This Arlington resident thinks cutting trash days in half is a garbage idea | Opinion
Why not just raise workers’ pay?
The city of Arlington recently announced what I see as the downgrading of our city’s sanitation services. Beginning in February, contractor Republic Services will change from garbage pickup twice to once a week. Households will be supplied with bulky 95-gallon trash carts.
City officials say this change is being made because contractors are unable to attract and retain workers to manually collect trash, even though it has worked for decades. Wouldn’t a pay raise have been more economical than paying to dump thousands of unsightly trash carts on residents?
Southlake gave Republic Services the boot and signed a contract with Community Waste Disposal offering twice-a-week service with only a 50-cent monthly rate increase. Why didn’t Arlington?
- Ron Hiett, Arlington
But it’s still ‘In God we trust’
I don’t wish to debate the statistics of the number of “nones” versus religious believers. (Dec. 10, 4C, Letters) But I’ll call attention to the fact that every denomination of our currency system includes the phrase “In God we trust.” Although the phrase does offend some, it doesn’t seem to be a problem overall.
- Barbara McDaniel, Arlington
Give us a real solution
George P. Bush’s Dec. 13 call for solidarity with Israel did not prescribe any workable solution to the Palestine dispute ongoing since the 1917 Balfour Declaration. (Dec. 14, 11A, “Video of Hamas attack on Israel was sickening”)
Does he support the moribund two-state solution along the 1967 border, a one-state solution that accords Jews and Arabs equal rights in a binational state, a West Bank-Gaza confederation with Jordan or a second Nakba — the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948?
Bush’s grandfather well understood that Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories would undermine the two-state solution and lead to further enmity and violence. He and President Jimmy Carter also warned that Israel would devolve into an apartheid state if it continued to subjugate the Palestinians.
Possible solutions, not just condemnations, are desperately needed.
- George W. Aldridge, San Marcos
Yes, Texas should ban abortion
Mark Davis might catch some flak over his commentary about Kate Cox’s nonviable pregnancy, but he was right on track. (Dec. 17, 5C, “Here’s the pro-life case that Texas abortion law works”)
The focus of the state’s statute is on the life and health of the mother, not the quality or duration of the life of the child. The latter is the prerogative of God alone. It’s not up to us to decide whether a life is worthwhile or should be allowed to live. Our job is to love everyone, no matter health or physical condition, or whether a life is long or short.
- Thomas F. Harkins Jr., Fort Worth
This is what ‘pro-life’ means
Mark Davis should be thanked for telling readers the real anti-choice argument: “Pro-life belief posits that the new life growing in the womb is sacred.” And that is precisely why that belief should not be a basis for legislation. Legislating that belief into Texas law is an establishment of religion, in violation of both the U.S. and Texas constitutions.
Of course, a real “pro-life” policy would support comprehensive pre-natal, neo-natal, pediatric and maternal health care, child care and other legislation necessary to make it possible for any willing person to bear and raise a healthy child. Davis’ kind of “pro-life” concern begins at conception and ends at birth — even if the birth is doomed to a speedy and painful death.
- Jim Burt, Fort Worth
