Abuse is just symptom

I have spent the better part of three hours per day each of the last three days attempting to get my wife, Mariana, enrolled in the S.T.E.P security program for her impending trip to her home in Sofia, Bulgaria and have been completely frustrated by this badly flawed program, obviously constructed by a poorly paid, poorly trained and overworked programmer trainee.

The maddening thing is that there is noway to contact the State Department except via their selfserving automatic email responder, which of course pumps out the usual “thank you” message and nothing else.

The main problem is that the system will not accept an 08 input in the month field of the MMDDYYYY field.

Sounds simple Ha.

I have met the enemy, and he is my Department of State. to fix, doesn’t it? ZIP code, nil code

Since August 1995, I have been a resident of Coral Springs. But inmy area of the city, we’re called Pompano Beach by theU.S. Postal Service and anyone who I try to do business with.

Now we have our Coral Springs elected officials declaring victory via Rep. Ted Deutch that they have finally gotten the U.S. Postal Service to recognize Coral Springs exists and will properly be referred to by its rightful name.

That is if you live in two of the city’s multiple ZIP codes, 33065 or 33071.

Whoop de do. Apparently because it bothered the mayor’s wife, he sought Deutch’s help. What about the rest of the city’s residents who happily pay their taxes but seem to matter little more to our elected officials?

Well, Messrs. Campbell and Deutch, it bothers me too, but apparently you don’t care. Maybe you’ll both care when it’s time for re-election.

Anyway, since my 33076 PompanoBeachZIPcodeoverlaps with another city called Parkland, maybe I’ll start using that city’s name.

It’s a city that has more prestige than Coral Springs and a mayor that really cares about its city’s citizens.

Most people are not well informed about substance abusers or the brain disease of addiction. It is still generally believed that the affected can stop if only they would. The substance or obsession is only a symptom.

With 10-plus years in recovery and hundreds of hours working with others suffering from addiction, it ismy sincere belief that our health care system is not doing enough, and our law enforcement departments are being asked to do too much. We are not reducing the hundreds of deaths every day from addiction, the 5 million-plus emergency room visits every year or the 10 million-plus reported driving under the influence yearly.

We have an epidemic and are past due on collecting the type of care our addicts need. Don’t exclude us from American Dream

I have listened to Trump’s speech and his plans for the future immigration policies of America. If these were the policies during the 1920s, neithermy wife nor I would be here, as well as our children. Trump wants a policy where you examine the beliefs of potential immigrants aswell as what skills they will bring to theUS.

My father escaped the pogroms of Russia, traveled through South America and came here through Cuba as a youngmanuntil he could enter the U.S. He had no skills or education. However, he worked hard here, raised his family and sent us to school to become productive participants in the American Dream.

My wife’s parents alsowould not have been allowed to immigrate here, and I am sure that there are millions of other descendents of former “refugees” who, under Trump’s plan, would be excluded from America. Is this what America will become? The Statue of Liberty must be hiding her head. Remember when newswas true?

Most readers my age still remember the days when we read something in the newspapers or heard it on a newscast from reporters such as the Kalb brothers, Murrow and many others, and you could bet your life and all you owned that what you read was the absolute truth. No opinions, no bias, just the truth. What happened?

These days, all we read is the opinions of the reporters. Truth seems to have been forgotten in favor of the corporate backers of the papers or the donators to the stations. What has happened to the truth? These days, we read about the pro- and anti-gun backers and only read the opinions of the writers. We read about the polls for the upcoming elections, and all we read is the opinion of the one who read the original poll. The truth does not seem to matter anymore. What happened?