Lectures
As most people are unaware, for much of this last century, local funeral directors provided ambulance services, for emergencies, until 1970. The “ambulance” equipment was then removed to become a hearse, as needed.
Obviously, California realized that this was a conflict of interest: if mortuaries failed to save a patient, they’d make a larger profit burying their customers, so the incentive wasn’t there.
(This above information is for those of us who don’t want to read those “meaningless lectures,” and makes going back to reading the obituaries/funeral notices more interesting.)
R. Roon S. Searcy, Lower Lake
Where are the tears?
How come we don’t see Obama getting all teary eyed regarding the deaths of all the black children in the city of Chicago?
Thomas Nickel, Lakeport
Comments
I want to express my thanks for the “Editor’s note” (Sat. after Mr. Nickel’s letter). It provided some needed reality between two sharply divergent viewpoints. Additionally, I am surprised that both Messrs Hall and Nickel overlooked or ignored some history.
Yes, slavery was a growing problem, but it was not nearly what it is “remembered” today. It was accepted by most. Business and investors benefitted because it enabled low labor costs (and higher profits) and the occasional asset increase by the birthing of a mulatto or quadroon that was very saleable. That it was morally improper was acknowledged, but mostly by northern abolitionists. The big difference was that the cultures and values of the southern states (later the Confederacy), largely rural and agricultural and much smaller than the north was becoming increasingly different from the north. It favored the equivalent of today’s “state’s rights” and did not want to be “pushed around” by the more powerful north. With the secession and the splitting of the country, the north was infuriated and the essential motive for the north was the reunification of the country. Certainly this was so for my upper New England ancestors.
But the south fired first and lost a bitter struggle. In 1863, things were not going well for Mr. Lincoln and he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a savvy political, but highly illegal and unfair. Let’s face it, he was the chief executive of one country issuing orders to another, separate country. And the “emancipation” applied only to slaves in those areas in rebellion, not those in the “union” — Slaves in Kentucky were not freed until 1868.
Mr. Lincoln was a moderate compared to most of his cabinet who really wanted to punish the south. With his death and the end of the war they had their way — it was called “reconstruction.” Between the “representatives” of the north, the carpet baggers, and the resulting corrupt actions for the next few years, some white citizens were penalized. Reconstruction indeed! If any post war actions could have done more to alienate southern whites, I can’t think of any.
I submit that it was the infamous Mr. Booth and reconstruction that started our present problems.
Guff Worth, Lakeport
