Your Letters: Tuesday

What are you thankful for?

It’s been a challenging 2009 for many, and with Thanksgiving just around the corner we wonder what you’re especially thankful for this year.

Share your thoughts in a letter, column and/or photo for a future Views or community news page.

Send your submission to cdtletters@centredaily.com marked Thanksgiving or drop it off or mail it to us. No end in sight

Congress acted when the price of milk, gasoline and heating fuel skyrocketed. Congress acknowledges that health care costs have skyrocketed and that we are often overcharged for health care. Congress knows adequate profit is made in hospitals, nursing homes, etc.

Should our president and Congress have private meetings with czars and lobbyists about health care and health insurance disputes? Private meetings about essentials that affect every American citizen are not acceptable. A government can fool some people all the time. All American citizens won’t be fooled all the time. Even in crime, two parties will privately meet to conspire. This often leads to damage and harm that affect those not invited to the “private meeting.”

One of the first things our government set out to do was to settle disputes and protect the American people. Congress should protect Americans from corrupt people in our own government. Congress knows that catering to corrupt propositioners never helps the majority of Americans. Our health care and health insurance calamity won’t end soon.

Phyllis Jean Werts Renovo

Praise for the arboretum

There are some moments in life when everything seems right with the world. I had one of those moments recently when my 13-year-old daughter and I visited the new Penn State Arboretum for the first time.

The day was not extraordinarily beautiful, but it did not have to be because the arboretum stood on its own merit and had a beauty that surpassed a sunny-day beauty. Everywhere we turned, we saw the care that had been taken with plants, colors and design.

We slowly walked the curved and straight paths and enjoyed the whimsy of gourds hanging from an arched trellis. We smelled the last roses of the year and took a few moments to sit in a pair of orange Adirondack-style chairs. And as we closed the last circular path in the gardens, my daughter turned to me and said, “I love State College. It is a great place to live.”

I could not have agreed more. Something about the Penn State Arboretum made us both feel a deep appreciation for our home and those who help shape it. Thus the magic of a well-tended garden.

Anne Burgevin Pennsylvania Furnace

End practice of abortion

It’s time for us to wake up. We’ve been sleeping since 1973. Abortion must end first — before any other form of terrorism ever will.

Vic Maestri Old Forge