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KAT Deprives Elderly, Disabled
I am writing to voice my discontent about the access deprived Summit Towers residents to the downtown KAT transfer station (Main Street). Most, if not all, residents here are suffering some sort of disability. We all can’t jump and run. Senior citizens comprise the majority of residents.
I’m hopeful the mayor and KAT officials will address this issue before the Oct. 28 KAT meeting (3 p.m.). Because three more weeks of hardship for many, many people can be avoided by a simple change of routes and schedules.
Also, there aren’t any benches in front of the Bank of America building. What are people with walkers, bad knees or canes to do?! Let alone no shelter from the rain and soon to be snow along many routes.
Peter M. Knapp
Knoxville
Defense of the KAT People
KAT employees have always gone the extra mile for me. I appreciate them. I have had two heart attacks in Knoxville while a student at UT hoping to better my life and help others. KAT has always listened to my needs and made every effort possible to assist me.
I have a concern that we at Summit Towers do not have direct transportation to the transfer point. Even though I have had many setbacks while living in Knoxville, I still believe in the integrity in the human race and the amazing love of God for His creation.
Lela M. Puckett
Knoxville
Socialism vs. Privatization
For anyone who is confused over which presidential candidate to vote for, I would suggest the best-selling book John Adams.
The letters between John Adams and his wife Abigail are filled not only with the love between two soul mates, but of their fears for the future of their country.
Excessive government control over individual lives remains the heart of what is at stake in this election. Emotions are high over the war in Iraq, but the solutions offered by Sen. Kerry are no different than what is already being done. It would be foolish to change presidents for this reason.
What direction do you want to see this country go in? Socialism may sound kind, but it is evil in that it involves the lording of power by an elite few over a whole society. It is not virtuous, it is arrogant. President Bush is proposing truly progressive ideas for our future. Ideas that are consistent with freedom. Health savings accounts, privatizing Social Security and simplifying our tax system are exciting and positive. Socialized (national, single payer) healthcare is antiquated and failing everywhere, yet it continues to be one of the biggest desires of the Democratic Party.
What direction do you want your future and the future of your children to go in? Don’t be too quick to throw away your freedom. Think seriously about this before you vote.
Victoria Abbott
Knoxville
Curb Your Utilities
In the Metro Pulse Sept. 2 article titled,”Ready for Sprawl II?”, Frank Cagle asks a serious question that needs to be answered. The question is: “What can we do?” The subject is the lack of suburban planning in the past 20 years in West Knox County. Each Knox County taxpayer pays for this lack of planning.
Cagle writes, “In lieu of road and utility planning that would have encouraged the direction of development, growth has occurred willy-nilly, and roads and utilities have followed haphazardly. The county has exerted no controlling influence. The direction and size of a simple sewer line has more impact on the direction of development than almost any other factor. If we are moving into the second phase of West Knox sprawl, we have the option of continuing to sit by, wringing our hands, or to start paying attention.”
The answer to Cagle’s question, “What can we do?” is that the Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission, the Farragut MPC, Knox County Schools and the Utilities (FUD and WKUD) must work together with some basic Master Growth Plan to prevent a suburban sprawl nightmare. Allowing FUD and WKUD to place sewer lines wherever they please, whenever they please, is the key factor to uncontrolled and unplanned growth.
The result of this oversight is that we are allowing farms to be converted into subdivisions faster than schools and roads can be built or paid for. You, the taxpayer, get to pay the balloon note. The utilities are supposed to respond to the need for sewers, not create the need. Once a sewer line touches a farm, it is no longer a farm; it is a potential subdivision, regardless of whether the schools and roads can accommodate the new population. Ironically, the utilities are “not for profit” entities.
Should the taxpayers of Knox County allow the utilities to control the rate of population growth without any oversight from Knox County MPC, the Farragut MPC or Knox County Schools?
A new high school today costs $45 million dollars. Cagle is correct that Knox County Schools should have already purchased the land years ago for the new West Knox County high school. Why do we allow Knox County Schools to continue their poor record of planning for future school construction?
Blount County has taken a different approach to this same problem. The Maryville Regional Planning Commission has suggested how City Council or the planning commission can reject subdivisions that would be served by overcrowded schools within the city’s Urban Growth Boundary. Blount County says, “Just say no.”
Planning is a better answer. As long as the taxpayers allow these utilities to be islands to themselves, there can be no planning for responsible growth and development.
Mike Mitchell
Knoxville
Both Ways?
Barry Henderson had a challenging combination of essays in the Oct. 7 issue. His lengthy essay, “Same-Sex Marriage, Same Old Story,” ended with a clear conclusion about how he feels about sexual morality and mores: “Diversity is not just a catchword; it’s an ideal. Tolerance is just OK; acceptance of differences, including sexual preference differences, is the goal.”
I read this article and wondered how many sexual preferences should be accepted. Some who argue for same-sex marriage are vociferous in their rejection of polygamy, an institution that goes back to antiquity. (Some liberals and gays need to be more accepting of differences in sexual preference!) Male teachers who bed a teen girl and female teachers who bed a teen boy still run into some real legal difficulties in many American communities. Why can’t parents ever marry their kids? Why can’t...? (You fill in all the sexual-preference possibilities.)
If we read the other article by Barry, there is another sexual preference that still gets a bad rap in terms of tolerance of preference differences. He seems to paint a different picture of morality in his article, “Suffering (and) the Children.” Do we get any hint in this essay that acceptance of differences, including sexual preference differences, is the goal?
Here are some of the striking words he uses: pain, victim, crimes, abuse, priest abuse, anger, molestation, disgust, ordeal, rape, sodomy. It sounds like what priests did with young boys and teens was awful. There seem to be so many parents and boys who are profoundly hurt and even damaged by some sexual preferences of these priests. Does Barry support acceptance of this sexual behavior?
Barry would be able to point out to these parents that they are just backward in their thinking. He could tell them that men having sex with boys was pretty common in the ancient Greek culture and, apparently, an acceptable sexual preference difference to much of that population. Why not for us? Are those parents just prudes?
By what standard can he condemn priests for having sex with boys in this society when it has been acceptable in another? By what standard can he condemn those who cannot accept that sexual preference differences should be the goal?
If there is no standard of right and wrong, his first essay is right and his second essay is simply picking on priests who might say they love boys. If it is right to condemn priests for behavior that the parents and boys tell us has inflicted great pain and hurt and suffering, then we might discover that many other sexual preferences result in similar pain, hurt, suffering, and even incurable diseases, because there is some standard that we cannot ignore.
Barry can’t have it both ways. Maybe I’m just confused on where Barry stands on the issue of sexual morality.
Garvin L. Greene
Knoxville
October 14, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 42
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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