Letters to the Editor 07-31-2001
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
- Cubs - Vegetable Stand - Hand Avenue - Prescription Drugs - Party Switching - IPFW Play - More IPFW Play
Cubs
Editor, Times-Union:Bob Plummer of Warsaw was bragging that the Cubs were on their way to the pennant. Oh great news! The Cubs are always on their way to the pennant. Nothing would ruin the ambiance of being a Cub fan more than for them to actually win the thing.
I didn't think I'd ever turn my back on the major league team I first saw play in 1945 (remember Stan Hack, Phil Caveretta, Peanuts Lowrey. et al?). But, in 1984, when the realization that they actually might win again, I stood in the left field stands of San Diego stadium and cheered Garvey's home run until tears ran down my face and my hands were sore.
That act of mercy propelled my Padres into the pennant and put Cubs back in their place.
Some things are just meant to be, and the Cubs' being in the World Series ain't one of them.
Keith Taylor
Chula Vista, Calif.
via e-mail
Vegetable Stand
Editor, Times-Union:Did the state or county put the signs at Old 30E and 13 that say "No Parking - No Standing - No Stopping"? People don't seem to be able to read and the police don't seem to enforce it as there is a vegetable stand right on the corner and they allow him to operate his business there. He even has one of his signs attached to the pole with the state or county sign. This creates a traffic hazard as people and cars are there when you come to the corner. Either make the man close down his business or take the signs away if nothing is going to be done about it.
Robert Henderson
Pierceton
via e-mail
Hand Avenue
Editor, Times-Union:Accidents at underpass on South Hand Avenue:
To hold down or stop these accidents, put overhead boards above the road on both ends like parking garages or Kmart Plaza.
Troy Miller
Miller Metals Finishing Inc.
(South Hand Avenue)
Warsaw
Prescription Drugs
Editor, Times-Union:Ellen Goodman's recent column on prescription drugs ("Drug ads have costly side effects," July 13) contained some misleading and erroneous information. In 2000, total drug expenditures increased by 14.7 percent, according to the highly respected health care information group IMS Health. Only 3.9 percent of this figure represents price increases. The remaining 10.8 percent reflects the fact that more people are getting more and better medicines.
Goodman also repeated incorrect information about marketing expenditures. Pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much on R&D (more than $30 billion this year alone) as on marketing, and about half of all marketing expenditures are to provide free samples for doctors to give free of charge to patients, many of whom are poor.
Despite the fact that medicines can increasingly keep people out of hospitals and nursing homes, outpatient prescription drug expenditures account for only about 8 cents out of every health care dollar - compared with 32 cents for hospital care and 22 cents for physicians' services. Therefore, increased prescription drug usage is not the major driver of health care expenditures and, in fact, may actually be controlling overall health care costs by replacing the need for costly surgeries or hospitalization.
Direct-to-consumer advertising educates and empowers patients to ask doctors about new treatment options that might be available to them. In fact, those doctor visits represent an important benefit to patients and the health care system overall because they are helping to address the very serious problems of underdiagnosis and undertreatment of many diseases.
Alan F. Holmer
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
Washington, D.C.
Party Switching
Editor, Times-Union:Mr. Matt Perry in a letter to you states that evidently he thinks that it was OK for a person to switch parties at the time he did. It is OK for a person to switch parties, but Mr. Jeffords had been a Republican because of receiving votes from persons who were Republican voters. It was wrong for him to change when he did. The proper time for him to make a change was when he was running for re-election so that he then would be elected or rejected based upon him personally and not as a Republican. He appears to me to be the type person when as a kid over playing with the neighbor kids and they did not play the games exactly as he wanted, he would pick up his toys and go home. He could have stayed a Republican and voted independently when he felt it was in the best interest of the country so to do. After all, those elected to Congress should be statesmen and not just political party persons.
Fred R. Yohey
Warsaw
IPFW Play
Editor, Times-Union:During the month of August, the theatre department of Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne, a state funded university, will present the play "Corpus Christi." The production portrays Jesus Christ as a sex-starved, hard-drinking, obscenity-speaking homosexual who sometimes likes to wear purple dresses.
In an article on the Website www.slatemsn.com, author Jacob Weisberg describes the play as follows:
"In the first (sketch), Joshua, a.k.a. Jesus, is born in a sleazy East Texas motel room ... At 'Pontius Pilate High' in Corpus Christi, Tex., ... an encounter in the school bathroom leads to an affair with a sinister classmate named Judas. After graduation, Joshua hitchhikes across the desert and has occasional conversations with his dad, God. He performs miracles and gathers disciples. One is a doctor, another an actor, another a male prostitute. They go to gay discos and spread the Word. Joshua performs a marriage for two of the (male) apostles. After a scrumptious Last Supper, Judas betrays him with a French kiss." - author Jacob Weisberg in an article on msn.com regarding the play "Corpus Christi."
And you, the unknowing taxpayers, will help sponsor and pay for the presentation of this play despite the fact that many of you find this "work of art" both anti-Christian and morally reprehensible! The campus administrators - whose salaries you also pay - call it "artistic freedom."
When did it become socially acceptable to discriminate against Christians?
In an effort to stop the performance of a play that so venomously attacks Christian values, three local Fort Wayne citizens filed a lawsuit in federal court in which 21 Indiana legislators, including me, joined. Through the suit, we hoped to demonstrate that an anti-religious play, sponsored in part by taxpayers' dollars, violates the separation of church and state doctrine; thus making the act unconstitutional. Supreme Court rulings have declared that, under the U.S. Constitution, organizations may not use tax money to promote a particular religion. Why, then, should these organizations be allowed to use the taxpayers' hard-earned money to mock a particular religion?
Unfortunately, the court dismissed the case, and the performances will go ahead as scheduled.
Is bias okay as long as it is against the Christian religion? Tolerance is good too, but is it not required if it involves Christ's followers? Is anti-Christian bigotry on the rise, not only in the big cities of New York and Los Angeles, but in the hallowed halls of Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne as well?
Kent Adams
Ninth District State Senator
Warsaw
More IPFW Play
Editor, Times-Union:Why is it called free speech when it comes to something as blasphemous and totally offensive as the "Corpus Christi" play at IU-PU Fort Wayne?
But our rights to free speech are totally ignored and ruled against when it comes to prayer in schools and the posting of the Ten Commandments.
Why do our courts so often rule in favor of the dark side?
Deanna Newton
Warsaw
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- Cubs - Vegetable Stand - Hand Avenue - Prescription Drugs - Party Switching - IPFW Play - More IPFW Play
Cubs
Editor, Times-Union:Bob Plummer of Warsaw was bragging that the Cubs were on their way to the pennant. Oh great news! The Cubs are always on their way to the pennant. Nothing would ruin the ambiance of being a Cub fan more than for them to actually win the thing.
I didn't think I'd ever turn my back on the major league team I first saw play in 1945 (remember Stan Hack, Phil Caveretta, Peanuts Lowrey. et al?). But, in 1984, when the realization that they actually might win again, I stood in the left field stands of San Diego stadium and cheered Garvey's home run until tears ran down my face and my hands were sore.
That act of mercy propelled my Padres into the pennant and put Cubs back in their place.
Some things are just meant to be, and the Cubs' being in the World Series ain't one of them.
Keith Taylor
Chula Vista, Calif.
via e-mail
Vegetable Stand
Editor, Times-Union:Did the state or county put the signs at Old 30E and 13 that say "No Parking - No Standing - No Stopping"? People don't seem to be able to read and the police don't seem to enforce it as there is a vegetable stand right on the corner and they allow him to operate his business there. He even has one of his signs attached to the pole with the state or county sign. This creates a traffic hazard as people and cars are there when you come to the corner. Either make the man close down his business or take the signs away if nothing is going to be done about it.
Robert Henderson
Pierceton
via e-mail
Hand Avenue
Editor, Times-Union:Accidents at underpass on South Hand Avenue:
To hold down or stop these accidents, put overhead boards above the road on both ends like parking garages or Kmart Plaza.
Troy Miller
Miller Metals Finishing Inc.
(South Hand Avenue)
Warsaw
Prescription Drugs
Editor, Times-Union:Ellen Goodman's recent column on prescription drugs ("Drug ads have costly side effects," July 13) contained some misleading and erroneous information. In 2000, total drug expenditures increased by 14.7 percent, according to the highly respected health care information group IMS Health. Only 3.9 percent of this figure represents price increases. The remaining 10.8 percent reflects the fact that more people are getting more and better medicines.
Goodman also repeated incorrect information about marketing expenditures. Pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much on R&D (more than $30 billion this year alone) as on marketing, and about half of all marketing expenditures are to provide free samples for doctors to give free of charge to patients, many of whom are poor.
Despite the fact that medicines can increasingly keep people out of hospitals and nursing homes, outpatient prescription drug expenditures account for only about 8 cents out of every health care dollar - compared with 32 cents for hospital care and 22 cents for physicians' services. Therefore, increased prescription drug usage is not the major driver of health care expenditures and, in fact, may actually be controlling overall health care costs by replacing the need for costly surgeries or hospitalization.
Direct-to-consumer advertising educates and empowers patients to ask doctors about new treatment options that might be available to them. In fact, those doctor visits represent an important benefit to patients and the health care system overall because they are helping to address the very serious problems of underdiagnosis and undertreatment of many diseases.
Alan F. Holmer
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
Washington, D.C.
Party Switching
Editor, Times-Union:Mr. Matt Perry in a letter to you states that evidently he thinks that it was OK for a person to switch parties at the time he did. It is OK for a person to switch parties, but Mr. Jeffords had been a Republican because of receiving votes from persons who were Republican voters. It was wrong for him to change when he did. The proper time for him to make a change was when he was running for re-election so that he then would be elected or rejected based upon him personally and not as a Republican. He appears to me to be the type person when as a kid over playing with the neighbor kids and they did not play the games exactly as he wanted, he would pick up his toys and go home. He could have stayed a Republican and voted independently when he felt it was in the best interest of the country so to do. After all, those elected to Congress should be statesmen and not just political party persons.
Fred R. Yohey
Warsaw
IPFW Play
Editor, Times-Union:During the month of August, the theatre department of Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne, a state funded university, will present the play "Corpus Christi." The production portrays Jesus Christ as a sex-starved, hard-drinking, obscenity-speaking homosexual who sometimes likes to wear purple dresses.
In an article on the Website www.slatemsn.com, author Jacob Weisberg describes the play as follows:
"In the first (sketch), Joshua, a.k.a. Jesus, is born in a sleazy East Texas motel room ... At 'Pontius Pilate High' in Corpus Christi, Tex., ... an encounter in the school bathroom leads to an affair with a sinister classmate named Judas. After graduation, Joshua hitchhikes across the desert and has occasional conversations with his dad, God. He performs miracles and gathers disciples. One is a doctor, another an actor, another a male prostitute. They go to gay discos and spread the Word. Joshua performs a marriage for two of the (male) apostles. After a scrumptious Last Supper, Judas betrays him with a French kiss." - author Jacob Weisberg in an article on msn.com regarding the play "Corpus Christi."
And you, the unknowing taxpayers, will help sponsor and pay for the presentation of this play despite the fact that many of you find this "work of art" both anti-Christian and morally reprehensible! The campus administrators - whose salaries you also pay - call it "artistic freedom."
When did it become socially acceptable to discriminate against Christians?
In an effort to stop the performance of a play that so venomously attacks Christian values, three local Fort Wayne citizens filed a lawsuit in federal court in which 21 Indiana legislators, including me, joined. Through the suit, we hoped to demonstrate that an anti-religious play, sponsored in part by taxpayers' dollars, violates the separation of church and state doctrine; thus making the act unconstitutional. Supreme Court rulings have declared that, under the U.S. Constitution, organizations may not use tax money to promote a particular religion. Why, then, should these organizations be allowed to use the taxpayers' hard-earned money to mock a particular religion?
Unfortunately, the court dismissed the case, and the performances will go ahead as scheduled.
Is bias okay as long as it is against the Christian religion? Tolerance is good too, but is it not required if it involves Christ's followers? Is anti-Christian bigotry on the rise, not only in the big cities of New York and Los Angeles, but in the hallowed halls of Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne as well?
Kent Adams
Ninth District State Senator
Warsaw
More IPFW Play
Editor, Times-Union:Why is it called free speech when it comes to something as blasphemous and totally offensive as the "Corpus Christi" play at IU-PU Fort Wayne?
But our rights to free speech are totally ignored and ruled against when it comes to prayer in schools and the posting of the Ten Commandments.
Why do our courts so often rule in favor of the dark side?
Deanna Newton
Warsaw
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