A bond is a debt that the taxpayer is consigned to owe and own. Vote “no” to this current, recurring Lebanon school bond proposal (“Yet another renovation bond going to a vote,” Dec. 12). Debt drives inflation, and demands that the taxpayer incrementally work yet more. Extreme fatigue alone can jeopardize wellness in parents, as well as their children.
Calling forth metaphor, the best theater that I ever experienced was at Dartmouth College’s Robinson Hall. It was furnished with folding wooden chairs, and a wooden platform served as the stage.
WILLIAM GILBERT
Lebanon
The Vermont primaries are not far off. U.S. Rep. Peter Welch has served our state with distinction, and I hope that he is elected to serve as the next U.S. senator. There are a few who have announced campaigns to take his place as our one representative. The most qualified is Becca Balint, president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate (“Senate’s Balint will run for US House seat,” Dec. 14). Forget Lt. Gov. Molly Gray.
As the VTDigger story noted, “Within just an hour of the news of Balint’s candidacy, Gray’s team put out a press release announcing that the lieutenant governor had pulled in over $111,000 in the first week of her campaign — and $50,000 within the first 24 hours.”
Gray doesn’t know my town. In fact, her signs cluttered our landscape for weeks after she was elected lieutenant governor. I believe she is all about money, but her campaign refused to discuss her fundraising with VTDigger.
JON APPLETON
White River Junction
If laws are made to make abortion illegal, I think it’s only fair that a law should be enacted stating that men convicted of rape must be castrated.
MARGARETTA L. PADUCH
West Lebanon
In his Dec. 4 letter (“Headline reveals abortion attitude”) Forum contributor Jim Newcomb states that, because of the headline “Supreme court justices seem ready to restrict the right to abortion” (Dec. 2), the Valley News is choosing to “defend murder.” Pure nonsense, in my opinion. The letter goes on to assert that Roe v. Wade is “bad law” and that the present Supreme Court justices “sound ready to save millions of lives annually.” More nonsense.
Why is it always men who think it’s a woman’s responsibility to carry a fetus to full term regardless of her circumstances? It’s men who get women pregnant. Own it.
NANCY PARKER
Lebanon
It’s absolutely pathetic that every child in America is under threat of torture, neglect, sexual abuse and untold other horrors when in the care of adults other than their family. The Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex, Vt., is yet another example of this seemingly endless abuse of the vulnerable (“Lawsuit alleges improper use of force at Woodside,” Dec. 14). That the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, the U.S. Olympic Committee, among others, just look the other way when we are treating our children this way is sickening. What is going on right now and where that we will find out about in the coming weeks, months or years? It’s officially now normal to hear about these abuses. Apparently it’s what humans do.
Please keep reporting on these horrors, and please, everyone, take whistleblowers seriously.
DAVID COOPER
Hartland