To the Editor:
Did you know that our disadvantaged people are being discriminated against right here in our own hometown? They have actually been asked not to come into certain eating establishments as it upsets their patrons.
There people are people who have been in accidents, in which they may have lost an eye, a leg or had a head injury, a stroke or they may suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s. Many of these things could cause a person to laugh loudly at something only he or she may be thinking about or they might just start to cry suddenly for no reason at all, or perhaps their facial muscles have been paralyzed causing them to drool now and then, at which time they might try to wipe their mouths with their paralyzed hand.
Have you ever been in a hospital and watched the nurses or nurses aids try to help some of these people learn to eat by themselves again or learn to use a knife, fork or spoon? Sometimes the nurses have to feed them. These are people who can still think and talk but their bodies don’t work right and therefore, the nurses have to help them.
I visit some of these dear people often in the hospital and marvel at the tender, compassionate care that they give to their patients. Never have I heard any of them raise their voices in anger at their patients.
The nurses deserve praise above and beyond. Were any of my family members ever need nursing care, I would be thankful to have nurses like these take care of them. God bless you all.
Perhaps those of you, who resent sharing the dining room with our disadvantaged people, should remember the phrase, there but for the grace of God, go I.
Rhonda McMahon
To the Editor:
This is an open letter to Governor Parnell, or Senators, our Representative, and to all who want to keep our Alaska Marine Highway safe and floating.
Sounds like our administration has already decided to trash our aging fleet, and go in favor of the new fast ferries, without our comments or concern. We heard later after the meeting that they had put a notice over the radio, or in the paper, but of course they notified us on the day of the meeting, so many of us were working or out of town, typical administration trick, oh gosh we forgot to notify the local people.
Tell me know who authorized our administration to order a fleet of fast ferries, for the Alaska Marine Highway, when everyone in Alaska knows that they will not accommodate the needs of our people here in Southeast Alaska? We don’t want speed to travel, we want comfort for traveling port to port, if we want to go fast, we can fly.
We need ships that people can rely on to be in our port at specific time to help our passengers move their households goods and families to the next town, and ships that bring passengers and their families form Bellingham to Alaska and transfer them safely to the port of their destination.
According to one Administration letter regarding our aging ferries, they said that our three remaining mainliners the Matanuska, Malaspina, and the Taku still have 14 years of life left. Shipwrights that we have spoken dot said the AMHS could take one ship at a time to say Mexico, have the strip our ships down to the hull and completely refurbish them, also that it would take about three years to completely ship each ship, at half the cost of buying anew one, again.
Administration has proven that they don’t know the bow for the stern of our sips, if they had done the normal maintenance on our sips all these years, they would still be in top shape. There is a Canadian ship, called the Coho, which has sailed from Port Angels, Wash. to Victoria Canada, daily for over 50 years. She has been refurbished at least twice and is still in great shape. We want the same for our Alaska ships.
Please Governor Parnell, put Anchorage roads and bridges on hold for a while and take care of our needs here in Southeast, we may not be as large as Anchorage, but we are definitely a big part of Alaska
Jeanne Lindley
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