Need debate over serious issues

Our next president will be chosen in less than three months. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of that choice.

My overriding fear is that the future of our beloved country will not survive as the model I grew up in unless we adapt to 21st century realities.

Demographics, trade balances, overwhelming debt we owe to our rivals and diminishing influence in world affairs cloud our future. Eight years of an imperial presidency and the threat of another four years of the same are eroding our constitutional safeguards and fundamentally changing the America we pridefully regard as a beacon of hope and freedom.

As a nation, we have sacrificed more than 4,000 sons and daughters because our president adopted “pre-emptive war” as foreign policy based on ideology, driven by the need for oil and justified by lies. Congress has abdicated its constitutionally endowed checks and balances.

Self-proclaimed “executive power” has been invoked to reject Habeas Corpus, accept torture as interrogation, politicize our system of justice, invade personal privacy and encourage oligarchy. Our middle class is shrinking as more of our “wealth” flows overseas. The euro thrives. Indeed, the times they are a changin’.

We need leadership that understands what confronts us politically and economically. We need someone who has the wisdom to chart a new course. Instead, we are subjected to campaigns of bluff, bluster and belligerence fueled by fear. Our current system of governance seems derived from smear, pettiness, greed, demagoguery and trivia.

What we desperately need is serious debate over serious issues among our brightest minds. Isn’t that how this nation was created in the first place?

Please God, Bless America.

Dean Mell
Mount Vernon


PUD, quit stalling over fluoride

Did you hear about the Center for Disease Control’s recent report about community water fluoridation? What did it say? The number of Americans receiving fluoridated water has increased by more than 180 million!

Skagit County is part of the only 30 percent of Americans who are not receiving fluoridated water — six decades after fluoridation was started as a public health measure to prevent tooth decay.

The CDC hails the reduction in dental cavities due to adding fluoride to public water supplies as one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century! A new CDC report showed that as of 2006, 69 percent of people in the United States who get water from public water systems received fluoridated water, up from 65 percent in 2000 and 62% in 1992. It’s a nationally recognized health measure. Why isn’t Skagit County implementing this proven health benefit?

Thank you County Commissioners Ken Dahlstedt and Don Munks for standing up for our community’s health. Now, the PUD needs to quit stalling and start fluoridating. They have the state attorney general’s statement, a direct order from the Board of Health and a public vote. The PUD has been sitting on this for more than a year. Is this the kind of organization we want to trust with running our electrical service?

Nadine Stone
Bow