Editor, Times-Union: Not too long ago a reader wrote to the editor regarding the new stop sign in the middle of the Edgewood Junior "Highway." While I agree wholeheartedly that this stop sign is an inconvenience, I know why it was put there. For some reason, 90 percent of the people driving through the Edgewood parking lot in the morning are going to the high school, not Edgewood. Why? There are three other, better and safer routes that these people should be taking. The access road between the high school and Edgewood should be open only to bus drivers in the morning. Anyone that uses this entrance to Edgewood knows exactly what I'm talking about, and probably would agree that the stop sign really isn't the problem, it's the people (and it seems like hundreds) going to the high school that are the problem. These are the same people that don't take turns and allow bus drivers and others to turn left off of Union Street in the morning. Make those drivers use the other, safer entrances to the high school instead of the only access to Edgewood, which, by the way, also happens to be within just a few feet of the kids getting off the buses. After all, it's a parking lot, not a highway.
Virginia Myers Warsaw via e-mail
Clinton Accomplishments
Editor, Times-Union: As a registered Independent voter, currently supporting the Libertarian party, I hesitate to underscore any of the current - or past - administration accomplishments. Having said that, it is only just to point out a late Clinton accomplishment very near to my heart which hasn't been commented on anywhere. On Dec. 21, 2000, President Clinton signed legislation calling for the first glaucoma detection benefit under Medicare (see American Academy of Ophthalmology www.eyenet.org). This ended the ophthalmologist group's three-year battle to create the only blindness prevention benefit under Medicare. The media has virtually ignored this legislative package. Provisions of the legislation included briefly: a large funding increase (14 percent) for the National Institutes of Health, the National Eye Institute receiving a 13.5 percent budget increase. The esteemed Eye M.D. Association proclaimed, "This benefit will help save the sight of thousands of seniors across America." Let us hope the newly appointed (judicial) president will support similar steps.
Stu Alfred Mentone via e-mail Taxes Editor, Times-Union: Now I pay a city fellow to do my taxes, on account of that's one more deduction that I can take.
The postman brought my W-2 this morning. Why, this year they're claiming one-third of all I make.
Now I'm just as patriotic as the next man is. Yes sir, and I love that "ole" Red, White and Blue.
So I'll help to pay this rising cost of freedom, but I'll be daggone if I'll change my point of view.
If 10 percent is good enough for Jesus, well sir, it ought to be good enough for Uncle Sam.
I don't think it's one bit funny for them taking so much of my money and doing things with it that I don't understand. But one thing that is all mine is my opinion. Yes sir, and I want you to know just where I stand. So I'll say again, if 10 percent is good enough for Jesus, well sir, should it be enough for Uncle Sam?
Some of those folks that we have sent off to Congress, well they think all you have to do is spend and spend. But you can't run a family, much less a country, with more money going out than coming in.
And that debt keeps on a getting bigger. Yes sir, we are all going to have to pay, so don't you laugh, 'cause one of these days you're going to look down at your paycheck and realize they have starting taking half.
