Letters: A PRAYER FOR PHILADELPHIA: SOMEDAY, A REAL LEADER

WILL a

real

leader in Philadelphia please stand up?

Currently we have local and state "leadership" that has been tone deaf to the needs and cries from everyday citizens.

Public-service employees have been working tirelessly without a raise for the last three years. I myself am a shop steward with AFSCME DC 47 Local 2187 and a social worker for DHS. Along with my union brothers and sisters in AFSCME DC 33 and Transit Authority police, Philadelphia police and [firefighters] do the jobs that give anyone else nightmares.

We see children living in roach- and fly-infested homes, with parents and/or caregivers that are unsuitable to care for themselves, much less a precious child. Police and Fire put their lives on the line every day of the week. Public-service employees are the ones that keep the city moving, not the lawyers and other mayoral minions that tell people it will be against the law to feed a homeless person.

While there are concerns for what happened to Trayvon Martin, in Florida, there are many Faheem Thomas-Childses, Quasir Alexanders, Kahlil Wimeses and Danieal Kellys in Philadelphia.

People are losing their jobs, barely holding onto their homes, and now they get hit with a new property-tax assessment, among rises in utility rates. With gas going over four dollars a gallon, Many people have to decide between eating and being able to travel to work.

One day I pray there will be a leader in Philadelphia who will think of Philadelphia first and the everyday people in the city.

When the Barnes Museum opens and Dilworth Plaza is reconstructed, there won't be any people who can afford to go there, with the way the current administration is ruining the city.

David Krain

Philadelphia

Net loss

What kind of a governor can look at atrocities - like that horrible woman who locked people with serious disabilities in her basement and stole their disability payments - and come to the conclusion we need to make the safety net smaller? It costs us a lot more to let people with serious disabilities suffer than it does to help them live the fullest, most productive lives possible. And the financial cost is just the tip of the iceberg.

It would be easy to attack this as another Republican slap to another minority, but this isn't a political issue; it's a moral one.

Jeff Armstrong

Philadelphia

Food for thought

To those groups who are running the outdoor feeding programs for the homeless: Sometimes it is difficult to adapt to a different way of doing things. I know you are intelligent, caring people and want to do what's best for the ones you serve, so here's an idea that might work for all involved: Apply for more grants and submit those proposals for more funding to expand your programs and services. Try to work with Mayor Nutter and not against him, because you really all want the same thing - what's best for the citizens of Philadelphia.

Working together will help the homeless population more effectively. Remember that old saying, "If you give a man a fish you feed him for one day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life!"

Eileen Ballard

Philadelphia

Ultrasound thinking

On Christine Flowers' latest.

The labeling of transvaginal ultrasound as "rape" is entirely correct and appropriate. An object is inserted into a woman's vagina without her consent. Not sure what else one needs to meet the definition of rape.

It's not precisely correct to say that pro-choicers are pro-abortion. Pro-abortion would mean that one actively presses for the procedure to be performed. If one finds another way to prevent pregnancy, say with a "morning-after pill," pro-choicers are fine with that. They aren't the least bit upset, and they will cheerfully use the other choice. Yes, pro-choicers are adamant that the option of abortion should be available.

As for gays and lesbians, you wrote: "To them, being able to announce 'I'm married' is the only way to achieve parity with their hetero brothers and sisters." I'm sure "achieving parity" is an important goal for gays and lesbians (and for transsexuals, bisexuals and others who put themselves under the catchall category of queer), but there are about a thousand laws that grant privileges to heterosexual married couples that nonmarried couples do not have any access to. Pursuing marriage is a practical and sensible option that confers very real rights. And, no, marriage is not a rock-solid institution that never has and never will change.

Medieval marriages were very different from today's marriages, and marriages would also change depending on one's social/economic class.

Richmond L. Gardner

PN3 (Ret), USN

Horsham