Bringing hope
It has dawned on me that the upcoming election of 2016 has offered our nation’s citizens a chance to share in the greatness of Abraham Lincoln emancipating the slaves in the once divided nation he faced during his term as president.
Our citizen’s votes this year could speed up the process of correcting many of our nation’s longstanding wrongs as to a wide range of issues that lessen the statement that we are all equal, while what we believe falls far short in many areas within our nation.
Yes we are living at a time when our nation is much better for many than it was when it was created. But bringing equal treatment under our laws has dragged on too long. The election of 2016 could make huge advancements in righting so many of the wrongs that have continued to linger on and on.
I have never seen our presidential election show the great divide, the conservative agenda as being so well published as to its difference’s with the liberal agenda. Trump’s statements, and the backing of his party as to their worth, offers a true chance to put before the world just what we are as a people and what our citizens believe is the American Dream.
A strong statement by the Democratic Party as to its values and dreams, can bring the same inner feelings that most of our citizens feel when reflecting on the huge rightness of freeing our fellow man from the evil of slavery. Every 2016 voter could rightfully feel that, like Lincoln, their 2015 stand could be pointed to as a major rightness at a point in the future history of this nation.
Our vote in this year’s election would bring closer to whether or not our individual votes do count. If those parties who support such a statement and ask for our votes are elected, major advancements to the equality of all of us in this nation, be the modern day Shot Heard Around the World as to our pride in being a nation to bring hope to other citizens of other nations to strive to bring a better life to their daily lives too.
Jim Hall, Clearlake Oaks
Dangerous drive
“And another one’s down, another one’s down, another one bites the dust…” — 1970s song.
As the Northshore laments the death of another Highway 20 (Blood Alley) victim, it’s time to protest the situation causing these disasters.
We have the busiest highway in the county on a two-lane road with several substandard sections and a still uncompleted repaving job.
Going through residential and wildlife areas with many blind curves, narrow sections and areas with three lanes, it’s increasingly difficult with heavier traffic every year and so many distracted, incompetent and just plain reckless drivers.
Then there’s rock slides, pets and pedestrians in dark clothing, poorly marked crosswalks (one in Nice) and lakeside drop-offs with no barriers.
Traffic movement comes first. Residents and the lake come in last.
Along with the deaths are many injuries, close calls that scare the dickens out of a driver and often a pedestrian — yes, some people do walk on the highway! And I could go on and on about illegal noise and fumes from some vehicles!
I applaud the good drivers in well-maintained vehicles — you are the majority.
More coverage by the Record-Bee to this problem can help locals and visitors pay attention. The beauty of this county can also be distracting, but with care it can be much safer and enjoyed by all.
My condolences to Mr. Hartnett’s friends and family.
Wendy White, Glenhaven
Time and perspective
Man is unwilling or unable to see anything from other than the human perspective, and if anything of unaccountable complexity is to be explained, man usually turns to the supernatural, by which defeatist maneuver he has managed to forestall scientific progress for centuries. Better should he take the advice I found in a maxim printed on an inspirational calendar given me by the Lucerne pharmacy: “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails,” (author unknown). I admire that author.
A thought: if we could feel satisfied that God created the world by saying, “Let there be…,” it would sure save a lot of research about how things have happened. How big was this god we’re talking about? One man vis-a-vis the whole earth looks a little extreme, I think the felicitous word is “ridiculous.”
I’m for letting every person express his or her opinion, and I wouldn’t be for burning anybody alive for what they believe. It has been done, but for the money end of it. Like military industry today, profiteers were afraid the money, in this case tithes, would stop rolling in. They had to make examples of the shirkers. People will do anything for money.
About the creation of the earth, I feel it more likely to have been done by nature’s infinite accouterments than by man’s conjury. I don’t know where the dirt and rocks came from that make the fundaments of the earth, but I expect time, measurable in millions of years, had a lot to do with it. And sunlight is a special kind of light that may contain several nutrients; for some forms of life take nourishment of sunlight alone. The mixture of sunlight’s nutrients with the many yet-to-be-discovered potentials that doubtless permeate the earth may eventually reveal a great prematurity in many of our conclusions about the world we live in.
Dean Sparks, Lucerne
