Fed up with the feds
Dear Real Change,
After reading Jean Colman's piece in a recent Real Change (“Earn My Vote: an open letter to Gov. Gregoire,” Oct. 5), I called Governor Gregoire's office to voice my concerns. I asked how single parents are supposed to go to school to get a job and at the same time manage to juggle providing daycare while resources are being cut back?
The person I talked to seemed very defensive, which manifested in impatience and maybe a little anger at me. According to them, at first everything was going fine, there were lots of resources. At the last minute the Federal Government made significant cuts, and that’s why everything is a mess now, according to our governor.
Our bipartisan rulers are spending $248,0l5.87 per minute ($14,880,958 per hour, $2,500,000,000 per week) on the Iraq occupation quaqmire. Does that have something to do with federal cutbacks on our domestic programs? Every single senator, including Murray and Cantwell, approved the latest appropriation. They are in the same political party as our governor.
Mason Taylor | Seattle
New Year
Dear Real Change,
As a new year begins, I wish once more to express my appreciation and admiration for the always-cheerful-in-all-kinds-of-weather Real Change vendors. I know their lives must be hard, but they never express a complaint. Their smiles and their often-kind eyes warm my heart. They are indeed courageous.
I always enjoy the poetry in each issue, and I want to give particular thanks to the poet [J. Glenn Evans] who wrote “Take Time To Whittle” in the last 2006 paper. Like many others I often feel deeply distressed by the way we are behaving in our country – the greed, the hatred, the horrors we have brought about in the world, in Iraq, and all the Middle East.
Then I read “Take Time to Whittle” and my mind and heart felt hope again. As long as there is a sensitive man like this poet, perhaps we will turn “our swords/ Into pocket whittling knives again.”
Virginia Younger
Real Change welcomes letters to the editor of up to 250 words in length. Please include name, address, phone number, and email for author verification. Letters should be addressed to Editor at Real Change, 2129 2nd Ave., Seattle, WA, 98121, or emailed to [email protected].
For copy of actual issue, go to https://www.realchangenews.org/2007/01/24/jan-24-2007-entire-issue