Semonelli will be an outstanding Assembly member
I recommend support for Mr. Chris Semonelli in his campaign to be elected to Rhode Island Representative District 72. I have known and worked with Mr. Semonelli in a Middletown service organization for over 20 years and have always found his work ethic, dedication to the task at hand, and support of community affairs to be of the highest level. In particular, his three terms with the Middletown Town Council, the support he has and is providing to help the disabled, and, in parallel, building a very successful business in textiles truly impresses me. I have no doubt Mr. Semonelli can become an outstanding member of the Rhode Island General Assembly.
Patrick Burke, Middletown
Grow up and wear mask
On Aug. 12, a letter to the editor was published that described wearing a mask as a “personal safety issue.” The author claimed that it was his business if he wanted to be “reckless” and the government should stay out of it. That is ridiculous.
You’re describing wearing a mask like wearing a seat belt when you drive, as if it’s only keeping your person safe. It’s more like drunk driving. Sure, its your own life and your own choice should you choose to get behind the wheel drunk. But its not just your life, is it? You’re on the road with hundreds of other people and actively endangering them by driving impaired. That’s how masks work and by refusing to wear one you are not only hurting yourself, you are also putting everyone around you at risk.
Masks are neither a threat to your civil liberties nor a limitation on your “pursuit of happiness.” You ARE hurting people when you don’t wear one; there are over 20,000 COVID cases in R.I. alone. You are being selfish, foolish and ignorant. Grow up and put the piece of cloth on your face, it’s not that difficult.
Grace Jannotta, Newport
Conversations, education path to equality
I applaud John Kass’ thoughtful editorial about police families, asking in his title, “How do they bear it?”
I, like most people, feel that any behaviors of disrespect towards our law enforcement or our citizens is positively unacceptable.
However, Mr. Kass’ provocative article raised to me another consideration: how have African Americans bared the outrageous violence and dishonor shown towards them for the past 400 years by “authorities,” be it slave master, local authorities, governors or even from the president of their own country?
How has any distressed person or people responded to systematic, unrighteous oppression?
Hundreds of thousands of native peoples, like that tragic police chief, chose death by suicide to the pressure or hopelessness of their current lives.
The dinner conversations of our law enforcement have probably always been painful. Just like the stories of personal, daily collective pain shared at African American dinner tables generation after generation. Just like the original people of this continent did before them. And imagine the dinner conversations of Asian Americans while bearing the indignities of being placed in American concentration camps?
People all bear and express that pain differently. We are seeing that pain in our streets today, in many different ways. Only through civilized, painful, thoughtful conversations will we resolve our sad conflicts and through education agree to respect humanity’s common right to equality and dignity.
Ken Willis, Middletown
Credit: Source link
