Commonwealth Avenue would continue to be the transportation hub of the education system and the downtown would get a needed and necessary shot in the arm. With another 200 to 300 people employed downtown on a regular basis there would be renewal for sure.
I offer this as an alternative to the plans discussed in your editorial. Why not ask the commissioners, the Mayor and City Council and the Board of Education if they would all be interested in working together on such a project?
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
John P. Corderman
Hagerstown
Ability matters, not gender
To the editor:
I was waiting for someone to give the common-sense answer to your query about whether The Herald-Mail is biased against women because you did not endorse any of the three women running for country commissioner.
Since no one did, here goes:
It is a symptom of what has gone horribly wrong with our thinking in America to imagine that you should endorse anyone on the basis of what group he belongs to. As a woman, I don't care if I am represented by a man or a woman, a white person or a black person, a disabled person or a non-disabled person.
What I care about is that my representatives should share my principles, my values, and my beliefs about what should be done.
The alternative way of thinking, that we should vote for people based on their external characteristics, is what has led to deep divisions in this country. We are asked to see people not for themselves but for their race, their gender, or their nationality.
As well as being bad for society, this way of thinking is insulting to the people involved - their achievements, their intellects, their beliefs are irrelevant, only their group matters.
Judy Warner
Rohrersville
No such thing as gangs of light-flickers
To the editor:
After reading a letter to the editor involving a warning to good Samaritans who flick their headlights to warn other motorists that their headlights are off, and subsequently running the risk of getting shot at by gang members, I feel I must set the record straight.
I live in a large city plagued by gang problems. This rumor of gang initiation by shooting at drivers who flick their headlights is nothing more than a modern day wives tale. I've lived in my city for over five years, and have heard this rumor every year. But with all the murders, carjackings, etc., that have happened in my city over the past five years, never once has someone been shot at for flicking headlights.
Even the police will tell you that this is nothing more than a big rumor, started by the gangs themselves, to intimidate people into "respecting" them. Well, I refuse to give them that respect by running around intimidated and paranoid of someone who forgot to turn their lights on, and I hope that, after reading this letter, other tax paying, law abiding citizens will also refuse to give them that respect.
These thugs surely deserve no respect whatsoever.
Jason L. Smith
Minneapolis, Minn.
