Industry has harmed residents of Institute

Editor:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- As residents of Institute, our lives have constantly been disrupted by outside influences. So much so, our children have had to live our nightmare.

I didn't vote for Earl Ray Tomblin for governor even though I am a Democrat. His eagerness to hitch himself on the Marcellus Shale bandwagon gave me reason to pause.

Building an ethylene plant in Institute, after years of outside intrusion upon the lives of its residents, will be nothing more than governmental incompetence. 

It is clear, the federal, state and county governmental agencies are intimidated by certain industries. So intimidated, they refuse to require clear and concise scientific data on human health dangers, or require them to implement least invasive procedures during production.

The outrageous tax breaks given to billion-dollar industries, are nothing more than a free ride on the backs of West Virginia's citizens.

Mathematically, the future taxes West Virginia will gain from ethylene sales and employee payroll taxes will be no where near what we will spend on health issues caused by such production.

 An environment consisting of clear and fresh air, non-contaminated soil and edible garden vegetables is needed more so than jobs.

Without a healthy workforce, West Virginia will continue to be a plantation stripped of its pristine resources.

Donna Willis

Institute

Obama making U.S. a socialist state

Editor:

President Obama's second term will bring more economic misery and record levels of unemployment. Our faltering economy will continue as a direct result of the president's vision/agenda/goal to "fundamentally transform" America into a socialist state. As witnessed by his first term, his policies do not appear to be geared toward improving our capitalist free-market economy, but more as if he wishes to tear it down and start over with something completely the opposite.

This may all be in the grand scheme of an incredibly regressive and unnecessary agenda that includes regulations and taxes on carbon and health care, to be supplemented by new stimulus packages, social programs, increased estate, dividend and new value-added taxes. This agenda alone, being implemented in the name of saving the planet, health care and the middle class, goes hand in hand with the transforming of America into a socialist state and will take trillions out of an already fragile economy. The affluent class and the folks living on the government dime will be mostly shielded from this financial Armageddon while the working middle class gets hammered.

This effectively displays President Obama's true socialist contempt for the middle class who is the only thing holding his agenda back. Once the middle class has been dispatched, our constitutional republic will cease to exist. I am not making a moral judgment; this is what the president seems to be doing.

Von Albert Ehman

Charleston

McDowell jail conditions are deplorable

Editor:

I'm an inmate here at the McDowell County Correctional Center. I have been an inmate here for approximately two months. Upon my arrival, my first thought was, this was where I was going to make parole. The more time I spend here, the more I'm wishing I never got transferred to this place.

 This place is an old county jail but being used for a correctional facility. When I say old, I mean old. There are very few windows. Most of the ones that have survived are hanging on to their last screw. When I say old, I mean old bars. It kind of has the old western style look to it. Nothing is electric here. Everything is manual by key. Regardless of the old-fashioned prison style, I have argued, followed the proper procedures and done everything an inmate could possibly do to get some relief on what I was requesting. I made the request that since there were very few windows could the facility turn off the air conditioning at night. It gets so cold that I've awakened, grabbed my soda off the shelf and it would feel as if it came out the fridge.

I've asked everyone and their brother for help with this issue and my cry fell on deaf ears. There have been several mornings where one inmate in the pod would get up and breathe out hard to check if he could see his breath. That's usually what helps us decide if getting up and eating breakfast is worth eating. We're not animals. We don't deserve to be treated as if we're animals in an Arctic zoo. We're only humans who made mistakes.

Please publish this story or opinion. Maybe it will help solve the problem, but most importantly it will be an attracting story to the ones who were and even weren't incarcerated.

Thomas Richards

McDowell County Correctional Center

Welch