Keep state clean, green
I am an 87-year-old Adopt-A-Highway volunteer. I’ve been out this past week cleaning up N.C. 141. It will take one more week to finish the first 2 miles of that highway.
No. 1: Plastic, glass, Styrofoam and metal do not deteriorate. In other words, if it’s thrown out, the items will stay on the earth forever unless someone picks them up. They will ruin our environment.
No. 2: I have picked up a number of bags of dirty diapers, which won’t deteriorate. Stop treating our highways like garbage dumps. Keep a garbage bag in your vehicle. When full, dispose in your garbage at home or in a receptacle at the front of a store.
If parents litter, the children will also litter. Parents, set an example. Put a stop to littering.
I have litter cards and if I see a litterer I get their license number. I send the card to Raleigh. They will either get a warning or a $1,000 fine.
People love to come here in our beautiful area to vacation or want to buy or build a house here but when they see the state of our highways, they wonder what kind of people live here. Haven’t you any pride in our community?
I have notified our sheriff’s and police offices to give out fines or tickets when they see someone littering. Truckers need to secure their items from blowing out on our roads also.
We love North Carolina. Keep it clean and green.
Susan Fredrichs, Marble
Oil destroys global society
When my brother asked the then president why we were so determined to fight the Communists in Vietnam, LBJ replied: Do you know how much oil is under the South China Sea? As the Vietnam War destroyed Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, on a much larger scale, the use of oil has destroyed our 20th-century global society.
Most of us still have no idea of the nature and scope of the global environmental disaster we’re willfully participating in when driving to the store for a gallon of milk. When considering electric vehicles, consumers don’t even think of the possible advantage of not having to convert millions of cubic feet of oxygen into like amounts of carbon dioxide. It not only never crosses their thoroughly indoctrinated minds, but they absolutely have learned to love the “vroom vroom” exhaust, and respect it to the point of religious worship.
If you group Blue Woke Electric Liberal Choice Northerners as opposed to Red Asleep Petroleum Right-to-Life Southerners, and wish to split the country, I’d suggest the 40th parallel.
Harry Holdorf, Brasstown
Why interest in alcohol?
Do you, as I, question why the Murphy Town Council is so focused and determined to allow open-container alcohol drinking when it’s a horrendous idea?
In the recent past, this council finally said “No” to the proposal by council member Keisha Dockery to incorporate this into the monthly Murphy Art Walk. Downtown development director Laura Lachance was all for it, as were council members Gail Walker Stansell and Barry McClure.
But now, they are allowing outdoor beer and wine consumption during the Murphy Music & Brews concert in April and also the Spring Festival in May. Again, I ask, why?
Do they think adults need alcoholic beverages to enjoy themselves? Are Murphy’s offerings too boring on their own? And wouldn’t people stumbling around in an inebriated state give visitors a terrible impression of Murphy and set a deplorable example for young folks?
There’s good reason why today’s youth think alcohol drinking and other drugs are fun. They learn from and follow bad examples exhibited by adults. Neither group thinks twice about putting themselves – and others – in danger from their bad habits, like imbibing then driving.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse states, “Alcohol is among the most used drugs and greatly impacts public health. Alcohol use disorder is the most common type of substance use disorder in the United States.”
NIDA works closely with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism, the lead National Institutes of Health agency supporting and conducting research on the impact of alcohol use on human health and well being.
So, why do our leaders condone this craziness by pushing open-container alcohol drinking in our beautiful town? Drug use in Cherokee County continues to take a terrible toll. Tell our leaders to make wise decisions, not idiotic ones. Let’s get off this runaway train.
Tamara Phillips, Murphy