Critics blasted for claiming Obama failed to earn prize

It saddens me greatly to witness the unrest and protesting the recent Nobel Peace Prize awarding has caused.

An award meant to honor peace-making now creates quarreling and resentment towards the recipient due to his unconventional political standing. A sitting United States president now a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

It seems the citizens of the United States have forgotten what it means to be an American. To be a part of a great country of people who celebrate through the simple act of living peace and freedom.

Barrack Obama is America. He is peace and he is our neighbor as well as our president.

How is it decent to belittle and denote the significance of his work in Chicago because he happens to now be the president of our great nation?

This award should not only recognize his previous achievements, but inspire more. His standing as the current U.S. president is coincidental. This prize acknowledges his work before his presidency; it honors the work he did in Chicago as a state senator and we should honor him for it as well.

We should stand behind the achievements of our nation’s leader and believe that his passions will only grow stronger with the acceptance of this award; that his convictions for a prosperous America and a peaceful world would only grow stronger.

That by through this acknowledgement and support of not only the committee responsible for awarding him the prize, but the support of his fellow Americans he would be able to further inspire and build up our country.

I implore my fellow Americans to ponder the affects we would be witnessing if Obama had refused this award. Who and how many would be offended or angered had he denied the Nobel Peace Prize? THE Nobel Peace Prize. The Answer is Many…

As a country we have put our president in a box. He could never have pleased everyone and neither by accepting or denying the Nobel Peace Prize would he have avoided public disproval.

How small-minded we are and stubborn. Should this award not invoke pride throughout our nation? Should we as Americans deny our president support for his humanitarian work?

Our president is being honored at a global level. This is the first time in history a sitting president has been offered this award, how can we not be proud? And as I ask this question I know that we are nation divided; divided by politics, beliefs, goals and convictions and I am reminded once again that this is what makes us different. This is what makes us American.

And this realization lifts my spirits while at the same time it pulls them down; do we not have any common ground?

Krystine Craven
Social Work Major
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee

Mayor asked to confront city’s lack of authenticity

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter, offered to the Daily Planet for publication, is aimed at Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy.
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Mayor Bellamy:

Southern families — black, white, Native American, Cherokee, Irish, Scottish, African-American, German, etc. — used to communicate. Often, this was done by letters as they began to spread further and further apart.

Family used to mean something here. To some people, it still does. We can’t tell you all these things in person because we don’t have access to you. You are too worried about winning a campaign and not worried enough about doing the right thing — regardless of the outcome.

People aren’t even authentic any more.  They don’t mean hello, even when they say it. They say things like “it’s nice to see you,” even when it’s not. People even refuse to acknowledge some Americans even exist.

I bet Oprah cares more about us than you do.

You are apparently no more or less flawed than our brothers and sisters here on the streets of Asheville.

Maybe you should try being honest with people and maybe they’ll help you fix the mess you inherited.

Do you know where we can find a strong woman in Asheville to lead? Most Southern women are strong. There are still strong homeless women on the streets of Asheville, the ones you won’t give a chance.

Do they teach you to keep women beaten down — like they do at most of the shelters here?

On the streets of Asheville, there is still a sisterhood, a motherhood and a grandmotherhood.

Surely Asheville is the most corrupt progressive city in the nation. Is that why it’s one of the top cities to move to in the country to raise a family in? Where is cutting edge medicine? Critical legal studies? Cutting edge LGBTQQA studies?

Women’s and gender studies? Where’s the math, science, language?

We have spent lifetimes trying to learn how to communicate.

We are not the voices for this movement.  Either we do not know how, Democracy no longer works or you won’t hear us.

Where are the arts, math, science, language, reading & writing and medicine?

Where is anthropology? Anthropologists helped unite a world — once upon a time.  Where is hope?

Where is the ethic of reciprocity?

KIRK McFADDEN
Asheville

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mayor Bellamy was offered an opportunity to respond to this letter, since this is the last edition of the Daily Planet prior to the Nov. 3 general election, but declined.

Health reform bill termed merely a ‘bill’ without reform

The Democratic health care reform bill seems to consist of adding taxes to those who have insurance and cutting Medicare and Medicaid payments to medical providers.

No tort reform or other cost-reducing ideas.

I guess reform means government dictating payments to providers and taking money from citizens.

ALLYN M. ALDRICH
Asheville

... So let me get this straight -- basically, the recent precedent which continues to be set by various people is to award people not for what they do, but what they might do...?

I don’t think I’m going to comment further on this one.

BERNARD CARMAN
Asheville

Obama Administration chastised for Kinston ruling

Last week, the Obama Administration said partisan elections are needed so black voters can elect their “candidates of choice.”

The department ruled that Kinston, N.C., cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

Our “post-racial” president is meddling in the affairs of a municipality, ostensibly for the benefit of black voters.

Does the President believe people of other skin colors need to know a person’s party affiliation to vote correctly?

If not, why not?

Is it because the President assumes black people are unable to make good choices? 

How racist can you get?

ERIKA FRANZI
Weaverville

Liberty-oriented solutions urged to reform health care

Rather than try to solve the health care problem with more crippling government-oriented solutions, I would advocate a few simple liberty-oriented solutions instead:

1. Remove legal obstacles to high-deductibility insurance plans.
2. Remove legal obstacles to the creation of Health Savings Accounts.
3. Equalize the tax advantages between employer-provided health insurance and individually-owned health insurance.
4. Regulate state laws to ensure interstate health insurance markets.
5. Repeal federal mandates prescribing the types of coverage insurance companies must offer.
6. Reform tort law to reduce the costs to physicians of insurance, litigation and defensive medicine.
7. Reform the bankrupt Medicare system before contemplating new and greater political controls.

TIM PECK
Asheville