Don’t let drugs ruin your dreams
As I was a kid, growing up in the small town of Landis, I had a dream. On my way to school every day, I would pass by the fire station, and I always wondered what it would be like to be on a fire truck with the lights and siren going, on the way to a call for help.
As I grew up, I moved to Salisbury and started taking classes at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College to become an EMT. The next thing I knew, I met a gentleman who I later found out was the fire chief in East Spencer. I was told I was welcome to come to the fire station and meet other members of the fire department. The next thing I knew, I was a member of this great organization.
I was finally living my dream and helping people. I was so good at my job and enjoyed it so much, the town hired me as a full-time firefighter.
About two years down the road, I started having personal problems. For some reason, I turned to drugs. It seemed to help my problems go away. I had just lost my job for what I believed was unfair reasons. I felt like the dream I had always dreamed had gone up in smoke.
So I turned to drugs even more.
Since this time, 11 years ago, I have been in and out of trouble. I just can’t seem to get things right.
I was recently saved, and I plan to live a new life for God and myself.
I wanted to write my story so that, just maybe, it might touch one person and stop that person from ever turning to drugs.
Thank you for allowing me to tell my story.
ó Michael Toby Aistrop
Rowan County Detention Center
The facts point in one direction
People need to look past Obama’s color, because if he were white, this election would be a landslide. Just look at the facts. McCain’s health care plan is horrible. Yes, Obama’s plan would spend more money, but Obama’s money would go to the people and to middle class America. McCain’s would go to the insurance companies.
McCain also states things in his debates that simply aren’t true. Look up the voting records. McCain stated that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes, but here are the facts: 53 were votes on budget resolutions or amendments that could not have resulted by themselves in raising taxes; 23 were against proposed tax cuts; 11 were to increase taxes on people making more than $1 million a year, to help fund programs such as Head Start, school nutrition or veterans’ health care. And seven were for votes that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a few, either big corporations or wealthy individuals.
I’ve done my research and the answer is clear to me. Obama is what we need. Bush is an oil man, and I don’t think that it is a coincidence that gas prices have risen to almost $5 a gallon since he got in office. McCain is too much like Bush, and that scares me. McCain’s family worth is estimated at $34 million to $53 million. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be middle class, so why would people trust him to help them?
I don’t think that McCain is a bad guy; I just don’t think he has what it takes.
Oh, yeah, and if he were to die in office, who in the world would want that inexperienced, poor excuse for a VP candidate Palin running our country? God help us all if that should happen.
ó Ben Aldridge
Salisbury
Yellow brick road leading us astray
This financial tornado has whisked us away to Oz, onto the illusionary yellow brick road paved by Barney Frank et. al. with glitter and glee to deceive the senses.
Perhaps the august congressional wizardry and its foolery wait in the Emerald City to endow with a brain those who so gleefully dismiss Obama of the East’s pungent associations, from Chicago to the Middle East to Kenya. He will need to dig deep into his bag of tricks, as there is a deluge of disciples who are in need of his magic.
Mayhap that Barney Frank, in his pink pinafore and pigtails, has detoured us to a pot-holed Kansas back road with three clicks of his tattered ruby slippers, ushering us toward being a third-world country?
Not to worry though, everyone will all have equal paucity of wealth and will be in the same cesspool tormented by demonic monkeys controlled by the wicked Obama of the East.
Such is the beauty of a socialist society.
Still, we cannot dismiss the possibility that we have followed Alice through the looking glass into a world turned upside down.
Did it not rush this great nation into obscurity, it would be laughable.
Chuck Hughes
Salisbury
Changes at VA don’t compute
I am concerned and bewildered by the recent administrative decisions to close vital services at the Salisbury VA Medical Center.
I have reviewed the cost comparisons of implementing the closure of these essential units and contracting these services to local facilities. The average cost comparison of Common Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGS) between the Salisbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and local facilities does not appear to be cost effective care. According to North Carolina Hospital Association figures, the Common DRGs that can be treated at the Salisbury VAMC would cost an average of $15,000 each at local facilities. The Salisbury VAMC treated approximately 2,500 inpatients last year. If one multiplied these 2,500 patients by $15,000 for each patient, it would equal an additional cost to the taxpayer of $37,500,000 per year (since the Salisbury center plans no reduction in force).
In addition, the NCAH explains that “the average charge shown for each DRG reflects the average charge by the hospital during the 2006 fiscal year. Physicians’ professional fees are typically billed separately by the physicians and are not reflected in the charges shown on the data below. Charges for a procedure vary from hospital to hospital. Charges may also differ for patients at the same hospital based on the nature of the patient’s treatment and care.” These hidden charges would add significantly to the average $15,000 DRG at a local facility. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Closing the Salisbury VAMC emergency room will also significantly add an astronomical cost for outsourcing these 21,000 veterans to local facilities.
Unfortunately, it has the potential to foster more unnecessary spending and multiply the complexities of our already fragmented health care system. Veterans and the taxpayer will suffer because of the waste, fraud and abuse of government administrators.
ó Jason Edwards
Statesville
Simple reason behind crisis
I really get tired of people and their “analysis” of the economic crisis, blaming this one or that one. The crisis can be served up with one word ó greed. It was created by consumers buying stuff they didn’t need, with money they didn’t have.
ó Bill Rainey
Salisbury
Market no place for Social Security
I don’t remember who the politicians were a few years ago who were wanting to invest the Social Security funds in the stock market, but it’s a good thing they didn’t get their way.
Otherwise, today, the fund would be broke. Maybe they were just trying to get the money there to make it easier for the billionaire fat cats to steal it and use it to give themselves billion-dollar retirement packages. Who were these politicians?
ó Calvin Safrit
Salisbury
Urge legislators to lower gas tax
I would like to know why Charlotte has the highest price per gallon of gas than any other city in the nation. I know the excuses about supply, etc., but our main problem statewide is our extremely high state gas tax.
We are, per capita income, a poor state, yet our legislature taxes us at a higher rate than anyone in the country. Please join me in e-mailing, writing or phoning our state legislators to ask them to temporarily suspend the gas tax by one half to help money-strapped citizens and to lower permanently the rate of taxation on gas.
ó Kenneth Dennis
China Grove
Endorsement letters
Letters endorsing local candidates in the Nov. 4 election must be received in the Salisbury Post newsroom by 5 p.m., Oct. 27. Please limit endorsements to 150 words.