Letters to the Editor, Nov. 1

To the Editor:

After reading the article in the Times-Gazette about Ron Bell, we felt compelled to write. Ron has been in the banking industry for over 37 years without a blemish on his record.

He has earned the respect of his fellow workers and clients over those many years.

Everyone in Shelbyville who has done business with Ron knows that he is a trusted banker who has the best interest of the customer at heart.

It seems a travesty that he finds himself in a situation that questions his integrity and has cost him his ability to continue in his profession. What a loss for the banking industry and our community.

Let us as a community not be quick to judge this man based on what we read in the newspaper.

Barry and Janie Childers

Shelbyville

Campaigners must run own campaigns

To the Editor:

Congratulations! The election of the 62nd District is over! Fliers have stopped, phone calls have ceased and invitations to get-togethers have ended. Thanks Heaven! We are exhausted!

This is apparently what it takes to win. To Pat Marsh I offer congratulations for a clean campaign, clean and hard-fought based on himself as a person and on his long record of service to this area.

To a very fine young opponent who had little or no record on which to run, due to his youth, I offer my best wishes for the future.

In over 30 years of residence in Bedford County, I felt this was the campaign most filled with unfair personal attack and innuendo that I have ever witnessed. I hope it is not a sign of things to come.

I agree that there was some run-off from national issues, but I feel that the lack of experience of Ty Cobb, his seeming unwillingness to debate, and the apparent inability to rein in his handlers were of far more significance.

If one does not openly condemn scurrilous charges, then one supports them. Former Senator Elizabeth Dole, Republican, forgot this fact in her last run for U.S. Senate and she paid for it. The candidate must be in charge of his campaign and bear the ultimate responsibility for it.

As Harry Truman put it so succinctly over half a century ago: "The buck stops here."

I congratulate both candidates and wish both well.

Jackson E. Heffner

Shelbyville

U.N. proves inept on Afghan election

To the Editor:

The ineffective U.N. is again attempting to direct the upcoming Afghanistan election by directing the number of voting sites. Obviously, considering the fraud and stuffed ballot boxes that permeated the first election on Aug. 20, this time around the Afghanistan Independent Election Commission has opted to open over 6,000 voting places as opposed to the U.N. recommended 5,817.

Why would the U.N. be concerned with the number of voting sites that the Afghanstans want to open? It is really none of the U.N.'s concern how a nation runs its elections, and for sure their oversight of the first election resulted in rampart fraud with president Hamid Karzai now admitting the results were fraudulent and so the call for the new election on Nov. 7.

However, there is no assurance this new election will not be just as contrived and crooked, regardless if there are ten or ten thousand voting sites. Afghanistan is a fractious nation with many separate tribal clans at odds with each other, but all playing into the hands of the Taliban; and the Taliban, as they have already promised, will have their bloody hands involved in the upcoming election regardless of how the U.N. reacts.

The U.N., as usual, reveal their total ineptness and bungling in Afghanistan just as they have in all other Middle East affairs.

They would be better served to remain in U.N. New York headquarters and leave the managing of Afghanistan to the diplomatic realm of the Obama administration; who in fact need no assistance in bungling, being past masters of the art themselves.

Charles David Sliger

Shelbyville

Corker has right idea on cap and trade

To the Editor:

When Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf recently told a congressional energy panel that cap and trade would be a significant drag on our economy, he was just reaffirming the message Senator Bob Corker has been preaching practically since the day he arrived in Washington; cap and trade is a bad idea that would cost us more than it's worth.

Tennessee depends heavily on traditional energy resources. Cap and trade would heavily impact our state, pushing prices higher, discouraging investment in new technologies and diminishing job creation. Even when the vaguely defined new "green jobs" are factored in, cap and trade would still leave more family breadwinners out of work.

But Sen. Corker is also a realist, and he knows that the current Democrat-controlled Congress is likely to put some kind of carbon emissions control program in place. That's why he supports a carbon tax.

Too much of the money generated by cap and trade (and there would be billions, both from permit trading and the initial permit sales) would be siphoned off by Wall Street traders or given away as pork barrel handouts to politically connected industries. At least a carbon tax would return assets directly to taxpayers, and give the private sector a predictable carbon cost to work with. Unlike the daily price rollercoaster that cap and trade promises.

Sen. Corker has the right idea. Let's hope he can get it through to enough of his fellow senators to stop cap and trade.

Kyle Morgan

Nashville

The Times-Gazette publishes letters to the editor as space allows, and reserves the right to refuse any letter and to edit for content and length. All letters become the property of the Times-Gazette upon submission. Letters must be typed or clearly handwrit­ten, and must include the phone number and address of the writer for verification purposes. Letters must be 500 words or less, and may not include personal attacks against private citizens or busi­nesses. Please submit letters to editor@t-g.com, or mail them to: Times-Gazette, Attn: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 380, Shelbyville, TN, 37162.