Letters: Cellphones, lawyers, and SunRail

November 26, 2013

Cellphones don't fly

Please do not allow cellphone conversations to be permitted on airplane flights.

Imagine sitting next to, in back of, in front of or across from a person with a loud, piercing voice relaying her entire experience from the security line to boarding the airplane. There goes taking a little catnap, delving into a novel, catching up on notes before an important meeting or having an interesting conversation with your seatmate.

The cellphone-obsessed talkers would just say grin and bear it.

The cellphone companies are probably keeping their fingers crossed this idea flies — don't think the minutes used for talking above 10,000 feet would come cheap.

Many flight attendants and flying customers interviewed do not want the cellphone conversations to be allowed. I cringed when an individual interviewed said he liked the idea because he gets bored when flying. I wanted to jump in the TV screen and ask if he's ever heard of a book or an in-flight movie.

Joy Peeler Longwood

U.S. feels like an alternate universe

Sometimes I feel like the comic-book character Superman when he would find himself in another dimension, where things were in reverse.

We now have millions of undocumented immigrants in our country who are costing us millions every day, and we wonder why we have no money. Our government doesn't know how many are here or where they are, and yet they want to manage the health care for all of us.

We now have a president whose transparent administration and "if you like it, you can keep it" statements are as phony as a three-dollar bill. Let's not forget our Congress, which had to pass the Affordable Care Act to find out what was in it.

The land of the free is quickly disappearing. Surely, this is not the real United States of America that is one nation under God. My, how things have changed, or have I inadvertently wound up in that alternate universe where things are in reverse?

We need to get back to the Constitution and back to God and to all the things that made this country the greatest the world has ever seen.

Ronald Webb Zellwood

Obama should build on FDR's New Deal

I would like to suggest a proven way for President Obama to create enough new jobs to begin to bring an end to our high unemployment.

In May, the president said his highest priority was creating jobs. Unemployment was then 7.6 percent. Now, six months later, the number is 7.3 percent.

This means 11.3 million people are still "officially" unemployed. And that "official" number doesn't include those no longer looking for work; that combined number is more like 17 million.

In his book "Profiles in Courage," John F. Kennedy wrote: "We have not fully recognized the difficulty facing a politician conscientiously desiring, in [Daniel] Webster's words, 'to push [his] skiff from the shore alone' into a hostile and turbulent sea." So given the "hostile and turbulent sea" of Republicans, what can the president do?

He can refer to a proven job-creation road map for direction. I'm referring to what began in July 1932, when, during the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated 14 job-creation programs which became known as the New Deal.

Obama should have his team examine FDR's road map with a MapQuest magnifying glass — adapting it to current times.

And finally, President Truman's desk sign read: "The Buck Stops Here." Obama should make a sign for his desk that reads: "The Buck Starts Here."

Jobs are job one.

Robert Bernstein Winter Park

Let young lawyers pay as everyone does

I showed Monday's front page of the Sentinel to my barber and asked him if we should subsidize lawyers who want to be prosecutors and public defenders ("Bill would ease student-loan debt of young prosecutors, public defenders.")

He said not before we subsidize barbers who are on the front lines of skin-cancer early detection. He told me that last year alone he sent three of his customers who had melanomas to a dermatologist.

There is no right to be a lawyer or a state attorney. If you are poor in pocket like I was, you can go into the Navy for four years and save your money. Go to law school while tending bar at Joe's Gun and Knife saloon, and marry a nurse who earns enough to take care of you.

My drunken uncle told me, "Better to steal money than to borrow it; the law is easier on you than your creditors." I am no longer young and stupid, now just old and stupid, but the idea of subsidizing young lawyers who want to work in the public sector stinks like downtown Orlando at 3 o'clock on a Sunday morning.

Charles B. Tiffany Kissimmee

An ironic turn

SunRail is U.S. Rep. John Mica's prized project that he helped get passed, and it is supposed to be running by next spring.

Now we learn that sequestration may reduce the amount of federal funding for the project by $80 million, which will only stall SunRail or force local communities to make up the rest. I am baffled by this, considering Mica voted yes for sequestration.

Why would Mica vote to reduce federal funding for SunRail? After fighting to get SunRail passed, now his own vote has helped to reduce federal money for it. Is there any wonder why our nation is in such peril?

Jason Kendall Altamonte Springs

Summers' cartoon honored Kennedy

President Kennedy inspired Americans to dream big, work hard and help their country. Dana Summers' editorial cartoon on Friday accurately depicted how far today's Democrats have moved away from Kennedy's ideals.

Thank you for a cartoon that did indeed honor President Kennedy.

Rebecca Hatcher Maitland

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