Letters to the editor:
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Trucking at the Root

This is about Click and Clack's [Oct. 2] piece on SUVs, even though I realize they are nationally syndicated.

I'm moved to send an open letter to my [generally like-minded] compadres in the real world—crotchety boomers, environmentalists, health and fitness freaks, gardeners and animal lovers. Let's try to stop gnawing at each other's legs and go after the real reason we are all breathing such foul air and risking our lives on the open road.

The trucking industry and their very powerful lobby destroyed the railroad infrastructure in this country, and now they are so totally everywhere that one cannot go two miles without being tailgated by at least one mad trucker in a hurry. I drive a 12-year-old Volvo wagon, which I use to haul mulch, soil, and the occasional painting. Yes, it gets poorer mileage than, say, a tiny car, and it handles like a cinder block, but I feel safe in that cocoon. My husband drives a Range Rover, mostly for his various outdoor activities in remote places, but also so he can see a little bit better on the open road and, if he is hit, it will not disintegrate. We use it for long road trips as we feel it is safer. Period. I'll wager lunch at Tomato Head that an awful lot of folks have gotten these larger vehicles not so that they can macerate compact cars, but so that in case they are hit by a semi, they stand a 50/50 chance of living to tell about it.

And Metro Pulse, if you do not publish this letter, I'll know it is because the trucking industry keeps Pilot Oil afloat!

Jean Hess
Knoxville

Irreligious Abstinence?

The issue of "abstinence" education in public schools has raised the hairs of suspicion on the back of my neck for sometime, not because I'm opposed to the mention of abstinence as a choice to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, but because its surreptitious goal is proselytizing. That this is the goal has repeatedly been denied by public school, religious, and government officials.

However, in our schools can be found the video, "Sex, Lies and the Truth," a tape used for abstinence education. The tape is produced by, and can only be purchased from, Focus On The Family, an evangelistic Christian group. It contains the statement, "the God of the Bible loves you more than your parents, boyfriend, or girlfriend," hardly a neutral affirmation for abstinence to young adults holding different beliefs.

Now, emboldened by an evangelistic federal administration, there is, apparently, no more need to sneak around as evidenced by this quote found in the Sunday, Sept. 14, edition of the News Sentinel: "Our No. 1 goal is not abstinence but that they come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and through knowing him, that's the only way we truly believe you can remain abstinent."

So dies the United States Constitution and civil liberty.

Chuck Janack
Knoxville

Alas, a Lack

Frank Cagle's daily mid-morning radio show is no more, alas. I lament its demise. It was local programming without an overriding agenda or desire to get people upset and screaming about something. It was an asset due to its variety of guests with information of value to both local and regional listeners.

Frank did tend to be a bit on one particular side of certain issues, but he added a sense of humor, and the show always had a general temperament of moderation and common sense.

Replacing his show with a nationally generated show without any local content is an affront, bordering on a direct insult, to the local community. These nationally syndicated shows resemble the repetitive din of an infomercial, with about as much useful information. Tuning into one of those shows is reminiscent of opening a lunch bag that has sat too long in the sun with a boiled egg inside.

Cagle's show was a slow walk to your table. Sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee with interesting people around you. Having a conversation about something of direct consequence to your daily life.

Hopefully something akin to Frank's show can be created once again in the local radio market. The Historical Society needs more airtime also, Anybody Listening?

I was.

Russell Hall
Knoxville