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Letters: Living in Tonganoxie, Annual support, Patriot Act concerns

By Staff | Apr 28, 2004

Living in Tonganoxie: Priceless

To the editor:

Congratulations to the Mirror staff for receiving recognition for their excellence! Great job! I love the feeling, when reading, that I’m visiting over the fence with a good neighbor. It’s a perfect combination of rural and urban news.

If only our community could find the same harmony in the rural vs. urban dilemma we face in Tonganoxie today. However cleverly we disguise a lust for money as concern for the livelihood of our citizens, we must not be fooled.

In the process of enticing people to develop residential and commercial properties here, we are destroying the very thing that attracts people to Tonganoxie in the first place.

When we have cut down our trees and buried the beauty of our land under ant colonies of tract homes and the crime rate begins to rise to the point we have to install security cameras in our children’s schools, and when generations of farmers are having to auction off their livestock, why would anyone want to live here? Are we willing to sacrifice the things that make Tonganoxie so wonderful for the sake of progress?

I love having a grocer who still carries your bags to your car and physicians, pharmacists and storekeepers who know you by name. I love the green hillsides and the redbud blossoms entwined with the green leaves of the wooded areas in the springtime. This is our Eden, unspoiled and pure. The question has been asked, “Is the price too high to pay for progress?” Before we can answer that, we must first answer another question: How can one put a price on that which is priceless?

Bonnie Sivyer,
Tonganoxie.

Thanks for the annual support

To the editor:

On behalf of the Knights of Columbus, council No. 11352 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tonganoxie, I would like to thank everyone who came out and support us at our Lenten Fish Fries. We sincerely appreciate your support and patronage at these dinners. We also would like to express our appreciation to First State Bank and Trust, Community National Bank, B&J Country Mart and Bichelmeyer’s Steakhouse for their generous contributions.

The Lenten Fish Fries are our main fund-raiser each year, and the proceeds help us to continue the charitable work of our order. Therefore, the community’s generosity enables us to be generous to others.

Again, the members of our council and I would like to thank all who came, and we hope to your continued support next year.

Michael Pemberton,
Grand Knight, Council No. 11352.,

Concerns about Patriot Act

To the editor:

I’d like to thank Bill Graveman for his article in the April 21 edition of The Mirror. He gave a fairly accurate historical view of the problems that impeded the United States security apparatus from performing in a timely and efficient manner, though I don’t believe I ever saw any factual information that the 9/11 attack was initiated prior to President Reagan’s presidency.

Still not much to argue about until the very end. The Patriot Act was one of those knee-jerk responses by politicians to a real problem. Many, if not most, of Congress now view the act as the beginning of a slippery slope and are eager to reign in the law enforcement agencies that now have the legal right to check your library book loans.

To excuse Mr. Ashcroft of just using what the Congress has produced is to forget the act was the brainchild of the administration with Mr. Ashcroft its point man.

Still not a bad article, unless you also are concerned with private liberties, which Mr. Graveman is willing to sacrifice “in order to better secure our collective freedoms.” Mr. Graveman is concerned about a witch hunt by Congress, while many of us are concerned that the major problems lie in the attorney general’s office. I’d suggest looking in Mr. Ashcroft’s department for the witches.

Raoul Berman,
Tonganoxie.