Kudos to the Portland City Council and their penchant for the long view of the problems facing this great city.

I refer to their recent foray into the dreaded effects of climate change that would have the sea level rising a couple of feet in the next hundred years. This is based on credible testimony of an expert marine geologist.

This will certainly spell disaster for some of our cherished institutions. Can one imagine a world without Jay’s Oyster Bar or DiMillo’s?

I would like to commend them on their forward thinking and extol them further to consider a more insidious threat to the survival of the citizens of Portland. Namely a near earth encounter from the billions of asteroids that roam the cosmos. I beg of you to enlist an astrophysicist to devise a remedial plan to ensure our safety. Perhaps a force field or something.

Frank O’Connor

Gorham

Laws must apply equally to those of all faiths

There should be no problem with anyone in the United States of America being entirely free to place their faith in whatever they care to.

But is there not reason enough to object to those of any particular faith using the political arena to press their own cultural value system upon all the rest of us?

When a U.S. law is passed for the common good, it applies to everyone. No law can be designed for some and not for others. There can be no exceptions made to driving on the right side of the road simply because those of English, Irish or Australian descent come from cultures where they drive on the left side of the road. The same goes for religious beliefs that have developed in other cultures in other times.

Making concessions for those of one faith discriminates against those who have good reason to believe otherwise.

No law requires the constituents of any faith to practice birth control!

On the other hand, birth control is widely practiced. And for good reason. We already have 14 million children going to bed at night complaining, “Mommy, I’m hungry!” We already have a third of our population growing up with the adverse results of nutritional deficiencies. We already have 50 million people without health care insurance. We already have millions of people living at a level that has been classified as poverty for good reason.

Every religion should make the remedying of this sad situation for so many people their first priority. Until this situation for so many human beings is fully remedied, nothing else should count for much.

This is the real issue! Not making an exception for those of a particular faith in insuring something badly needed in our time as a corrective to a massive problem for all humanity.

George Eaton

South Portland

Single-payer system would offer best care for best price

As a nurse for over 40 years, I wholeheartedly agree with Kevin Twine’s defense of a single-payer health insurance system (Another View, “Single-payer health care makes good economic sense,” Feb. 18).

We currently deal with four systems depending upon what class you fall into, and we have the highest health insurance expenditure of any industrialized country, without the results that should go with it. As T.R. Reid points out in “The Healing of America,” if you’re working and under 65, you’re Germany. If you’re military or a veteran, you’re Britain. If you’re over 65, you’re Canada, and if you’re uninsured you’re Cambodia.

This is plain nuts. Doctors complain about the multiple forms that need to be filled out. Patients complain about deciphering their policies to understand what is covered. Self-payers pay more than anyone else for the same tests, and the working poor go without.

Administrative costs are a huge part of total health care costs. Medicare, a single government payer system has the lowest. If businesses didn’t have to pay for health care, they could be more competitive, make more of a profit and increase their workers’ salaries.

If there were a single-payer system, preventive health services would be covered, period, without debate. Most importantly, if we had a fair system for all our people, maybe then we might begin to live up to being a truly exceptional nation.

Ann Marie Briggs

Kennebunkport

Reader questions value of computer crimes unit

Sen. Bill Diamond (D-Windham), as former chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, has for years advocated greater support for law enforcement efforts regarding computer crimes involving minors. A few years ago that support included proposing legislation to mandate reporting of suspected child pornography by those servicing citizens’ computers, an idea opposed by the ACLU and ultimately rejected by the legislature.

Now Diamond suggests the state of Maine should allocate an additional $300,000 to employ three detectives to examine computer hard drives possibly containing illegal content.

In his urgency to push his agenda, Diamond fires ammunition gleaned from across the nation, from the recent teacher cases in Los Angeles to the old motel bedspread in Georgia, neither incident connected with Maine law enforcement or the efforts of our state’s Computer Crimes Task Force. He also writes that “less than 1 percent of known child exploitation suspects are investigated due to the lack of resources,” a claim he fails to give any support for and which simply boggles the mind. Just what exactly is this gentleman referring to?

Especially since we’ve had two sex offenders murdered in this state, may I make a suggestion?

Rather than fling isolated examples and meaningless numbers around, can reasonable citizens just this once examine how their tax money is presently being spent on ever-costlier programs before allocating additional scarce funds? After nearly six years effort, I’ve finished writing a book about the very program Mr. Diamond is discussing and requesting more money to expand. My book recounts the experience I had in being convicted of possessing sexually explicit materials, the legal term for child pornography. The book is 612 pages and contains all the documents, transcripts and other evidence from my case and also describes the therapy programs mandated for sex offenders.

Perhaps reading how Maine citizens’ tax money was actually spent prosecuting my case ($150,000 and still counting) might at least provide some insight to the fact that there is indeed another side to Mr. Diamond’s simplistic story line of rescuing kids in danger, which no rational person could oppose.

Jim Logan

Portland