A filter needed for liberal garbage

I was astonished at the absurd bias of a recent guest columnist. He claims that using sarcastic terms describing President Obama as "messiah" and "the anointed one" are hate mongering. Where was his outrage when people from his side of the aisle hoped for George Bush's death, or that Dick Chaney would die of a heart attack? Where was his editorial condemning David Letterman for calling Governor Palin a "slutty flight attendant" or for Letterman's obscene and base attempt at humor referring to Palin's daughter in a gross sexual act? No conservative ever used such hateful language in describing the Clinton children or the Obama children.

I have noticed extremely few cartoons of Obama in any newspapers in which he is depicted with huge ears or other insulting caricatures. But I remember tons of gross lampoons of George Bush with giant ears and even horns in the papers right after he took office. Now tell me which political people are hateful and "mean spirited"?

The writer is right about needing a "truth filter.” A filter is needed to sift the garbage put out by the "liberals" of this country.

Peter L. Supp

Valdosta

Lack of health care affects everyone

After 40 years working in the health care field, I’ve concluded that a major cause of societal erosion is the lack of health care access for the 47 million uninsured residents in our country. The clearest solution is for single-payer health care.

I had an opportunity to do a two-month practicum study in Germany working side-by-side with German nurses, doctors and health administrators in a Berlin hospital in 1990. Germany’s demographic structure is similar to ours, including an equivalent proportion of immigrants. Single-payer systems work well in other countries and would affect all aspects of society — better education if children are healthier, less crime due to less desperation, and less abominable health care rankings (the U.S. is 37th in the world according to the World Health Organization). I hope House and Senate representatives can find the courage to stand up to the strong lobbies of insurance carriers, hospital corporations and medical provider pressures.

Nurse-practitioners have 6 to 7 years of stringent, targeted education and are well situated to extend cost-effective services to rural as well as urban areas. It will be important to include their services in the expansion of health care. Personally, I would be more than willing to pay increased taxes if necessary to assure that everyone gets health care which will ultimately result in a stronger, safer society.

Nancy Redfern-Vance, Ph.D.

Lake Park