Letters

Grateful Restaurant

(re: Restaurants, Feb. 14-20, 2013)

Dear UTW:

Thank you so much for the great article you wrote about Zoës in UTW. We are so grateful to be in Tulsa and have enjoyed a warm welcome from Brookside. We are honored to be in such a great neighborhood with so much history. As a native of Tulsa I am so glad to be working for a great concept in my city.

One note on the parking, the Brookside Baptist Church is awesome enough to let any of our customers utilize their parking lot when dining here at Zoe's. We will be putting up signage to help direct customers to the vast amount of parking right across the street. Thank you again for your kind words and we look forward to serving you again.

--Chuck Smith

(Chuck Smith is the general manager of Zoës on Brookside.)

Listen Up, Guv!

Dear UTW:

Governor Mary Fallin must be challenged to accept the federally-funded expansion of Medicaid health insurance to 150,000 needy Oklahomans. She says Oklahoma cannot afford it, but it is 100 percent federally funded the first three years, then Oklahoma begins to pick up a maximum of 10 percent of the cost.

Working Oklahomans will be healthier and Oklahoma clinics and hospitals need the money. Oklahoma receives $25 billion annually from the federal government for highways, military bases, public education, etc. Nobody complains about that. If we don't take Medicaid expansion, our taxes will pay for other states that do take it. It is an offer we can't refuse. Governor Fallin needs to hear from the people.

--Nathaniel Batchelder

Statement of Support for Israel

Dear UTW:

President Obama is providing 20 F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, which brings its total to 260, and 200 M1A1 Abrams tanks, bringing that total to 1,200.

Given the instability in Egypt and the ascendance of Mohammed Morsi, a devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the presidency in Egypt, we should not be building up Egypt's armed forces. The Muslim Brotherhood is committed to the destruction of Israel and the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law in Egypt, other countries in the Middle East and throughout the world.

Israel, a democratic and Western-oriented country surrounded by totalitarian and anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Buddhist and anti-Hindu regimes, must be kept strong to counter threats emanating from various countries in the region.

Israel is the only friendly and trustworthy country standing in the Middle East. It needs to be able to purchase U.S. arms, and needs our diplomatic and moral support.

--Donald A. Moskowitz

Illegal Babies? Really?

Dear UTW:

As a black, grassroots economist reviewing PBS public broadcast on illegal immigrants, PBS is setting a negative economic guideline for America. Illegals are not a social or moral issue; they are a direct threat to the future of our community economic base in America.

By illegals having a high birth rate, their populationwill double in the next 20 year. Our poverty rate will continue to rise. Nationally, 40 percent will not finish high school. Who will pay for the police, fire departments, sanitation, and on and on? Who will pay for the increase in social services? The best description of illegals on the community safety net is 5,000 illegal babies were born in Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Tx in one year.

Use your imagination and visualize how America will look in 20 year. How will America look in 50 years? This is 5,000 babies in one hospital in one city in one state in our country. How many more will be born over the next 20 to 50 years across America?

The city, county, state and federal governments will have a smaller tax base in a declining economy in America.

--Marvin Reese

King Barack the Unchecked

Dear UTW:

I recently heard a choir sing about the King John and the Magna Carta and it dawned on me how far King Barack Hussein Obama II has drifted from the whole basis of our laws. Even before the Magna Carta was signed by King John in 1215, various kings of England understood the concept of unalienable rights and due process. Today the president can order you imprisoned without a trace, without a speedy trial, assassinated on a whim. Today you can be put on a NO FLY LIST and you have no right to even find out why or how or ever get off it. Today you are forced to make the insurance companies even richer by mandatory health insurance. Any thought of retiring into the backwoods without producing revenue for the STATE is now gone. I finally can appreciate what the American Indians went through. Perhaps we all should!

--Joseph DuPont