Letters, 7/3: Gas prices aren't so bad
In the 1960s, I was making $1.10 per hour working 45 hours per week. Take-home pay was $42 and some change. I was driving a ’55 Buick getting 12 miles per gallon, and gas was 35 cents a gallon. The 20-gallon tank cost me $7 to fill with a driving range of 240 miles, so that was one-sixth of my paycheck to drive 240 miles.
Let us fast forward to 2008. I have a CTS Cadillac that will get an honest 20 mpg, so it takes me 12 gallons of gas for a driving range of 240 miles. At $4 per gallon, 12 gallons of gas cost $48, so at $300-a-week take-home pay, it is one-sixth of a paycheck, and I do believe any person who works should take home at least $300 per week.
But here is the real problem: It is all the other things we think we need: $150-a-month cell phone bills, bottled water, and how much are you paying for Internet use plus espresso coffee at $3 to $4 a cup, cable with movie channels, and as you complain about the price of gas, you reach for a smoke. Have you ever sat down and figured the cost of things you could live without?
For me, I do not have a computer, use no bottled water, do not smoke, and no way I’m paying $3 for a cup of coffee. Yes, I have a cell phone; my wife does not.
Now think, how much is gas? Not too bad.
It’s all in the math, folks.
Weird Wally Smith, Lincoln
Bush foot-in-mouth disease
There you go again, President Bush. In this day of political correctness, when being sensitive to the feelings of others is paramount, our president once again proved that his sense of tact and diplomacy is sorely lacking.
In a recent meeting with Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Bush made the following statement: “I want to tell you how proud I am to be the president of a nation that — in which there’s a lot of Philippine-Americans. … I am reminded of the great talent — of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Here he laughs at his own droll comments.) And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.”
He was referring to Cristeta Comerford, who was named White House chef in 2005 after being assistant chef for 10 years.
How condescending! And he thought his comments to Arroyo were humorous. I doubt that she did, but she managed to handle the awkward situation graciously. I hope all Philippine-Americans are as gracious and forgiving as she was.
Bob Pinkerton, Weeping Water
More foresight needed
Are we a wise, prudent, careful and conservative people? We remove the terraces, eliminate and cease using the grassed waterways, straighten and take the meanders out of the stream channels, cut and clear the brush and trees bordering the river banks — all, and more, to remove the impediments and to hasten the flow of rainfall downstream toward the oceans — then we curse the floods that follow.
We denude and pave the land, plow under every corner and acre of native grassland, run the crop rows up and down the hills, with no hill being too steep to till for the $5 and $6 corn, and then we curse the levees for not holding back the deluge that follows, nor the prices of fertilizer, as virtually irreplaceable fertile topsoil races off the water to silt in wherever the hastening flow momentarily slackens or permanently slackens when reaching the saltwater oceans and gulfs to create dead zones the size of the state of New Jersey.
We drain marshlands and depressions and speed the drainage and then wonder why the sub-surface irrigation and water aquifers have not been fully replenished when having to pump water from those same aquifers as a result of rains not falling enough.
Are these the acts of a wise and conservative people? Why do we never look down the track, but only to curse the pain when struck by the train?
Stuart N. Luttich, Geneva
A fair playing field
According to William Stone (letter, July 1), affirmative action means nonwhite, non-Asian Americans must be inferior if they need preference; preference, therefore, is discriminatory.
Does an urban white child who answers that you find boats in driveways next to houses get preferential treatment over the child of color who had to sail on a boat to reach the United States and answers that you find boats on the ocean? Or is that acceptable because the white child didn’t have the same experiences?
Stone mentioned 1958. I remember those days — I was finishing seventh grade in that rural village where everyone looked very much like me.
As a girl and the oldest, I was expected to do well in school (that didn’t mean a B), behave, enhance the family’s reputation, set an example, plan a successful future and attain that goal.
My parents didn’t tell me, however, that I had to do it all better than any boy; that the boys would get to be class president, but I could be secretary; that my ideas and suggestions should be given with a sweet smile and fluttering eyelashes; that I could expect to get appropriate “female” employment so I could correct the male boss’s grammar and spelling while typing a perfect letter, dust the office, make his coffee and wash his cup. Society told me that.
Difficulty in life is accepting the status quo and wanting nothing to change, having no dream for the future, no goal for which to strive. Affirmative action makes it possible for many people to try many things.
There is no reason to fear affirmative action — it gives us a fair playing field from which to begin life’s journey.
We may not be deliberately discriminatory, but we do need to open our eyes, ears and minds because the world is here in Nebraska, where affirmative action gives us a fair beginning and reminds us to enjoy equality and diversity.
Sue Goodson, Lincoln
Let us fast forward to 2008. I have a CTS Cadillac that will get an honest 20 mpg, so it takes me 12 gallons of gas for a driving range of 240 miles. At $4 per gallon, 12 gallons of gas cost $48, so at $300-a-week take-home pay, it is one-sixth of a paycheck, and I do believe any person who works should take home at least $300 per week.
But here is the real problem: It is all the other things we think we need: $150-a-month cell phone bills, bottled water, and how much are you paying for Internet use plus espresso coffee at $3 to $4 a cup, cable with movie channels, and as you complain about the price of gas, you reach for a smoke. Have you ever sat down and figured the cost of things you could live without?
For me, I do not have a computer, use no bottled water, do not smoke, and no way I’m paying $3 for a cup of coffee. Yes, I have a cell phone; my wife does not.
Now think, how much is gas? Not too bad.
It’s all in the math, folks.
Weird Wally Smith, Lincoln
Bush foot-in-mouth disease
There you go again, President Bush. In this day of political correctness, when being sensitive to the feelings of others is paramount, our president once again proved that his sense of tact and diplomacy is sorely lacking.
In a recent meeting with Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Bush made the following statement: “I want to tell you how proud I am to be the president of a nation that — in which there’s a lot of Philippine-Americans. … I am reminded of the great talent — of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Here he laughs at his own droll comments.) And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.”
He was referring to Cristeta Comerford, who was named White House chef in 2005 after being assistant chef for 10 years.
How condescending! And he thought his comments to Arroyo were humorous. I doubt that she did, but she managed to handle the awkward situation graciously. I hope all Philippine-Americans are as gracious and forgiving as she was.
Bob Pinkerton, Weeping Water
More foresight needed
Are we a wise, prudent, careful and conservative people? We remove the terraces, eliminate and cease using the grassed waterways, straighten and take the meanders out of the stream channels, cut and clear the brush and trees bordering the river banks — all, and more, to remove the impediments and to hasten the flow of rainfall downstream toward the oceans — then we curse the floods that follow.
We denude and pave the land, plow under every corner and acre of native grassland, run the crop rows up and down the hills, with no hill being too steep to till for the $5 and $6 corn, and then we curse the levees for not holding back the deluge that follows, nor the prices of fertilizer, as virtually irreplaceable fertile topsoil races off the water to silt in wherever the hastening flow momentarily slackens or permanently slackens when reaching the saltwater oceans and gulfs to create dead zones the size of the state of New Jersey.
We drain marshlands and depressions and speed the drainage and then wonder why the sub-surface irrigation and water aquifers have not been fully replenished when having to pump water from those same aquifers as a result of rains not falling enough.
Are these the acts of a wise and conservative people? Why do we never look down the track, but only to curse the pain when struck by the train?
Stuart N. Luttich, Geneva
A fair playing field
According to William Stone (letter, July 1), affirmative action means nonwhite, non-Asian Americans must be inferior if they need preference; preference, therefore, is discriminatory.
Does an urban white child who answers that you find boats in driveways next to houses get preferential treatment over the child of color who had to sail on a boat to reach the United States and answers that you find boats on the ocean? Or is that acceptable because the white child didn’t have the same experiences?
Stone mentioned 1958. I remember those days — I was finishing seventh grade in that rural village where everyone looked very much like me.
As a girl and the oldest, I was expected to do well in school (that didn’t mean a B), behave, enhance the family’s reputation, set an example, plan a successful future and attain that goal.
My parents didn’t tell me, however, that I had to do it all better than any boy; that the boys would get to be class president, but I could be secretary; that my ideas and suggestions should be given with a sweet smile and fluttering eyelashes; that I could expect to get appropriate “female” employment so I could correct the male boss’s grammar and spelling while typing a perfect letter, dust the office, make his coffee and wash his cup. Society told me that.
Difficulty in life is accepting the status quo and wanting nothing to change, having no dream for the future, no goal for which to strive. Affirmative action makes it possible for many people to try many things.
There is no reason to fear affirmative action — it gives us a fair playing field from which to begin life’s journey.
We may not be deliberately discriminatory, but we do need to open our eyes, ears and minds because the world is here in Nebraska, where affirmative action gives us a fair beginning and reminds us to enjoy equality and diversity.
Sue Goodson, Lincoln
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