Letters: Losing customers; more residents needed; smokeless holiday; speech on plates

Losing customers

Open-carry activists were allowed to “demonstrate” armed in an Arlington grocery parking lot.

Folks are welcome to their guns. However, strutting around shopping centers, fast-food restaurants, City Hall, county courthouses, churches or medical offices with assault rifles is not appropriate.

Leave them locked in your house or the trunk of your automobile. Strutting around with them shows that you are immature, have poor judgment and are inconsiderate of others, aggressive and arrogant.

I’m sure the Open Carry crowd doesn’t care if the businesses that lose revenue, because they are a bunch of self-centered snits anyway.

— Faith Chatham, Arlington

More residents needed

Mike Norman’s Nov. 21 column is right on point (“Texas is short on docs and short on residency slots”).

The Texas Osteopathic Medical Association long gas been advocating for increased funding for Graduate Medical Education (GME) by the Legislature in order to boost the number of physicians.

In our role as either primary-care doctors or specialists, we see firsthand how Texans are grappling with access to quality healthcare, not only in rural areas but in cities like Fort Worth as well.

Successful graduation from medical school is only the first of several requirements before one may begin the practice of medicine. After graduation he/she must then complete a residency program (GME) to obtain a medical license.

Because Texas has not adequately funded GME to the level of need, graduates are being forced to leave the state — and are unlikely to return.

Texas loses in two ways: We continue to be short on doctors and we receive no advantage from the several-hundred-thousand-dollar investment we have made to educate these students.

Collaboration, cooperation and a willingness to approve more GME funding is crucial to keep Texans healthy.

— John L. Wright Jr., D.O., Austin

Smokeless holiday

Here is something to be thankful for this holiday season I bet you haven’t thought of: My life, and maybe yours, is now completely smokeless.

I don’t know anybody who smokes.

Go back 20, 30, 40 years when your parents and every movie star smoked. The cigarette companies actually paid Hollywood studios to have actors smoke in their films.

Now think back to the early deaths (by today’s standards) of many or maybe most of these smokers, and how much longer we are all living today.

I remember when it was a big deal when they outlawed smoking on airplanes.

At age 87, every day I thank my father (who smoked) for telling me never to smoke, and am thankful that I followed his advice.

— Herman I. Morris, Fort Worth

Speech on plates

I am glad to see the issue of the Sons of the Confederacy license plate go to the U.S. Supreme Court. A certain amount of concern about the content of license plates is probably necessary.

A case involving the “Choose Life” plate, which Texas allows, coming from Virginia is also heading toward the Supreme Court. Virginia has not allowed slogans favoring abortion rights, and this is what the appeals court says is unconstitutional.

On an issue like this, both sides should be heard. There is a case for viewpoint neutrality on license plates. (By the way, no one should have to worry about someone messing with their cars if they express the less popular of two opinions.)

I hope Virginia’s denial of abortion-rights slogans on license plate is thrown out by the Supreme Court, and that we see these slogans on Texas cars.

While the Supreme Court is busy making decisions, I hope they also state that Texas’ draconian abortion restrictions are unconstitutional.

— Lorraine Levine, Arlington

This story was originally published December 9, 2014 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Letters: Losing customers; more residents needed; smokeless holiday; speech on plates."