Rye has some of worst roads on the Seacoast: Letters
The town of Rye has some of the worst roads on the Seacoast
June 1 — To the Editor:
The town of Rye has some of the worst roads in the Seacoast. Motorists have experienced tire, wheel and suspension damage due to the numerous pot holes. Cyclists have also been injured as a result of the poor road conditions. The road deterioration started over 10 years ago and has barely improved since. Money has been wasted attempting to pave over broken and unstable payment. In some cases, new payment was applied during rain storms and consequently broke up. In addition, several streets and intersections in town have very poor drainage and consistently flood during storms.
The town is planning to spend a significant amount of money on an improvement at the DPW garage and major enhancements to the center of town. A portion of the town enhancements include an important safety improvement for students at the junior high school.
It seems more prudent to spend money maintaining the existing roads and drainage infrastructure before embarking on enhancements.
Alan Smith
Rye
There is no place for weapons of war within a civil society
June 1 — To the Editor:
People who engage in mass shooting events with assault weapons are surely troubled if not deranged. The depth of their rage and disdain for life, their own as well as others, and their hunger to satiate a driving pulse of revenge against society is shocking.
Given this turbulent pool of unhinged emotions, a weapon of war becomes an exponential casualty multiplier. Those who argue for the absolute right to have unrestrained access to weapons of war now claim the constitutional right to protect their family and home against those who would cause them harm.
This justification of owning an assault weapon supposes an attack by an army or a need to challenge a perceived alien government by force. Might this extreme argument also reflect a certain derangement?
We have historically prided ourselves in being a civil society, respectful of the rule of law and dedicated to the strength of reason and fairness. The tragedy of gun violence and especially the heart wrenching carnage of children tears deeply into our collective soul.
The sanity of our culture requires setting reasonable limits on this extremism, which cultivates rage, violence and mayhem. Civility and the rule of law must be advanced as our birthright and heritage.
The school shooters are the canaries in the coal mine, reflecting serious pathology that is not an exception to our norms, but rather, the deepest fracture of unhinged rage and grievance echoed by the current extremism.
There is no place for weapons of war within a civil society. We must act to restore our collective well-being and voice our disapproval of the defiant anarchy tearing our social fabric, degrading our community fellowship, and silencing deliberative governance.
Kenneth Cohen
Kensington
Wear orange to protest gun laws that do not keep us safe
June 1 — To the Editor:
Editor's note: This letter was submitted June 1, in advance of the Wear Orange weekend. We regret not publishing it prior to the event.
The Portsmouth Memorial Bridge will be orange this weekend to recognize the 8th National Gun Violence Awareness Day on Friday, June 4, and “Wear Orange” weekend, Saturday, June 5 and Sunday, June 6.
The first Friday in June is designated as National Gun Violence Awareness Day. It is a day set aside to honor those who have lost their lives or have been injured due to gun violence.
“Wear Orange” Weekend is a non-political, non-partisan campaign which intends to amplify awareness of gun violence prevention. It originated on June 2, 2015 in honor of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago high school student who was shot and killed on a city playground one week after she marched in the 2013 inaugural parade. Her friends decided to commemorate her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear to protect themselves.
This is a time, especially with the very recent gun violence incidents, for our community to come together to voice our collective power in addressing gun violence. All around the country, people are gathering together to spread a simple message that gun violence must end.
SO! This weekend, literally “Wear Orange” to promote gun violence prevention. Visit the Memorial Bridge on Saturday as it beams orange, take a selfie, and post it on social media.
SUPPORT ENDING GUN VIOLENCE!
Barbara Prien
Rye
The best solution to this abortion dilemma would be a compromise
June 2 — To the Editor:
The central dilemma in the battle over abortion rights is that both sides in the conflict often adopt a position that denies women's rights or fetal rights. By "women's rights," I mean the right to have an abortion, and by "fetal rights," I mean the right of a viable human fetus to be born. To deny either of these rights is to take an extreme position that forecloses on any rational outcome.
The overruling of Roe v. Wade could lead to these same two extremes: a denial of women's rights in some states and a denial of fetal rights in other states. Contrary to Justice Alito's opinion, the fate of these two fundamental human rights should not be left to the mercy of politics in each state. Rather, the Supreme Court should act to affirm and reconcile these two competing rights in a balanced way.
In an enlightened society women should have a sovereign right to control their own body, at least until the fetal stage of pregnancy. This gives them a chance to make a decision about aborting a pregnancy before it progresses too far towards producing a viable fetus.
On the other hand, abortion during the fetal stage may kill an innocent and helpless fetus that has developed to the point of viability and is worthy of personhood legal protection. This is a grotesque and barbaric act which is morally repugnant to a large segment of our society.
The best solution to this abortion dilemma would be a compromise which recognizes both points of view as valid concerns. To that end, I would suggest a legal framework in which a woman initially has an absolute right to abortion until a certain point in her pregnancy, followed by a period of time during which a woman's right to abortion may be restricted (or not) by a state, and then a period of fetal viability during which no abortion is allowed. Of course, in all cases there should be medical exceptions.
This legal scheme would guarantee women's rights, state's rights and fetal rights, as appropriate to each stage of pregnancy. It is actually just a variation on Roe v. Wade that gives more protection to the fetus and more flexibility to the states. This flexibility would accommodate the existing variety of restrictions that states are already imposing, or trying to impose, during the second trimester. But regardless of what a state may decide to do in the second trimester, the first trimester would be reserved for a woman's right to abortion and the third trimester reserved as a safe haven for the maturing fetus.
If we are to avoid a never-ending conflict surrounding abortion in this country, then some form of compromise is needed. For the sake of national unity and tranquility, neither the Supreme Court nor Congress nor the States should try to impose upon our divided nation a draconian regime of ideologically rigid or religiously driven abortion laws that don't recognize both women's rights and fetal rights. We need a legal regime that strikes a balance between the personal sovereignty of a woman and the moral concerns of society for the personhood of the fetus.
The compromise I just described might strike that balance; the recent draft opinion of the Supreme Court would not. If the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade and returns the abortion issue to the states as indicated in its draft opinion, then Congress should take up the mantle of forging such a compromise. Of course, in this day and age of political polarization, that's a very tall order.
Ron Sheppe
Rochester
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Rye NH has some of worst roads on the Seacoast: Letters
