Do you love America? Then buy an American car

Over the past 10 years, my two-car household has purchased three Saturns, two Oldsmobiles and a Buick. The biggest reason for buying American was out of fear this day upon us would come. With all the people buying Toyotas, Hondas and the like comes the tragic front-page news: "GM Dumping 30,000 Jobs" (Nov. 22).

People are so quick to point out that many of these foreign cars are made in America. But they are very slow to add that the profits from these cars go back to Japan. And these plants love to locate in states where they don't have to pay their American workers union-scale wages.

Whenever I see a Mitsubishi SUV flying the American flag from every corner, I have to ask myself, "What's wrong with this picture?" Or a "Support Our Troops" sticker on the bumper of Hyundai while manufacturing jobs that open the door to the middle class are withering away without our support.

Now that our GOP government has made "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" official policy, are we really too dumb to figure out for whom the bell tolls?

NORMAN POPE
Crafton Heights

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Reizenstein's legacy

It was with great interest that I read Sally Kalson's column on the co-founder of NEED, Florence Reizenstein ("Any School Should Be Proud of Reizenstein Name," Nov. 16).

Florence Reizenstein was a unique individual. A white civil-rights advocate who could be found on the front lines of the civil rights marches in Pittsburgh, she was a woman that believed in the power of education to right social wrongs.

Florence Reizenstein came together with Marion Jordon in 1963 to form a committee of the Urban League that would become the Negro Educational Emergency Drive (NEED) in the following months. Right up until her death, Florence worked diligently behind the scenes to raise the funds necessary to send low-income African American students on to college. She spent a great deal of time with Herman Reid Jr., who accepted her offer to become the executive director of NEED in the days just prior to her death.

Since its inception in 1963 at the hands of Mrs. Reizenstein and Mrs. Jordon, NEED has awarded over $17 million in grants to over 17,000 deserving young people.

Florence Reizenstein's name may one day no longer adorn a learning institution and it may never be placed on a bridge. Her legacy and her name, however, are carried on in a way that would make this humble woman proud, through the work and mission of the Negro Educational Emergency Drive.

SYLVESTER PACE
Executive Director
Negro Educational Emergency Drive
Downtown

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Talk about bias

Awwww. Poor little Ruth Ann Dailey, the Bush administration's most devout local apologist and fawner-in-chief, is at it again. This time, she's whining because the "liberal media" (does she, perhaps, mean Fox News? I don't think so!) favorably covered Rep. John Murtha's comments on Iraq ("The Media's Bias Shows," Nov. 21).

She cites Rep. Murtha saying "the war in Iraq is not going as advertised" and ask: "What advertising is he talking about? The war in Iraq has been presented as a complete and costly failure in virtually every news broadcast I've seen or newspaper article I've read in the past year." But surely Ms. Dailey is not so stupid or amnesic as to have missed the Bush administration's own advertising!

Remember the confident predictions that we would be greeted with sweets and flowers? Remember "major combat operations" being over? It is the administration's own "sales pitch" that was demonstrably false, and is now rightly called into question. If the administration had been honest, it would not find itself in its current predicament.

Perhaps if Ms. Dailey and other self-styled "conservatives" had taken a more critical look at this administration from the beginning instead of mindlessly fawning over Mr. Bush, they wouldn't be so frustrated. True, the media gave this administration a pass for some five years, but I don't recall any "conservatives" doing any better.

DIANA SLIVINSKA
Ingram

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Their war

It is an embarrassment to watch our current president squirm. Watching and listening to him pull out adolescent excuses so he can somehow avoid the reality of responsibility for the invasion of Iraq is far from dignified behavior.

Trying to blame the Democrats in Congress, or the old reliable "blaming of Bill Clinton," for going to war is not the mark of a strong leader. It is the mark of a coward. Of someone who avoids responsibility. For it was not Bill Clinton or the Democrats who beat the drum for war day in and day out before the invasion.

It was President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and that whole gang that is in charge now that took us there. This country trusted them, and they betrayed that trust. Someone needs to inform Mr. Bush where the buck stops.

THOMAS KERNICK
Penn Hills

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It's time to repeal the no-helmet law for motorcyclists

It's been over two years since Pennsylvania passed a law allowing motorcyclists to ride without helmets. It was a huge mistake. It's time to repeal the law before it becomes too ingrained.

Who pays the medical bills, especially when a motorcyclist suffers a catastrophic brain injury? How does Pennsylvania's law affect our overall medical policy? The fact is that when private insurance runs out -- and that happens quickly in catastrophic brain injury hospitalization and rehabilitation -- Medicaid picks up the tab. That means taxpayers like you and me.

We know that Medicaid is out of control in Pennsylvania -- the budget for 2006 is around $4.4 billion. Part of the reason Medicaid benefits are skyrocketing is that millions of state Medicaid dollars will be used to pay the medical costs of motorcyclists who have suffered catastrophic brain injury while riding without a helmet.

A recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study clearly shows that riding without a helmet costs lives and significantly increases medical costs.

We should learn a lot from that study, which was conducted in Florida, a state that decided to legalize riding without a helmet over three years ago. The study demonstrated that motorcycle fatalities in Florida increased more than 81 percent, and the number of deaths for riders younger than 21 nearly tripled, in the three years after state lawmakers repealed a law requiring riders to wear a helmet.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study also found injuries have become more expensive to treat. The average hospital cost to treat a head injury was $45,602; more than four times the $10,000 insurance non-helmeted riders are required to carry.

In the three years after the repeal, 61 percent of the 933 fatally injured motorcyclists were not wearing a helmet. Of the 101 riders younger than 21, who were killed in those three years, 45 percent were not wearing helmets.

The Brain Injury Association of Pennsylvania believes there is no legitimate reason why Pennsylvania should not require motorcycle helmet use. The current helmet law is costing Pennsylvania plenty -- if helmet use were required by law and enforced, many lives and millions of Medicaid dollars could be saved. Pennsylvania Medicaid dollars should not be spent to subsidize reckless behavior.

STEWART L. COHEN
President
The Brain Injury Association of Pennsylvania
Attorney at Law
Cohen, Placitella & Roth
Philadelphia

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Helping Katrina victims at Thanksgiving, these Pittsburghers showed humanity

On Thursday my family headed to Biloxi, Miss., to help feed Thanksgiving dinner to those victims of Hurricane Katrina. While there, we were fortunate to meet over 30 young people from the Pittsburgh area. Most, we believe, were affiliated with the Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community.

These young people had given up their Thanksgiving vacation to head to the Gulf Coast and work for a week removing dry wall, tearing out carpets and doing general clean-up work for those victims who have lost everything -- homes, cars, jobs.

Thanksgiving Day they set up a play area for the victims' kids, free manicures for women, music to entertain, and counselling. Anything to help these victims get their minds off of all their problems, if only for a day. They also brought with them cards made by children at Phillips Elementary for the victims of Katrina. The cards were very touching and brought tears to many eyes.

We just wanted to say thank you to the citizens of Pittsburgh for this unselfish display of help. Pittsburgh may be known as the Steel City, but its residents have hearts made of gold.

NORMAN and SANDY SANCHEZ
Fairhope, Ala.