Published: March 10, 2008 02:07 pm            

3/9/2008 Letters to the editor

Kudos to Larue Barnes

I would like to express my appreciation for the Cleburne Times-Review and especially for the weekly articles written by Larue Barnes. Every Sunday I look forward to reading your paper and especially her articles. I believe Cleburne and the Cleburne Times-Review are very lucky to have someone of her quality writing for the newspaper.

Recently, I moved back to Cleburne after 43 years serving the U.S. military in uniform and as a civilian. My relatives always mailed me articles from the Cleburne Times-Review. If I wasn’t able to receive news from other media, your paper and the articles from my family and friends kept me in touch with what was happening in my hometown.

I was deeply honored and surprised when someone I don’t know suggested to Mrs. Barnes she write an article on my career for the Cleburne Times-Review. I was more than honored, beyond surprised, and most impressed with Mrs. Barnes’ professionalism, accuracy and attention to detail. The way she went about her job of documenting, editing, and organizing someone’s life was artistic and remarkable.

Most of the times when someone is so close or knowledgeable about the subject they tend to provide too much unorganized detail — like I did. But she showed she was especially gifted in her ability to quickly organize and get to the important points for the intended audience. There is one last special ability Mrs. Barnes had that impressed me — the military has their own vocabulary, jargon, abbreviations, acronyms and colloquialisms, all of which she made understandable to the civilian, non-military reader.

Mrs. Barnes is an exemplary newspaper journalist and a very valuable member of the Cleburne community.

Thanks for the Cleburne Times-Review and your staff.



Michael K. Hopkins,

Cleburne



They’re all cowards

Aren’t we great Americans? Most of us don’t raise a hackle or show any signs of involvement unless our water is cut off, which includes our perks from “big brother,” our own Uncle Sam! Just look at the large turnouts for the primary voting and that great tradition, the caucus. “Why” is because we are suddenly turned on by the same old stuff from political mouths that’s put slick people into office since way back.

Promises of what “I’m going to do for you when I’m president of these United States of America” have been bouncing off the walls for months, and we have eaten it up. How pitiful we are when we show our real stripes. We go for what feels good and what our partisan leaders recommend. In my opinion the elected one will be there because most voters wanted to keep another one from being elected, not because of the winner’s esteemed qualities.

How many of us would vote for a person of outstanding qualities who told the truth and vowed to cut out most entitlements, remove all illegal immigrants who are now and will in the future sap our resources even more, reduce medical and health benefits, make lobbying illegal, push for term limits of two terms on congressional members, allow congressional members the same medical and Social Security retirement as the average citizens, push for line item veto with no earmarking or add-ons to bills, verify the authenticity of all religious groups receiving nontax favors, put less emphasis on the U.N. and more on quality economy at home and more emphasis on the true interpretation of the constitution, quality education of those who wish to learn and retention of the freedoms of America to those who daily show their appreciation and allegiance to this country?

Would you think he was taking us backwards? The president can do very little about those things without Congress to help him, so take his talk with moderate seriousness. The present Congress would want to impeach him, if elected, even before he started his good work.

Of greatest seriousness is when our comptroller general, David Walker, very seriously, states that the U.S. will go bankrupt if fiscal responsibility and action is not promptly taken. Our Congress pays no attention to his warnings, which make a lot of sense. Our congressmen who make all of our decisions are interested in themselves and being re-elected by getting everything possible for their constituents and have obligingly spent us to near death.

Our national credit cards have been maxed out for some time, and we can barely pay the interest. It’s not the war that is causing this as much as the overdone perks for so many and foolish and wasteful fiscal habits. How can rebates and tax cuts and amnesty, with all of its giveaways, help this deficit situation? This should ring a bell with many citizens who have overused their credit cards and learned the hard way. We should all work harder and spend less on vanity.



Monte Swatzell,

Cleburne

        

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