My Experience With VTel

Being one of the Vermonters without any broadband internet option, I was excited in September 2015 to get a postcard from VTel letting me know about their wireless broadband service. I immediately contacted them, and this is what they wrote back: “The site that will service your location is not online at this time. We are hoping to have all sites active by the end of this year. It does look like you will need a site survey. I would be happy to give your address to our site technician to visit as soon as the site is active.” I have heard nothing more and agree strongly that they should be audited.

I am very excited that ECFiber will be serving all of Thetford in 2017, and wish that it had gotten some of the stimulus money that went to VTel.

Norm Marshall

Thetford Center

People, Not Pathology

This letter is in response to Jim Newcomb’s letter that appeared in the May 11 Forum. Mr. Newcomb encourages his readers to consider the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V) above the personal testimony and first-hand account of members of the LGBTQ community.

However, I would like to remind anyone temporally swayed by his argument that the DSM-V is an object created by fallible humans who often have implicit biases. Therefore, it is partly a product of politics and bureaucracy. About 70 percent of the DSM-V’s task force members have ties to the drug industry, and thus they are influenced by outside forces to pathologize human experience.

Many are aware that the DSM used to classify homosexuality as a disease. Today, we know that it is not true. This reminds me of the way psychiatry used to exclusively diagnose women with hysteria when they were merely expressing sexual desire. Psychiatry and the DSM-V are products of their time, and whether Mr. Newcomb likes it or not, times are changing. In a few years, the DSM will remove gender dysphoria as a mental disorder (indeed, it is a product of a diseased society rather than a diseased individual), and people will have to find another excuse to prop up their bigotry.

Instead, we should listen and honor the testimony of transgender individuals. Rather than assuming psychiatrists in lab coats far removed from the situation can ever understand what it is like to be transgendered, we should validate the words and experiences of those who actually have to live it.

Jaclyn Goddette

Newport

Hiroshima Bomb May Have Saved Me

I am writing in reference to a recent story on the president’s visit to Hiroshima. It was stated that it was “entirely legitimate’ for historians and the American public to debate whether President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the bomb was the right thing to do.”

Firstly, I doubt that you were alive at the time. Not only was I alive then, but had finished fighting in Germany and according to rumors (what we called latrineograms), we were scheduled for return to the East Coast of the U.S. for a 30-day delay to spend time with our families and then off to the West Coast and on to the invasion of Japan, where the army estimated up to a million casualties. Needless to say, we were not thrilled by the news. Then the atomic bomb wiped out Hiroshima . . . followed in three days by the Nagasaki bomb. To say the least, we who were about to go into the meat grinder of an amphibious invasion were not unhappy. In fact, most of us managed to find some form of ethanol to celebrate our liberation. No sadness or moral hand-wringing. We were a happy liberated group. No more war. We were done with it.

Let no one misunderstand me . . . war is rotten. It is too bad that we still have not learned that is not right for us to kill others because they are different from ourselves. Will we ever learn this? Based on past history, I doubt we will. Unfortunately, we have developed a means of greater destruction. It seems every time we humans invent something to advance civilization, we use it to destroy people and cities. When Alfred Nobel invented a safe system called dynomite to break rocks and build cities, our governments used it to make war more efficiently. With the fortune he made from it, he created the Nobel Peace Prize . . . I like to think in atonement. I often wonder how Einstein felt when his theories brought about the ability to create atomic and hydrogen bombs. Too bad we haven’t learned to use that energy safely.

So stop blaming Truman for moral failings. He did the right thing. Please remember, the Japanese Empire attacked us. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have gone to war with them. Truman’s action probably saved my life— I still owe him for being in one piece.

Herbert A. Knapp

Orford

Obama’s National Bathroom Policy

Judging from its reaction to North Carolina, the Obama administration apparently wants to dictate national bathroom policy. Strangely enough, it seems to be predicated on the idea that one’s gender is a matter of choice rather than biology.

Jeff Lehmann

Lyme Center

Stay in the Race, Bernie

As a Bernie Sanders supporter, I am getting more and more annoyed by calls by those within the Democratic Party (and by registered Democratic voters) for Sanders to end his race for the party’s nomination for president.

The idea that Sanders should quit to “unify the party” or stand decisively behind the presumptive nominee because of a belief that the future of our republic is in peril is ludicrous.

People who paint the Democratic and Republican parties as either “good” or “evil” are missing the reality of how our political system works. At their core, both parties exist to perpetuate and push out all others. The idea of “black hats” versus “white hats” is one that our citizenry has been spoon-fed to believe.

Our votes are too dear to waste voting “against” anyone. If the eventual nominee does not grab the imagination of the person who has walked into the ballot box, he or she should not throw away a chance to exercise one of our most cherished rights.

Go, Bernie. And go, democracy.

Barry Wenig

Lebanon

Building a Caring Culture

On Saturday May 7, Lyme held its first town-wide Day of Service. Over 60 kids and 140 adults enjoyed a community breakfast at the Lyme School before they dispersed for clean up and GreenUp projects for town organizations, Post Pond, roads and many homes. Thanks to our partners The Lyme Collaborative and the Lyme Conservation Commission, and Erin Wetherell and Kathy McGowan, who coordinated the event. We extend grateful thanks to all who requested volunteer help and to all who contributed their time and effort promoting Lyme’s caring culture. You created an event we hope will become a regular part of living in Lyme.

Sarah Shipton

Program Director, CommunityCare of Lyme