For the first time in 74 years I am living in an all-electric building, which principally means I have an electric stove. Like most people, I’ve lived with a gas stove through the majority of my life, but recently I heard a report that gas stoves are bad for you. How can I believe that when virtually everyone I know, and have ever met, has had and still have a gas stove without issue? I have to believe that the electric company is behind that report.
But for another reason I am totally against the idea of making all new residential and business buildings all-electric. I have no problem with my electric stove, but last year during a storm the electricity was knocked out. It was a short outage, only about 20 minutes, but I realized that I had no stove and no microwave. I could not cook anything.
I live in a building that is primarily electric so I could not go to a neighbor to use their stove. It is too easy for the electricity to be knocked out. We do not need to be, and should not be totally dependent upon electrical power.
Melvin Johnson, South Shore
Libraries, street signs need to be addressed in budget
Details have not emerged on what is in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2024 budget. But I hope all these issues are finally addressed. Chicago’s libraries are going backward. Nice buildings are useless when they are locked. Libraries all over Chicago remained locked during the day due to poor budget decisions. What does that say about us when people cannot get into a library? When will their hours be restored?
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Once inside a library, their computers are obsolete. They simply freeze up and stop for no reason. There is nothing staff can do about this. Let’s join the computer age next year.
Street signs remain missing from Hegewisch to Edison Park and everywhere in between. How far behind is Chicago Department of Transportation in replacing these? It just took them two years to replace a parking sign in front of my building. Signs save lives.
No need to mention the conditions of many streets. They are especially bad for bike riders.
And can we get someone to help answer Johnson’s letters? I’m waiting for his reply from last summer about streetlights on my block.
Steven J. Bahnsen, South Commons
Republicans just want a government shutdown
The intent of these intransigent House Republicans by refusing to support a Republican conference nominee thus far is to shut down the federal government and accomplish, in their second attempt, what they failed to manage last month.
Denying each conference nominee, including U.S. Rep. Jordan, R.-Ohio, the necessary 217 votes to win the speakership is a delaying tactic that leaves the House on hold. Absent a speaker, action to begin the process of funding the federal government will not move forward.
The shutdown will then be accomplished Nov. 17. These recalcitrant Republicans will have achieved their year-long goal of ”creating congressional chaos” in their feeble attempts to cancel former speaker Nancy Pelosi’s previously pursued problematic House policies.
Unless various Democrats provide a crossover vote for a Republican nominee, which of course they will not given their goal of using the dynamics of a government shutdown as a political sledgehammer to criticize the Republicans, the upcoming shutdown will be a big fat turkey offered to the American people to enjoy with their Thanksgiving dinners.
Earl Beal, Terre Haute, Indiana
