Every city Council member who voted for the ridiculous, waste-oc-time action plan on abortion should be fired:
For asking prosecutors to disobey the law and not enforce abortion ban-related crimes.
For the mayor and police to disobey the law and not enforce abortion-related crimes.
And for wasting taxpayer money to spend time on something they have no power or business bothering with instead of taking care of real city business, like crime, streets, blight, etc. What useless ignorance. No, Ms. Grim, Toledo is not an abortion city.
MATTHEW CROSBY
West Toledo
Defense of Israel
In response to Dr. S. Amjad Hussain’s most recent column, “U.S. silent over plight of Indian Muslims,” in which he describes the geopolitical conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as a “brutal occupation by Israel of Palestinian land and an apartheid system” against Palestinians, I ask him to explain how apartheid takes place in a country that allows its minority citizens to fully participate in every level of government and in every job.
There are Arab Muslim, Christian, and Druze judges, politicians, business leaders, athletes, doctors, entertainers, and more. Ra’am, a religious Muslim political party, was a coalition partner in Israel’s most recent government.
Dr. Hussain conceded that Israel issued “a few” work permits to residents of the Gaza Strip on the eve of President Biden’s visit, but his count was a few thousand off.
Perhaps he was unaware of the myriad ways in which Israel has helped Gazans despite receiving nothing in return but rocket fire from the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.
Over the past year, Israel has allowed suitcases of cash from Qatar into Gaza to aid needy families, expanded the nautical zone for fishing boats off the Gaza coast, increased the number of daily entry permits for Gazans to cross into Israel for work to more than 15,000, canceled or suspended settlement plans in the most sensitive areas, and resumed some ministerial-level meetings with and provided loans to the Palestinian Authority to prevent its economic collapse.
With the full picture, it becomes evident that many of the very real economic hardships that Palestinians face are not intensified, but alleviated, by recent Israeli actions.
Instead of a knee-jerk reaction to always blame Israel for all the Palestinians’ problems, perhaps we should look at the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and the extremist ideology of Hamas — and their inability to reconcile after Hamas violently expelled the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip 15 years ago — as two of the largest issues responsible for perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
ERNIE BROOKFIELD
West Toledo
Gun rights facts wrong
I was gobsmacked by a Sunday letter to the editor, “Guns and Slavery”. This clearly demonstrated how something specifically worded can be contorted, altered; and then to attempt to validate his statement, the reader introduced a book based on opinion, slant, and misunderstanding to validate his argument.
The Second Amendment is very specific as to the intent. It has absolutely nothing to do with slaves, nor tracking slaves down. The reader also demonstrated another point pertaining to the First Amendment: Just because you have the right to say something does not protect you from the perception of ignorance by not understanding our nation’s Constitution, laws, and history, and presenting flawed evidence to support his extraordinary claim.
FREDERICK VOBBE
Lima
Foul odor fouled fun
Recently, I was a part of a group of friends who were invited to share in the birthday celebration of one of the group by taking a delightful cruise on the Sandpiper canal boat.
It was beautiful weather, the Sandpiper crew members were welcoming, and we all looked forward to fun. As we began to board the boat, we noticed an awful smell that seemed to cover the passenger-loading area. When we returned, once again we were greeted by this overwhelming smell. One passenger asked “what is that terrible smell”? Another answered, “that’s Toledo”!
The smell was coming from the sewer grates around the boarding area. As I returned to my car parked up the street, I could smell it coming from every sewer grate I passed.
The city needs to look into this situation immediately. This leaves a very poor impression of our city. If it can’t be fixed, or the city ignores it, perhaps the fine people of the Sandpiper cruise boat should look into moving its boarding facility farther up river to Rossford or Maumee. They don’t stink.
MIKE MCMAHON
Central Toledo
Cool, fresh water for a hot day
On these hot days, if only we could simply jump in the river or lake, splash around or take a swim.
Not so long ago that’s just what people did. That’s just what a child would automatically do if the parent didn’t say “Oh, don’t go in that water. It’s polluted.”
If it wasn’t always polluted, why is it now? Around here the answer is usually untreated sewage from factory farms crowded with thousands of animals. We know factory farms are an inhumane and unhealthy way for animals to live. After all, their emotional and physical needs are very much like our own.
As we move toward cleaner, kinder energy sources, why not do the same with our food? We’d reduce a lot of land and water usage with more humane and regenerative farming and heavier plant-based diets. We’d be a lot healthier eating more veggies and less meat.
On a hot day, we could cool off in a natural body of water and then grill some veggies. Why not?
PATRICIA SHEEHAN, M.Ed.
Sylvania
Too much progress on water quality to ignore
High standards are great when it comes to solving northwest Ohio’s algal bloom issues, but for The Blade Editorial Board, those standards seem an elusive, moving target.
The board often calls out Gov. Mike DeWine, the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Ohio EPA and, more than any one else, farmers, for what the board calls a lack of regulations, efforts, or results when it comes to water quality.
Most recently, the editorial “Plan to protect Lake Erie needs teeth’’ noted that a preliminary plan for a Total Maximum Daily Load, falls short of the board’s high standards. It falsely claimed that the TDML identified the overwhelming source of the problem as manure runoff. Nowhere in the TMDL’s Preliminary Modeling Results document was this or any statement close to this included.
Almost a year ago when a TMDL was announced for the Maumee River watershed, the editorial board told readers: “This is, at last, the answer to what ails Lake Erie. It is the only way to save the lake, save our source of clean drinking water, save the state’s fishing and tourism industries, and save the quality of life for the region.”
The governor, ODA, Ohio EPA, and farmers in the Lake Erie watershed have made significant advancements for clean water. Soil samples, taken at a higher rate than ever before, are showing falling phosphorus levels, while thousands of farmers in Mr. DeWine’s H2Ohio water quality initiative are doing even more best-management practices on millions of acres of the region. Add to that a TMDL that the editorial board has been clamoring for, and you would think the board would acknowledge this progress.
Perhaps it is time for the editorial board to adhere to its high standards to get the facts right, think for themselves, and credit those who are driving progress, instead of giving misguided directions from the backseat.
ADAM SHARP
Columbus, Ohio
Executive vice president, Ohio Farm Bureau
First Published July 31, 2022, 4:00 a.m.
