Open homosexual agenda vs. the closeted one
Talk about your silly seasons. The right wing is suddenly busting out all over. First we had the Catholic Church, then Mark Foley, and now the Rev. Ted Haggard. Who’s next?
Just lately it’s gotten even harder to know who to vote against: the openly homosexual agenda of Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats or the closet homosexual agenda of Marilyn Musgrave’s Republicans. It’s looking more and more as though the main moral difference between the Impious Left and the Religious Right is that the Democrats don’t claim to have a direct line to God or a monopoly on virtue.
Still, what’s a poor homophobe to do?
David Eichenberger, Littleton
Reasons why worker absenteeism is rising
Re: “Last-minute work absences at 7-year high,” Oct. 31 business news story.
Maybe the corporate CEOs and their middle managers think that loss of productivity is news, and are concerned about its loss due to “last-minute absenteeism,” but the worker is well aware that between 1972 and 2001, income rose 181 percent for the top 0.1 percent of wage earners in America (annual income of $1.6 million) while the worker with a median household income ($44,000 per year) fell, adjusting for inflation during the same period.
Workers have not been getting raises even to keep up with inflation. The spoils of productivity have been siphoned off into the pockets of the rich and their corporate stockholders at the expense of the producers. Maybe absenteeism would lower if fairness in pay were to be restored. The economy for the rich is doing better now than ever before, as indicated by record- breaking Wall Street numbers, but the workers aren’t benefiting.
Gary Julian, Aurora
Ref. C and the state s improving economy
Re: “Ref. C’s cost? We’ll pay in baloney,” Nov. 2 David Harsanyi column.
David Harsanyi’s column is no more than a form of crying “wolf,” or “the sky is falling.” Those of us who had the good sense to vote for C did so because the state of Colorado (at least in the five years I’ve lived here) was deteriorating in so many areas. C was intended to remedy certain specific (and certain non-specific) things, among them education, health care, roads/bridges and transportation, and pension contributions for police and firemen.
It does not surprise me in the least that no one can predict with great accuracy the amount of money C will ultimately make available. And so what if it’s $4.7 billion instead of $3.7 billion? That is indeed a 27 percent difference, but translates into just $18.90 more than the projected $70 .
The economy in our state is improving, as is indicated by the increase of funds (a tiny percentage of sales tax) available to the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. The SCFD’s month-by- month reports show steady improvement as compared with last year.
Stephen Crout, Denver
A lack of compassion
I could not help but think that last Tuesday’s Post provided a sad commentary on the times in which we live.
First, there is the front-page story on the ballot fight over the minimum wage. How unfortunate that the business community is willing to spend more than a million dollars on defeating an increase in the minimum wage rather than provide a small increase in pay to the employees who work for them. Then I find the decision of the Denver judge that the tiny bit of on- stage smoking that is part of a play is in violation of the smoking ban, but no one finds it unreasonable that casinos have been given an exemption. And, finally, the frosting on the societal “cake”: Fort Collins is willing to save money on the backs of their elderly and handicapped citizens.
Others, I’m sure, have asked, “What have we come to?” Perhaps we are the least compassionate, multigenerational society in the history of this country. How sad for a nation which prides itself on its concern for others and whose leaders labeled themselves all those years ago as “compassionate conservatives.”
Beth Stefano, Longmont
