|
Open Forum: Calling on all hunters
We need your help. An 82-year-old member of our community, Peter Achermann,went missing north of Motley on July 24. He regularly shopped and participated in activities in Motley, Staples, Pillager, Brainerd, Pine River and Pequot Lakes. As you traverse the woods in search of game, please be very cognizant of your surroundings. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Peter was wearing a red, white, and blue floppy beret type hat, a brown patterned shirt and khaki colored pants. He walked with a diamond willow wooden cane.
The Cass County Sheriff's Department continues to search, investigate this strange disappearance and follow leads and tips along with volunteers and family. Many thanks go out to the sheriff's department and its dedicated deputies and investigators who continue to help to try to bring Peter home to his family. A special thanks to Denny Adams from Dakota Territories Search and Rescue and his dogs, Molly and Dru, who continue to search. Now we call on the hunters and land owners anywhere within 30 or more miles of Motley. Your awareness in the woods could be the hope, tip, or lead that Cass County, the family, and volunteers are looking for right now. You know your land or hunting area best. You know if anything is different. Your eyes can make the difference in helping the family find their husband, father and grandfather. Hunting clubs, please let your members know about this. Please call 911 or the Cass County Sheriff's department at (218) 547-1424 or 800-450-2677 with anything you think might be a lead.
Dar and Ron Houle
Merrifield
What do Republicans want?
What do the Republicans really want for health care? If you listen close when they are caught off guard and speak candidly you can get an idea. Congress woman Bachmann said that she wanted health care removed from the employers' responsibility as it was a private responsibility and drove up costs for employers. No wonder the insurance industry loves her so much. Should be good for more campaign contributions, however the cost of insurance would increase so much that many more would be without insurance. They would lose their homes or commit suicide when they got sick. Oh, they already do.
I saw in Texas where you now have to prove that you are a legal resident to go to school. When they did that with Medicare and Medicaid they found that they didn't find many illegals. They denied care to a lot of natural citizens and ran up the cost when they were sued for denying care and causing the care to be more expensive when they did provide it. Everywhere isn't like Minnesota we have fairly good records here. Many people live in areas where records are sketchy and it can be difficult to prove who you are. We have those that are bigots that believe that anyone that doesn't look like them doesn't belong and shouldn't be a citizen. I can assure that looks don't count I could pass for a local in many parts of the world especially if I kept my mouth shut (in fact I have ). People from much of the world could come here and looking at them and listening to them if they were here long enough to develop the local accent no one would be able to tell the difference. Do we really want to have to carry identity documents?
Jesse Nix
Emily
Have you no sense of decency?
On June 9, 1954 during the Army-McCarthy hearings, Sen. Joseph McCarthy recklessly and cruelly attacked a junior attorney of Joseph Welch's firm in an attempt to smear and discredit the head counsel for the U.S. Army. McCarthy attacked viciously and relentlessly. Finally, Joseph Welch spoke words that echo loudly today.
"You have done enough," Welch said. "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Those words echo profoundly and loudly today. The echo is heard in the lies, distortion and intentional misrepresentation of fact on Fox "news," at recent town hall meetings, in the misstatements by "leaders" of the Republican Party and finally the coup de gras, the shout "you lie" during the joint session of Congress speech by the president of the United States.
Shame on all of you. Have you at long last no sense of decency? May all who spew the lies, distort the facts and bring shame to the idea of democracy suffer the same political fate as Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Marian Severt
Brainerd
Personal responsibility is the key
With the debate over health care raging in the Congress it is ironic that no one has asked, what is health care? Where does it come from? Is it God given? Is it government mandated? Or is it a personal responsibility? When you look at all of us watching TV 24/7, smoking cigarettes, eating cookies and drinking a six-pack of beer it's no wonder that the U.S. has a health care problem.
One can make a pretty good case for personal responsibility as the "low cost" solution to better health care.
Think about it.
Pete Houston
Merrifield
It's everyone's funeral
Had I been at the health care debate at Gregory Park put on by MoveOn.org (MoveOn.org to a conservative means movebackward.org). I would have said this: I don't know where national health care will end up but we all joke about how inefficient the government does everything it does. I heard what national health care will look like. It'll have the compassion of an IRS agent and the speed of the postal service! And yet here we are rushing pell-mell, putting this same inefficient government in charge of our future health care and our children's. Hello? It's like going from the skillet into the fire. It's not just the funeral of those that vote for this plan, it's everyone's funeral.
My wife works at a nursing home and I work at a health care facility. We both love the elderly and when she was thinking of Labor Day, she thought how so many of them have labored hard all their lives and how care will have to be rationed and they will feel the effects first and most and how unfair that seems to treat them that way! I'm glad this process has slowed down anyway, the way Obama started this was he wanted us to all have national health care cards by now! That's what I would have said. I hope this country does the right thing, not the most convenient. Amen.
Thank you and God bless the Dispatch.
Stephen L. Heinecke
Baxter
Society is falling apart
The family is the basic unit of society.
When families start killing their own, (like by abortion) doesn't it follow that society, as a whole, starts falling apart e.g. school shootings, murder-suicides and suicides?
Patrick Borden
Brainerd
Here's what's really scary
Health care is a serious subject and shouldn't be trivialized. In my 82 plus years of life, I have been fortunate in receiving nothing but the best in health care services. I recently had the opportunity for thanking two of our health care providers for their devotion to their chosen profession.
The main reason, however, for this letter is to point out a worse scare for our country and its future. Our federal government has been completely out of financial control both before and after President Obama has taken office. The financial decisions made by most of our congressmen and senators to follow his lead will put our children and grandchildren in debt forever. When budgets with deficits in the trillions seem to be commonplace, and our unemployment rate is fast approaching 10 percent, skillful surgery is needed. When business slows down for both large and small companies, they both terminate and lay off employees as necessary. During the last several months, our federal government has added employees.
Congressman Oberstar has asked for input from all of us concerning health care. My suggestion (for the health of our nation) is to terminate or layoff 10 percent of the federal employees starting in Washington D.C. and then moving westward. When the country is back on its feet, the government can start hiring back people when and if needed. That's my input, what is yours?
Marvin D. Chell
Pine River
Crazies get crazier
It must be silly season because the crazies are just getting crazier.
First it was the "birthers" believing that President Obama was not born in the United States. Then at town hall meetings he was called a Nazi and guns and knives were brought to the meetings. Then when health care was discussed, these crazies said he was going to pull the plug on grandma and bring in death squads to save costs, while the insurance companies are spending a million dollars a day to encourage this kind of talk.
The president gave a speech to school children, encouraging them to stay in school, study hard and set goals for themselves. But the crazies said he wants to indoctrinate our school children. Many presidents, including their god, Bush, Reagan and Clinton gave speeches to our children. The ones being indoctrinated are those people who listen to the ranting and ravings of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Fox News, whose only interest is creating controversy to increase ratings and incite violence.
The president inherited an economy that was sinking fast because of the last eight years of Bush. Bush got us into two wars with no way to pay for it. In other wars we had gas and food rationing and we bought war bonds, etc. Instead big business and multi-millionaires got richer through Bush tax cuts.
It seems to me that people should be grateful that someone is willing to tackle so many of our country's problems. It would have made for a much easier life if President Obama had stayed in the Senate. I, for one, am glad he didn't.
Mary Jane Krmpotich
Crosby
Obama curriculum was the issue
Since the president's speech I have heard many say, "Just like in 1991." I guess they don't remember when Bush addressed the children of America in 1991 there was no curriculum he sent to our schools, (you know like Obama's "How I can help the president achieve his goals") but it was followed by months of Congressional hearings trying to prove Bush was using his office to indoctrinate our children, I wonder how much Congress spent on those months of trials? I remember watching some of them, what a waste of money and time, I am glad to see the Republicans are bigger than that, we wanted no curriculum not no speech. Obama's speech was very good; we watched it at home, thought the part about personal responsibility was great. Haven't seen much of that in Washington recently. Well at least we aren't as petty as in 1991 with all those unnecessary hearings on a good speech. Just wanted to thank Americans for no special curriculum.
Doug Kern
Crow Wing County Republican chair
Rural Brainerd
To Subscribe to the Brainerd Dispatch, Click Here.
Note: Comments are not edited and don't represent the views of The Brainerd Dispatch. Please read our posting rules in the terms of service policy. To report a post that may be inappropriate, click the triangle alert icon.
|
|
Top Commented Articles
