilled at the prospect of having a true orator in the White House, yet Senator Clinton mocks Obama’s speeches, suggesting that’s all he has going for him. But those familiar with his background—try reading “Dreams from My Father” or “The Audacity of Hope”—realize that this is a man of accomplishment and integrity.

Our country needs to be returned to its well-respected status in the eyes of the world. Perhaps before we head to the polls on April 22, we should pause to recollect another senator from Illinois who was also a fine orator, and who became so highly respected that he was honored with his own holiday. Cast your vote on April 22 for the candidate who can best recall the United States to its respectability in the world.

Don’t bring Hillary back

To the editor:

I can’t help but think that the ego trip that Hillary Clinton is on could result in the ruination of the Democratic Party if she continues in her quest for the White House.

I believe her husband almost ruined the country by giving her so much authority and never bothered to rein her in.

Between her ridiculous health care bill that she proposed, to her recommendation of Janet Reno as attorney general, which Bill himself said was one of his worst mistakes, to her bizarre decorating of the Christmas tree in the Blue Room, to her recommendation of her former law firm partners—Web Hubbell, Vince Foster and William Kennedy—for Justice Department positions, resulting in Hubbell being imprisoned. Foster committing suicide and Kennedy being forced to resign, to the furniture that had to be returned to the White House, to her promise to New York State voters that she would bring back 200,000 jobs to New York, it is beyond comprehension how anyone could entertain voting for her.

Something new is stirring

To the editor:

Something has happened to my 21-year-old sister. Yesterday, she spent almost two hours checking the reality of statements made by the current political candidates and watching policy on YouTube.com.

So what’s brought about this change? Barack Obama. The Barack Obama campaign has been so successful because it has brought out the political animal in the newest generation of potential voters. She’s now excited to watch the debates, stayed up to watch the election results on Super Tuesday Part II and is thrilled that she—a Pike County resident—would have a real say in one of the most contested primary elections in history.

It makes sense that the chairman of the Pike PA for Obama Committee (a small but growing group of residents) is a senior at Delaware Valley High School. Young people should be taking the reigns on these campaigns. I am urging more young people to get involved. Register to vote. Attend a political action committee. Wear a button or slap a bumper sticker showing your support of a candidate. After all, you’ve waited your whole life for your car, and the bumper stickers you put on it should mean something, right?

Of course, I’d be thrilled if that bumper sticker said “Obama 2008,” and that political action committee was Pike PA for Obama (which meets in Milford every Tuesday evening, details at barackobama.com ). But it’s a free country.

‘Time’s a-wasting’

To the editor:

Clem Fullerton (March 13-19) attributes that saying to “Snuffy Smith (a cartoon character drawn by Al Capp).” Clem and I are both old enough to know Al Capp drew “Li’l Abner” and gang. Snuffy, from the much older comic strip “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith” was drawn by Billy DeBeck, Fred Lasswell and John Rose. I had to Google up those names, however.