We’re in it together

To the editor:

We were dismayed with the letter in The River Reporter (“The devil’s at the door”) that cast the question of whether or not to sign a gas lease as a struggle between good and evil. For many hard-pressed landowners, a gas lease can seem like a lifeline, not a pact with Satan.

The imminent prospect of gas drilling has undoubtedly created a lot of anxiety, but we have to be careful not to throw mutual respect out the window. If we want to achieve the best possible outcome, all of us are going to have to work together. Property owners who sign leases and those of us who are concerned about the effects of drilling both have important roles to play.

Property owners can protect themselves and their neighbors by negotiating leases that safeguard our health and our environment. Anti-drilling advocates can provide an invaluable service by alerting us to the potential risks of gas extraction and by working to make sure our legislators and state agencies properly regulate the industry.

Friends and neighbors have recently gotten together to form a grassroots organization called Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy ( www.catskillcitizens.org ) that will seek to work with everyone in the community to see that all our interests are protected.

Bruce Ferguson
Callicoon Center

Hanging on to a bad idea

To the editor:

Regarding your article, “Delaware bridges eyed for replacement,” in the June 5 issue: How can it be possible that the Joint Bridge Commission is still lobbying for a new bridge at Pond Eddy—now at an escalating cost of $12 million dollars that will no doubt be higher still? This is in spite of the reasoned arguments for restoration of this National Register Landmark made by numerous state and national preservation groups. We note that the bridge commission places the cost of a new Pond Eddy Bridge even higher than a new Callicoon-Damascus Bridge. At Pond Eddy, there are fewer than 50 cars per day, and at Callicoon there are many hundreds of cars per day. The Pond Eddy Bridge can and should be restored to its original capacity, such that it can provide an appropriate level of service to Pennsylvania residents, while remaining an important historic landmark and resource for the Upper Delaware corridor. Further delay on fixing the bridge is simply unacceptable all around.

Enough with the yuppy angst

To the editor:

Hey Cass Collins, didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s tacky to disclose how much you paid for something like a car? I think you should look again at the nameplate; I believe it is “PIOUS.” I hope you have enough room to cart around all your hot air along with all your middle-aged yuppie angst. [This letter refers to the River Muse column of June 5.]

Water, milk or gas?

To the editor:

Recent articles juxtaposed in your latest edition (re milk price fixing and gas exploration) raise what perhaps may be a far-fetched question: what’s the likelihood of the Dairy Farmers of America conspiring with the gas companies to keep milk prices low, forcing farmers to accept gas leases in order to keep their heads above water?

A Republican for Carney

To the editor:

I am a Republican that will vote for the most fiscally responsible candidate running for U.S. House of Representatives in my district, the 10th in Pennsylvania. That candidate is Chris Carney.

We need representation that will support pay-as-you-go legislation and stop mortgaging our kids’ future. We need to make the hard decisions to move towards a balanced budget.

Chris Carney has demonstrated that he will choose what is right for his constituents. His opponent spouts the same finely tuned rhetoric that belies the policies that have delivered record deficits and an economy that has not been good for the middle class.

I am a single father with sole custody of my three kids. Personally, I have had to make certain choices, trying to do what was best for my kids. Sometimes, we need to sacrifice a little to make sure the next generation will not be in peril. I believe that Chris Carney will make decisions the way that I do. He will try to do what is right for those old enough to vote as well as the next generation. Those are hard choices to make sometimes and Representative Carney has shown that he can make those choices.

I believe Chris Carney will continue to represent me and the 10th district well; that is why I am happy to support him in 2008.

The Golden Rule

To the editor:

We all have free will, not just regarding our eternal destination but also regarding what is right and wrong, moral and ethical. Moment by moment, day by day, each individual person has the right to choose what they do. However, laws are set up to prevent anarchy and crimes against other people because some people will choose to do harm to others and consider it right in their own eyes.

The National Day of Silence is a day in our public schools that is organized by homosexuals to encourage classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior. I feel a need to remind everyone that Christians are persecuted as well, yes, even here in upstate New York, but even worse in other countries. Please check out Voice of the Martyrs or Gospel for Asia, and you will see that many people of faith who have families and loved ones are beaten up, robbed and even killed because they are Christians. We must all learn to obey the Golden Rule, which was said by Jesus Christ: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”

No more business as usual

To the editor:

Senator Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic candidate a couple of weeks ago, and the Republican dirty-trick machine is fully ramped up and has already gone after his wife and two members of the team that’s helping him select a running mate. Are we sick of this yet? Boy, I sure am. What about the issues?

What about $4- to $5-a-gallon gas? What about rising unemployment? What about a protracted, tragic, lives-wasting, economy-draining, un-winnable war in Iraq? What about runaway food costs? What about the masses of Americans without health insurance? What about the unrelenting attacks on our environment by the Bush Administration? What about our outrageous national debt? What about our dramatically devalued dollar? What about the embarrassing, dismal state of our national image and reputation throughout the world? What about the bruising, battering and bullying of our citizens by an imperious, smug, callous and a greedy Republican administration snuggled up under the covers with corporate America’s energy barons?

By words and actions, John McCain is confirming the fact that he’ll just be using more of the same Republican tactics Richard Nixon used when he doggedly smeared and “Commie-baited” Helen Gahagan Douglas way back during their 1950 California senate race; a portent of the odious McCarthyism yet to come. And it’s now just the campaign. One shudders when considering the kind of leader he’d be, if elected.

With the array of problems and issues facing us today, we, at long last, need to get beyond that kind of campaigning and governing mentality with all its “high-ground” phoniness, caustic condescension, sarcastic negativism, nasty innuendo, surly pit-bull attacks and the rest. We must recognize this diversionary buffoonery for what it is. It’s time for change, late though it may be. The electorate has to repair our broken government.

Price cap the wrong way to go

To the editor:

So, Maurice Hinchey is on his latest campaign, this time demanding the price of gasoline be set at $2.49 per gallon. What’s next—Big Macs? With Mo Reese, free enterprise and supply and demand go out the window. Economic illiterates, like Hinchey, should be under adult supervision at all times. Fortunately, not even his Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives put much credence in his harebrained schemes. Mo Reese, Mo Baloney.