Letters to the Editor

• Supreme Court justices not immune to criticism
  Poor Chief Justice John Roberts. He was uncomfortable because President Barack Obama criticized one of the Supreme Court's decisions during his State of the Union address.

• US census costs go up with pointless mailing
  Last week, I received a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau advising me that, in about a week, I will receive a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau. Way to go, guys. Spend all that surplus cash.

• Environmentalists want to destroy capitalism
  How many Americans know the real difference between a conservationist and an environmentalist?

• Today's the one day everyone can be Irish
  Once a year, on March 17, my dear Irish wife, Joan Ann McGough, permits me to add a vowel to my last name so I know the real meaning of being an Irishman.

• Don't lump real issues with political behaviors
  Your editorial cartoon Saturday that depicted the president selling the health care plan with the assurance that pre-existing mental conditions would be covered was incorrect and offensive on several levels, but it is really unfair to lump persons who do require mental health treatment in with some of the recently reported behaviors of politicians and lobbyists.

• Hospital has worked to prevent infections
  As the new CEO of Hilton Head Hospital, I am pleased and proud to be associated with the physicians and staff who are first and foremost totally dedicated to providing only the best and safest care to every patient at our hospital.

• Produce data about public pre-schools
  State Rep. Shannon Erickson is doing her job by asking the Beaufort County School District for information regarding its pre-kindergarten programs not mandated by the state.

• Beaufort Memorial can help STEMI patients
  I read with concern a story about the STEMI heart attack care initiative, South Carolina Mission: Lifeline. I do not believe it accurately reflected the program details at the local level.

• Chamber president pay ridiculous in hard times
  Annual compensation of $344,000 for the president of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce is beyond belief.

• Americans want jobs, not bad health care bill
  Were President Barack Obama and the Democrats asleep during the recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts, when they lost decisively in states that were considered blue during the last presidential election?

• Dems sticking it to us with legislative maneuvers
  President Barack Obama commanded: "Get it done."

• Chamber should promote air service to Hilton Head
  I am in total agreement with a recent letter to the editor asking president Bill Miles and the rest of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce to spend more time selling the real Hilton Head Island Airport and asking Delta and US Airways to make it more attractive to fly into this airport instead of driving 40 miles to Savannah. It is easy to make the case -- travel time, cost of gas, high parking rates.

• New mall only speeds demise of existing retail
  Beaufort and Jasper counties do not need more stores nor shopping areas. The members of our legislature should drive through their districts and see the number of buildings that have been vacated recently by businesses. A new mall may at first appear glamorous, but I fear it will pale after its initial splash, and the Lowcountry will be left with more vacant stores that spawn unsightly blemishes on our landscape. Nowhere is the domino effect more obvious than in a mall or shopping center.

• Managing pain doesn't mean hastening death
  Recently, the Packet and Gazette printed an Associated Press article that reported on a research study in Chicago, in which parents claimed local doctors had been giving fatal morphine doses at the parents' requests to children dying from cancer. Some parents told researchers they had asked doctors to hasten children's deaths to end suffering and the doctors had complied.

• Hilton Head should build future on past success
  We've been wintering here from Ontario, Canada, over the last 10 years or so, and we love it.

• Plans for new bridge a model for environment
  Typically, highway bridges in Beaufort County and the Lowcountry have been designed so that stormwater runoff flows directly and untreated into our waterways. This runoff carries with it oils, grease, asbestos, rubber, heavy metals, sediments and other road debris into the creeks, rivers and marshes, contributing to contamination of the waters.

• Hilton Head's approach, attitude attract visitors
  We are Canadians who have wintered on Hilton Head Island for the past 11 years, approximatingfour years of our lives.

• Selling GOP hypocrisy could end financial woes
  How fitting to place Sen. Jim DeMint's rantings and ravings about tyranny and that favorite Republican bogeyman -- socialism -- right where they belong, amid coverage of demented crackpots such as Joseph Stack and John Patrick Bedell.

• Many objective reasons for cigarette tax hike
  Last month, I submitted a letter urging a significant increase in the tobacco tax. Over a glass of wine, a good friend thanked me for my opinion and suggested personal opinions are rarely persuasive. Good point, well taken. So for any who might be curious, there are large databases you can reference.

• Chamber statistics fail to convince on sales tax
  Mark Twain popularized the saying, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

• Issue not compensation, but Hilton Head's future
  A recent story in The Island Packet on the proposed sales tax increase that is making its way through the South Carolina legislature has certainly drawn a lot of much-needed attention.

• Let chamber president chip in for marketing
  Hilton Head Island Town Council's decision to release $300,000 in emergency funding for a Hilton Head

• Two wrongs won't make it right on terrorist 'deal'
  Let me get this straight: Apparently, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is trying to structure a "deal" that would encourage the Obama administration to do the right thing (trying the terrorist involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by military tribunal), in exchange for Republican support for the administration's plan to do the wrong thing (closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility).

• You can be very sure, and still be very wrong
  In response to the March 5 letter, "Obama's 'transparency' shows his power grab," I would remind the letter writer of former President George W. Bush's "sure" statements on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

• Difficult choices to make to avert financial disaster
  The only way to save our country is to cut federal, state, county and local governments in half.

Letters to the Editor

Your Elected Officials