Your Opinions

Democracy or a Republic

EDITOR: Regarding a caption on the front page of the Eureka Times-Standard. “A newspaper is the closest anyone will ever get to holding Democracy in their hands.” (Sharon DiMauro, Fort Bragg Advocate-News).

Article 4 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution clearly defines our system of government as a Republic.

A page from history: Norman Mattoon Thomas, 1½0/188412/19/1968: American Socialist, Pacifist and six-time presidential candidate said in a 1944 speech: “I will no longer run for president from the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.”

Plato: 427-347 B.C. “The most wholesome government is a Republic.”

Check out “Democratic Centralism” in the dictionary.

Notwithstanding “our Democracy” that's being proclaimed by some — when I look upon our beautiful flag my thoughts are: “And to the Republic for which it stands.”

A big hello to family and friends in Fort Bragg.

How to have your say:

P.S. As a youngster, I also picked cotton in the San Joaquin Valley!

Curious about containers

EDITOR: A few years ago (around 2016), a number of us tried to get the city to embark on an inexpensive and simple project to reduce the stormwater infusion of cigarette butts in gutters and from sidewalks. It went nowhere and the city never even responded substantively. We'd appeared before a two-person committee of the council, they raved about the effort and said they'd take it to the full council for approval and then… nothing and no word, even after asking for some feedback or explanation.

Yesterday, I observed that three or four black buckets had been wired to city waste containers in the downtown area. Is the city finally doing something?

Children should have more to do

To the Editor:

I've lived a while and observed a slow decline in free. Free TV, free news, free sports, free fun events for children. It is a new era of pay for everything. I had a analog world series antenna TV. The signal was shut off, during the series, then back on, after it was over. Grump! Lol. But I watched a couple games, for free.

Trick or treating was free, to the children in the past. And haunted houses, were always free, to make the holiday special for large families.

Sports were on regular TV for everyone in our country, to enjoy and have a feeling of comradeship with others. World series and football, basketball. All free to watch. Everyone was included. Now you pay, a lot in some cases. With the exspense of living basics, how does a family do this??

And events for kids, used to be free. If a parent had three kids, antenna TV was 10 a year! And disney was on every sunday night, if could not afford to go to the theater. A theater trip now for 4 is what, 50 without popcorn…. in past, weds movie matinees, were free in summer.

The cost of going to a show,

Email:

Phone: Fax: haunted house, watching sports, fairs, and holiday fun, is becoming only a upper middle class activity now. How does that effect children??

We all talk about helping parents with the basics. But while the basic necessities are very needed. The rest has gone up in price by 10 times…maybe more, or not even possible for most parents, to give to their children. The basic simple joys of childhood, should not cost a fortune. With all the upgrades in grander places, grandor ideas, the costs to enjoy, have skyrocketed, excluding many Americans.

The hardest part for a parent in this area, is telling a child, they can't go to Disneyland or the show, to see new movie. Or even to a haunted house or to watch a football game on TV. I find this change, hard to comprehend. Profiting from minimal fun. And I would love to see all children, get access to the funest activities, when it's impossible, to be outside, in winter or close contact with other families, because of covid. I'd love to see more free for children everywhere, so they feel like they

Mail to:

Twitter: belong to society and can stir the imagination of possibilities, in their minds, through stories and experiences. In my opinion, bring free back, or at least low costs, back to hard working families, for the families sake. Instead of burdening them or excluding them all together.

Couldn’t decide

To the Editor:

I was ecstatic when I found out that there was a proposition to eliminate cash bail!

Imagine my distress to learn that the decisions would then be decided based on computer generated algorithms! That's as bad and misleading as facial recognition, which is notorious for misidentifying women and people of color..

When computers were new, one of the applicable terms was GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. The computer output is determined by who puts what in the data base.

I could not bring myself to vote for it. So in frustration, I didn't vote on it either way.