16 workers a day
It is time to change the feeble and antiquated rules that fail to protect workers on the job.
Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers. Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. It is time to change the feeble and antiquated rules that fail to protect workers on the job. Sign the petition to demand that Congress pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act now: http://16deathsperday.com/
Donna Vincene Puleio
Via e-mail
Thoughts on Ft. Hood
Ever since the tragic Ft. Hood shootings, everyone seems to be asking the question, “Why did this happen?”
Consider that Major Hasan, a devout Muslim, after joining the Army was sent to medical school and graduated as an Army psychiatrist.
His first practice was at the Walter Reed Army hospital where he treated PTSD victims on their return from Iraq and Afghanistan. The most prime mission of these doctors is to improve the victims to the point where they can return to the battles that emotionally disabled them in the first place.
Transferred to Ft. Hood he continued this practice until he broke down completely last week after being told he was being sent to Iraq.
He realized that being there, he would have to treat the patients, so they would not have to be brought home, treated and then returned to battle.
Some here say he cannot claim he has PTSD since he has never been in battle.
Yet, he has treated countless hundreds of our troops who confessed to some of the most inhuman violence they had witnessed, or been a part of, and they could NOT bear it any longer.
Major Hasan has spent his entire professional career healing our own victims to the point they could be returned to kill and maim more of his Muslim family, and he could not bear it any longer.
Bud Deraps
St. Louis MO
Film, book recommendations
I really enjoyed the movie “Precious,” even though it points out some degrading cultural experiences of the African American community.
Precious’ mother inflicts the pain of rejection from a loveless relationship onto the one person who was the most innocent, her daughter. She is unable to protect her daughter and excuses the father’s role in an incestuous relationship.
Despite it all, Precious is able to separate herself from all of the unpleasant and hurtful situations by imagining herself as a diva, shining in the spotlight.
Even though the young lady was illiterate, she decided to do better for herself and her children. The assistance she received from her teacher and social worker was great.
Melissa Parks
Chicago IL
I recommend you purchase the book “Love and War: An American Volunteer in the Soviet Red Army,” written by M.J. Nicholas, pen name of Nicholas Burlak, a long-time friend of my family.
This is more than just a book about events of WWII; it is an actual eyewitness, on the scene, flow-by-blow account of what he saw, what he took part in, what he lived through from 1941 – 1945.
It’s a true story of how history drives an American-born youth to volunteer in the Soviet Red Army during World War II and how real love finds him even in the midst of war. M J Nicholas recalls his childhood in Pennsylvania, his family’s struggle in the Great Depression and their move in the ’30s to Ukraine. When Nazi Germany invades the USSR, Nicholas is just 16. Determined to do his part, he gets himself to the front lines. Based on detailed notebooks he kept at the time, Nicholas tells of daily life in the Soviet army and the gut-wrenching horror of the battlefield. Seriously wounded in history’s biggest tank battle at Kursk, he awakens in a field hospital gazing into the “dark eyes of a charming medical second lieutenant.” As this determined young woman nurses him back from near death, they fall under the spell of a fervent first love.
From his unique perspective as an American volunteer in the Soviet Red Army, Nicholas offers an unforgettable journey to a nearly forgotten time and place.
Sonia Boshko
Watertown, MA
Re: India China dispute? Says who?
It is no use denying the tension that exists on the Indo Chinese border. The visit of the Dalai Lama to the Twang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh has aroused China’s anger. In this context history does count. China has claimed this mostly Tibetan Indian province as rightly its own. In the first 15 years of its existence, the People’s Republic of China sought with some success – mostly notably with the Soviet Union and Burma – to rectify territorial boundaries, thereby righting the wrongs of history. With India, it proposed the redrawing of the MacMahon line which the British set as the boundary between India and China. The Nehru government defended it, refusing China’s proposal which resulted in the 1962 war with the PRC. Chinese troops overran Arunachal Pradesh, but at the end of this short conflict, it withdrew its army. Thus an uneasy truce prevails today. During the past year, Beijing has tested New Delhi’s will on the border for many reasons, including India’s challenge to China’s role as “referee” in Asia and its growing economic rival tilting towards the United States. Border incursions multiplied; India has beefed up its troops on the border. Yet neither country wants another war, so the standoff remains.
Sion Cambria
New York NY
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