Breaking News

Letters to the Editor

Amazed by unnecessary spending

To the editor: I am amazed, not shocked have you, but amazed that Nancy Pelosi would blatantly raid the aid bill to satisfy her own agenda. Her insistence that the bill provide $25 million to the Kennedy Center is ridiculous. This clause has nothing to do with saving lives or saving the economy. It seems to me that this would be the same as if I wanted to donate a couple thousand to the Blanden and then insisted that the city put it in their budget. Pelosi already wasted untold millions on her failed impeachment hoax so just add another $25 million to that. Of course I know that ...

The issue of the tissue

To the editor: I think it is time to inject some humor into the letter to the editor to give some relief to people who are so stressed oiut wondering if they are going to have enough toilet paper during this ordeal. Mr. Trump and I will guarantee there will be enough to take care of your needs. Last two weeks it was all about vaping and where to buy the products and they might have to go out to get a real job while their business may go up in smoke. So will a lot of small owners. All so now people will have to worry about something else, the virus COVID-19 and wonder who will be the ...

Discourages vaping, marijuana

To the editor: I have read with interest the series in The Messenger on the impact of vaping. What reasonable person, young or old, would believe inhaling anything of a foreign nature into your lungs would not be a risk to your health? Like smoking cigarettes, the chance of contracting some respiratory illness is sure to increase with vaping. The Tuesday March 17 article on vaping contained a picture on page 1 and one on page 12 that provided evidence of vaping devices being made to look like pens or USB devices. Doing so is nothing more than an effort to disguise the devices to try to ...

We’ve seen tough times before

To the editor: How many times recently have you heard, or said, “these are crazy, tough times?” It reminds me of Dad saying, “Tough times?! You should have been here in the ‘30s.” And Mom saying, “Tough times were during the war when I didn’t know for months where your Dad was or even if he was alive.” This is not to diminish the present, but to remind us that our grandparents, our parents and our nation have faced tough times. They not only survived, but came through as a stronger nation, committed to learning from their shared experiences. I have no doubt the same ...

Grieving family was blessed

To the editor: My father-in-law recently passed away which is a hard thing to handle, but were blessed by several groups here in town. His last six days were spent at the Hospice house cared for and comforted by the angels that work there. I cannot say how grateful we are for what they did for our family. Three of our family members were here from Arizona and had plane tickets to fly back on Tuesday noon. He passed Saturday night. Laufersweiler Funeral Home arranged the funeral for Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. with a military service — how you pulled it all together in that short time ...

Urges suspension of classes due to COVID-19

To the editor: As an educator, father, and Iowan, I am writing to urge state and local officials to temporarily cancel or suspend k-12 classes until adequate testing can be performed to assess the true scope of COVID-19 cases in the state. It seems extremely reckless and dangerous to keep schools open right now. We have at least 17 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state. Since the disease has a two week incubation period and extremely high rates of spread/infection, it is asinine to keep schools open simply because we have “not technically confirmed community spread” in the ...