… Right answer to opioid epidemic? STOP Act raises new questions

There has to be a better solution. You should not punish people that really need the medicine to protect the abusers of the medicine. I know a lot of people with sickle cell disease. Their medical issues are hard enough without having to beg for pain relief.

Common sense would go a long way. You can’t treat every case the same. It frustrates me

— Wendy Webb

Sounds good to me. To fix the heroin problem created by irresponsible drug addicts, we will target innocent people who have had surgery or trauma. Should immediately fix the problem…

— Mark Cantrell

… Letter: Everyone’s a victim

Not sure why you seem to blame this on millennials, as there are plenty of people who don’t fall into that category who feel the same way.

However, blaming millennials for all of today’s “problems” seems to be a favorite pastime for those born of a generation who benefited from an economy that no longer exists — one where you could graduate high school and get a manufacturing job that would allow you to afford a house, car, college for your children and have retirement on top of that.

Contrast that to the economy today where wages have been flat for decades, while inflation and the cost of living have continued to climb, where most employers do as much as possible to pay the lowest wages to the least amount of people while offering no benefits if at all possible (Walmart being a perfect example).

I’m just going to stop before I head into uncivil territory, because your response reeks of pettiness. Equality should be something that we all strive to promote. That should be especially obvious today (Martin Luther King Day).

— Jacob Parks

… My Turn, Frank Cardelle: Don’t speak of my friends that way

Your words could not be more true nor more necessary. Thanks for writing.

—Lisa Baker Clark

… Imagine if we really split the country

It will be prudent to put a wall right down the middle of the country so the folks in the east don’t try to migrate to the west when they realize they no longer have affordable healthcare, equal access to education, and when they discover they’ve become enslaved to American oligarchs.

— Karen McGee Puckett

I have a better idea: People live wherever they want in the U.S.A. and follow the rule of law.

Last I checked, it is not against the law to super-size or to eat like a rabbit, no matter where you live in this country. Anyone who doesn’t want an abortion doesn’t have to have one. No one is preventing people from celebrating Christmas or from saying Merry Christmas, and those who don’t choose to shouldn’t be ostracized.

It seems you are chafing at some imaginary stifling of your right to live as you want, yet missing the irony implicit in your letter; those who don’t share your worldview are wrong and need to be segregated from “right thinking” people like you.

It’s closed-minded and narrow views like yours that are at the root of the divisions we face.

— Lisa Staton Dyer

… Edds: Rowan needs infrastructure, not missed opportunities

All of this is one of the major hurdles we need to overcome. However, there is a state-of-the-art infrastructure that both the county and city are consistently overlooking, and that is a world-class fiber optic network. I wish there would be more talk with the EDC, the city and the county on how to parlay that into a regional jewel and use it to attract small to medium-sized tech companies from around the country that may be struggling to grow in their current location due to their locational overhead.

Fibrant is here; it doesn’t require a huge investment. It does, however, require people to have forward vision and some cooperative strategic marketing outside of Rowan County.

Imagine how different Rowan County could be if in the next 10 years we landed 20 midsized tech companies that all had growth potential. Most of those employees would have a income far better than the average manufacturing or warehouse job. What would be the positive impact of 500 extra people making $65,000-$100,000 per year living in Rowan County? 

… Let’s not add this to the list of missed opportunities.

— Greg Rapp

Thanks, not only for a great opinion piece, but for elevating the conversation about how our county can build a brighter future. The areas immediately adjacent to Rowan — Cabarrus, for example — recognized these truths at least a decade or more ago, and their successes and the attendant growth benefits are obvious.

While I agree with other writers that Fibrant should definitely be part of the final solution, our continued failure to address the basic infrastructure needs you mentioned will always be the first consideration for 99 percent of the new businesses considering Rowan for their new location. Thanks for highlighting these important needs for our community.

— Bill Bucher

… Letter: Please, no more balloon releases

Both great causes — thanks for all the efforts to stop these affronts to the environment and health of people and wildlife.

— Joanne Bryla

If government can ban tobacco in a privately owned business, bar, lounge, restaurant, barber shop, store, why not in a publicly held, government-run facility? A No Tobacco Area (including spitting). Simple, plain, sane?

— Larry Craver

Calling those with decision-making abilities feckless and backwards is an exercise in futility and a poor way to get what you want.

— Andrew Poston

… Elizabeth Cook: Our country depends on journalists

Elizabeth Cook is spot on. This (“The Post”) is a movie that everyone should see as a reminder of the necessary role that professional journalism plays in our democracy.

Note: Professional journalism is not to be confused with TV opinion hacks.

The Pentagon Papers and Katharine Graham’s courageous decision to publish them was our nation’s early indicator of that important role. (Also, she did this against the grain of the era of “the man-dominated world.”)

Listen closely to the voice of President Nixon in the movie. The only thing that is missing from what we hear today is “fake news.”

— Dennis White

… Enhancing High Rock Lake is a public issue

Lake Norman has the Charlotte metro area feeding its growth. Executives working in Charlotte can live there and commute to work. This has fueled the growth of three municipalities next to the lake for decades: Huntersville, Davidson and Cornelius. Lake Norman also has sewer along portions of the lake, which is required for any type of serious development.

In addition, their land-use planning was aligned with these underlying ingredients to allow for growth.

— Doug Paris

… Commissioners OK $892,000 water-sewer expense

Thank you, commissioners, for making this investment while the costs can be contained during the widening of I-85. It is a vital investment for our economic growth, and as Commissioner Judy Klusman has observed, so is public education.

— Jeff Morris

… How can we keep MLK’s dream alive?

In this country, identity politics has supplanted the idea that we are all a common people — individual and worthy of independent respect — and replaced it with the notion that we are primarily members of a collective identity.

Judging the content of one’s character is an impossibility if that person’s identity is locked in such a label — the “privileged,” the “poor,” the “disadvantaged,” etc.

We all deserve a chance to rise higher than our label … or family background, and even personal history. How will that happen in the face of identity politics? 

— J.R. Neumiller

… City Council disagrees on how election committee should be organized

Very interesting. David Post, Tamara Sheffield and Al Heggins want citizen input on this issue. Sheffield says, “Whatever fits the city of Salisbury is what needs to happen here. Not because one or five of us want to do something that’s in our best interest.”

But less than a month ago the same people decided without citizen input that council meetings shouldn’t open with public prayer.

I see the new members doing exactly the same things in the same way as the previous council members they criticized. Some things are done because that’s the way they work best, plain and simple.

Just because you get elected by a small percentage of the community doesn’t mean the majority wants things turned upside down. A new election is two years away; then we will see how differently people really want things.

— Theo Flemming

I must admit my puzzlement as to the reason for the formation of a committee to change the way council members and the mayor are elected. The candidate with the most votes should be mayor, since all contenders are running to serve the entire city. Why have a separate race for mayor?

What’s the problem with having citizens serving on an election committee? What am I missing?

— Reginald Brown

… Bill Ward: Truth in history

Mr. Ward strawmans his critics when he assumes that the most basic facts over something such as Hamilton’s duel are open to questioning. However, as a trained historian, he must surely be aware that historical interpretation is varied based on perspective and as historical records change. It would certainly seem that Mr Ward subscribes to a more traditionalist school of thought. …

Most importantly, though, history does change over time as new information and perspective are injected into the historical record. This is what gave rise to the post-revisionist school of thought in regards to Cold War history, when more archives and records became available to academic research in the aftermath of the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union and its sattelite states. 

… The biggest mistake that any historian can make is allowing a personal view or other bias to cloud judgment. This leads to cherry-picking and a refusal to acknowledge new evidence. And it most certainly leads to refusing to acknowledge as valid any historical interpretation other than their own, which they have made their spin on facts fit.

— Eric Shock

Mr. Ward, it’s not preposterous. You are confusing the events of the past with the stories we tell about them.

As Mr. Shock pointed out, new details emerge over time that were not available to earlier historians. Your own example of Douglas Freeman writing “R.E. Lee” is based on exactly this. Freeman initially rose to prominence as a historian writing about Lee’s dispatches from the battlefield in a book based on documents that had been misplaced for decades. His research based on these newly uncovered documents exactly fit the definition of “new history” that you find preposterous.

… In my opinion, your view of history as fixed and immutable is based on a confounding of history — being the stories we tell — with the past events it incorporates into our stories. History is indeed a social construction. For all the discomfort you expressed in you column, you have in no way refuted my statement.

— Jeffrey L. Sharp

… Denounce this racism

After the election, I tried very hard to understand people’s reasons for voting for this man. We’ve had an entire year of hearing, from witnesses and by the man’s own mouth, the despicable things he feels inspired to say about people who are only trying to make a better life in this country. I cannot understand it anymore.

The only explanation is these people agree with him, and that makes me so sad for my country. Nobody is throwing stones; we simply want a president who has compassion, and we will never stop calling out this one who obviously has none.

— Jenni Pfaff

… Every day is a blessing: ‘If I didn’t know I have cancer, I wouldn’t know,’ says Julie Carr

Thank you for sharing this story about my amazingly strong sister. Lung cancer causes 32 percent of all cancer deaths but only gets 10 percent of research funding. That’s all kinds of wrong. Let’s make a difference.

— Renee Vraa

Julie, you are a bright light in this dark world. Thank you for sharing your story.

— Deborah Stroud

… White lightning: Higher-than-expected snow accumulations surprise Rowan

A big thanks goes out to Craig Powers (the city’s assistant public services director), all of our city public services and utility crews, city and county firefighters, police and emergency personnel.

— Larissa Harper