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MOVE YOUR FAT ASS

Regarding the Fat Ass 5K, which will raise money for charity with a run through downtown Springfield May 8: Well, good for charity, very bad for local business! Any event that takes place downtown should enhance the businesses downtown! This event completely cuts us off from our customers unless they live downtown. Believe it or not, we do have customers who come down here regularly on Saturday mornings. We do not appreciate being effectively closed down for a day of business. I don’t know who grants permission for these events, but they could be planned better. A course could easily have been laid out on streets that do not have commercial businesses open on Saturday morning.

Kate Hawkes
Trout Lily Cafe Springfield

THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE

OK, lets look at the facts: Scott Lee Cohen after a failed run at a nomination for lieutenant governor, is now going for the top job. Is he following in the foot steps of Blago? “The people will forgive me.”

What happens later when he makes another error in judgment that will affect an entire state?

Michael Abrams
Springfield

NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE

Without replacement nukes, the next option is more coal, or, many local “peaker plants” burning imported natural gas, driving up prices to homeowners. Becoming a net energy importer is bad for Illinois’ economic growth. Alternative energy sources are important, but can’t generate the “base load” we depend on.

The newest reactor designs are fail-safe, and their spare process heat could also rip hydrogen from water to power electric and hybrid cars.

Or, using Thermal Depolymerization, you can “cook” toxic wastes back into their original ingredients, saving landfill space and water, and avoiding incineration.

I agree with the skeptics; uranium waste is serious business. So do what the French do successfully and recycle old fuel. Or, use MOX fuel, converting old warheads into electricity. Or switch to safer Thorium. Vitrified waste can be stored at Yucca or dropped in the subduction zone between continental plates in the ocean, returning to earth’s core.

We’ve had reliable nukes for decades; what has always lagged has been oversight.

Illinois does a good job, but we can do better. Our regulators need to be vigilant and merciless in their enforcement of safety, firewalled off from the utility lobbies, so commercial interests never compromise safety.

I’m not a nuclear industry person, just a regular citizen who reads a lot about the topic and thinks we should leave the hippy ’60s past behind and live in the 21st century, not in the dark.

Mark Suszko
Springfield

LITTERBUGS

I fully concur with Publisher Sharon Whalen’s April 29 comments about the growing problem of littering. The slobs who throw garbage, trash and cigarettes out their car windows should have their licenses suspended.

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Carl Hiaason’s book, Sick Puppy, which relates hilarious punishments for those who litter.

There used to be terrific TV public service announcements against littering donated by the Advertising Council which the stations should find and begin showing. They may cause at least a pang of guilt among the pigs who want to keep the inside of their cars clean at the expense of the environment.

Don Moss
Springfield