Letters to the editor
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The XL pipeline isn't the way to create jobs
When advocating for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, the oil industry and U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy ( "Build the Pipeline," Jan. 25 Perspectives) conveniently neglect to mention that there is already a Keystone pipeline. Operating since 2010, the existing Keystone pipeline brings oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, which in turn supply U.S. consumers.
The XL section of the pipeline would extend it to ports and refineries on the Gulf Coast in Texas. The real purpose of the Keystone XL pipeline then is not to make the United States less dependent on foreign oil -- after all, the oil comes from Canada, a foreign nation -- but rather to make it easier to ship the oil overseas, where it will earn the oil companies much more than if it stays here.
Let's find another way to employ laid-off construction and manufacturing workers than a pipeline that has potentially disastrous environmental impacts, isn't wanted in the states it would go through and will serve mainly to enrich oil companies.
How about, for starters, retrofitting our older homes and offices to become more energy efficient, so we don't need as much gas and oil?
DAVID JENKINS
Mt. Lebanon
Insurance mandates
With great anticipation I will await the decision of the GOP-controlled Supreme Court concerning the Affordable Care Act. If all goes well, the court will rule against the proposed government regulation that compels citizens to purchase insurance, even against their will. This would be great news for those of us who would like to decide for ourselves which financial "products" that we purchase.
I for one will drop my government-mandated purchase of automobile insurance in Pennsylvania, as, I'm sure, would thousands of like-minded patriots.
MAC CHAMBERS
Indiana Township
Urban treasure
Thank you so much for your article on David Lewis ( "David Lewis: An Urban Legend," Jan. 24 Magazine). I have always thought that he's one of those many hidden treasures in our city -- the kind of person who is pre-eminently respected in his field and known the world over, but who goes about his daily life here without much local notice.
I hope that his life and spirit of genuine democracy, community, civility and enriching of arts and the environment carry on for many years. He continues to influence hundreds of his former students from Carnegie Mellon, like me, who were so very privileged to have been taught by "Uncle David" as we all fondly call him. In his teachings, he often used an analogy of fabric to convey how one piece of a community is always interwoven with the others.
For us, Pittsburgh, and countless other cities, Uncle David's legacy is interwoven in a way that has made us all stronger. I thank him for that and wish him a happy birthday!
LORI FITZGERALD
Squirrel Hill
Yoga instruction
I have been teaching yoga since 1978. The article in The New York Times Magazine and its local adaptation by Jack Kelly in the Jan. 23 PG ( "Yoga Can Be Harmful, Instructor Says" ) miss many relevant points and paint a false picture of the risks of yoga.
A teacher who does not make clear to students that yoga is not a competition, who does not ask new students about their exercise history, who does not ask students about their limitations and health problems (replaced joints, high blood pressure, etc.), who does not caution students to work back from or up to but not beyond their "edge," who models postures for the entire class instead of watching and correcting students is simply not doing his or her job.
There are risks with any exercise regimen, but engaging with students and staying attentive and current -- whatever the discipline -- is the work of a teacher.
LORETTA BARONE
Point Breeze
Truly egregious
Regarding "The Most Compelling Court Cases of 2011" (Jan. 16): Writing about the state Supreme Court decision in the Jane Doe case in which Allegheny County Judge Philip Ignelzi rejected a minor's petition to have a secret abortion without her parent's consent, Witold Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union described Judge Ignelzi's decision as "particularly egregious." Why? Judge Ignelzi questioned the minor for more than an hour, but what does Mr. Walczak know about her? Does Mr. Walczak think a judge, who applies the "bypass" provision of Pennsylvania's Abortion Control Act to the facts of particular cases, always has to approve an abortion? That is not a judge; that is a rubber stamp!
At any rate, I don't need to consult with any judge, or any lawyer, or any legislator, much less with the ACLU, to recognize that our natural human rights flow from our shared human nature. Thus all human beings have innate human rights irrespective of their race, religion, status or capabilities. But when a nation declares that the human nature of a powerless minority does not entitle that minority to basic human rights, then that nation severs the link between our human nature and our natural human rights. It effectually proclaims that such rights are actually the gift of the politically powerful, who decide which humans can have what rights.
Our republic once did just that with respect to the racial minorities we enslaved, and ever since we denied their "right to life" in 1973, we do it today with respect to the small, helpless, weak preborn human beings in their mother's womb. More than 50 million have been killed by surgical abortion in the almost 40 years after the Roe v. Wade decision. Now that is a "particularly egregious" decision.
KRIS SANDERS
Squirrel Hill
Palin's support
So silly Sarah Palin is at it again. I read with much comic relief that Silly Sarah is again blaming the liberal media and the progressives and the Democrats for going after Newt Gingrich because they don't like him.
Is she talking about those well-known liberals such as columnists George F. Will and Peggy Noonan (who characterized him as an "angry little attack muffin") and also cast doubt on Mr. Gingrich's leadership credentials? Or is she talking about the right-leaning Drudge Report, which criticized him as temperamental and unpredictable?
I personally, being a Democrat, hope that Newt is the Republican nominee, and I hope Silly Sarah continues to back him because it's all good for me.
SAM MARCOCCI
Moon
About that 47 percent: Not all are low income
Recently, for the second time in just two weeks, a letter appeared in your newspaper repeating the same unchallenged lie: that the bottom 47 percent of wage earners paid no income tax (the writers of these letters didn't even specify "federal" so I assume they are going so far as to claim they don't pay state or local income taxes either!). For purposes of fair argument I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant federal income taxes).
The median annual wage in this country in 2010 was a little over $26,000. So according to the letter writers' "statistic," everyone who made in the $18,000 to $24,000 range owed no federal taxes last year and will get a full refund. (Hint to most of you in this wage range: Don't hold your breath.)
This should forcibly demonstrate to anyone in this wage category what a lie this is. And if conservatives lie about this, you ought to start wondering what else they are lying to you about.
The fact is that, yes, 47 percent of Americans didn't pay any income taxes last year. The lie is that they were all in the bottom 47 percent of income. The truth is that many people with incomes in the $50,000-plus, the six- and even the seven-figure range can and do play the system -- legally -- in a way so as to pay no federal income taxes. Giant corporations and millionaire derivatives traders and short-sellers don't hire tax lawyers and lobbyists to press for a tax code to favor the poor, after all! And the conservatives who put this falsehood out there know this. It's part of what they do to put the "con" in "CONservative."
The shame of it is that these lies spread so unchallenged. I haven't seen a single word in this paper yet refuting this at least twice-told lie.
PAUL E. VONDRA
Bellevue
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First Published January 30, 2012 12:00 am
