Letters to the Editor

A heartfelt thanks

Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries thanks the residents of Boston for their longstanding support through the donation of clothing and household goods.

Last year, Goodwills across the country launched the Donate Movement, a public awareness campaign to emphasize the positive impact that donating clothing and other household goods can have on communities and the planet.

How do your donations make a difference? First, they help families who turn to The Goodwill Stores to get the items they need at low-cost prices. Second, the donations are important to Goodwill’s job training programs. Individuals with disabilities and other challenges get on-the-job training and paid work experience in the handling, sorting, shipping and selling of donated merchandise. And third, Goodwill supplies the clothing for the guests of the Pine Street Inn and many other community-based organizations.

We encourage Boston residents to join the Donate Movement and clean their closets and drawers, and donate gently used clothing and household items to Goodwill at the donation site at 1010 Harrison Ave. in the Goodwill parking lot or at any of our Goodwill stores in the Boston area.

Every donation supports Goodwill’s mission to provide independence and dignity thought work to people in our community. Help make a difference!

More of the same

For most of us who keep up with the news, the shootings in Tucson, Ariz. didn’t come as all that much of a surprise. The state had become toxic with the fear of illegal immigrants, Mexican drug gangs and a divided citizenry based around issues of race and ethnicity.

It was a combustible mixture that had been fanned by right-wing radio and Tea Party activists who had chosen to make Arizona a political target for Sarah Palin’s agenda during the recent election. Yet, despite the tragedy of six lives lost, including a 9-year-old girl, I expect little to change.

Already, the drug addled gas bag Rush Limbaugh has made the outrageous charge that the Democratic left was wishing for a tragedy like this to happen for political gain. But, this is what can be expected in this politically charged environment where people and ideas are routinely demonized by right-wing partisans at a level never exceeded by the more liberal progressives.

What keeps getting overlooked by those who try to find moral equivalency between the actions taken by both sides is the fact that for the first time in the nation’s history groups of armed men showed up at a rally for the country’s first black president. This never happened during the Bush presidency. In addition, the hateful rhetoric, the use of lies and deliberate distortion have been almost commonplace on right-wing talk radio, 24/7. The evidence of similar behavior by progressive broadcasters just isn’t there.

Even now an attempt was made to equate the words in a speech by President Barack Obama with an incitement to violence. The attempt was made by Republican operatives to insulate Palin and her proclivity for using over the top rhetoric of having any responsibility for this tragedy.

Are we to believe that these psychos operate in a vacuum, without being influenced by what they see and hear? So, no one shares any responsibility?

Still, the opponents of gun control in the Congress refuse to act and the bloodletting continues all across America. How many memorials will we continue to attend and tolerate before we finally decide enough is enough?

Marvin Clark
Via e-mail