The Readers Voice

Garbage pickup rate hikes unwarranted

A headline in The Herald proclaimed that “Farrell’s garbage rates to increase 153% from previous contract” (Jan. 25). Sharon’s is increasing 100%.

First of all why are we signing contracts for three years? If there is a decrease in costs in the duration of the contract is Tri-County going to pass these savings on to its customers or do we have to wait until the end of the contract?

After reading the excuses for the rate increase, it angered me that Tri-County is using the purchase of new equipment as one of the reasons. Whatever happened to re-investing your profits to enhance your business?

Everyone now passes on the cost of improvements to the customer, i.e. the water company in replacing 100-year-old pipe. It’s great to keep all your profits and pass them on to shareholders or use them to buy your company stock at the expense of people whose Social Ssecurity raise goes to rising prices and was long gone before January’s checks went out.

People are already getting their garbage picked up in Sharon without paying for it. Others are dumping their garbage in the alleys next to strangers’ totes. These alleys are already a mess and a raise in garbage rates will make into a disaster.

Paula Marcella

Sharon

Drag queen bingo not appropriate

As a former “horse show Mom” and future “horse show “Gram,” I am disturbed by the Pennsylvania Amateur Horseman’s Association’s (PAHA) decision to hold a drag queen bingo event in Scott Township, Lawrence County.

With the multitude of fundraising options available, is there not a more wholesome method?

PAHA holds a summer series of shows locally (Lawrence and Butler County Fairgrounds, Ford City grounds), attended by equestrians of all ages.

Its decision is disturbing, as my girls competed in these shows. Somewhere in my cedar chest is a blue jacket, embroidered with the PAHA emblem, recognizing my daughter as a class champion. We experienced a family friendly environment with a two year old atop a saddle beaming in a lead line class, an eight year old laughing through “egg and spoon” class, a 12-year-old focused on presenting perfection in pleasure class, and “50- somethings” hollering while barrel racing.

At the same time, the girls competed beside, often sharing daily practice sessions with, several gay equestrians, and extended mutual respect and developed friendships.

However, these friends did not dress in sexually explicit “attire.”

I’m not objecting to the LGBTQ community, but rather the normalization of immoral, sexually suggestive behavior disguised as appropriate entertainment. I equally criticize heterosexual groups who do so.

In the drag queen movement, performers promote, glamorize, and attempt to normalize their lifestyle while donning sexually explicit attire and exhibiting questionable behavior.

Perhaps this troupe isn’t as extreme as some. But the gradual acceptance of more promiscuous behaviors is a slippery slope to a moral decline that we do not want our youth caught up in.

If people of faith stand idle, even more perverse forces will quietly creep in and erode the Christian values upon which our rural communities were built.

The argument has been made that, since this program is adult only, it will not affect the youth. Those thinking this must be “living under a rock”, oblivious to the influence of social media. Our youth will see the PAHA leadership, who should function as role models, embracing and promoting this.

The PAHA website states it’s a family-oriented group. Perhaps it’s time for the PAHA board to plan more wholesome fundraisers or revise its mission statement.

Those concerned can visit the PAHA website at https://www.pahainfo.net

Sherry Patton

Edinburg

Drug cartels a reflection of poor U.S. leadership

Thank God we don’t have a social and political system where drug cartels run amok like the conditions in neighboring Mexico. Addictive drugs have a direct influence on the human body — a truism known by doctors and medical specialists for years. Nicotine was well documented as a health danger for decades, and it took millions of lives before the authorities voiced meaningful warnings about its use.

Mexico drug cartels targeting the USA is easy to explain — money and the deadly warnings not to mess with them. How the drug cartels in Mexico became the dictators of social and political life is easy to explain — fear of retribution when anyone sounds off and attempts to stop illegal trafficking of drugs (or humans, the second biggest quick money endeavor.)

President Biden’s open-door policy and Mexico’s inability to enforce laws are adding to our social insecurity and the potential dismantling of our Constitution.

The U.S. Congress is derelict in its duty to provide all means to protect the citizens. Turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the situation on our southern border is nothing short of betrayal of their sworn duties that the elected government officials swore to uphold.

Feeble heads of state dot the history of mankind. Nations do not survive when leadership fails to buttress the less fortunate.

It’s about time We The People look for and support the men and women who can do the job.

Ed Blaus

Hermitage

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