High speed rail makes no sense

Dear Editor,

Please allow me to state the obvious.

To anyone who has ever observed a near empty Amtrak train running inconvenient routes at inconvenient times, the billions of dollars boondoggle of a high speed train system in Central California makes no sense.

If this train cannot run routes that will allow travelers to commute to jobs efficiently, daily and in huge numbers it is of no use. Money would be better spent to run BART over to Modesto and link with routes coming from San Jose area.

This is not the East coast where commuters swarm to daily trains to get to work and it's too much money for a novelty that we might ride from Fresno to Hanford for lunch like we do with Amtrak now. Short term jobs are not worth the long term failure of this project. Tell your representatives to wake up and put an end to this silliness.

Robin Matthews, Coarsegold

Blessed by the community

Dear Editor,

The Father Honoring Event held June 15 at the Oakhurst Community Center was a great success, with over 100 people attending. Essays honoring fathers were read and enjoyed by authors and attendees alike. Twenty-one door prizes, provided by local sponsors, were also randomly awarded to fathers. I thank God for this result.

I thank the community for your support of this first-time event. There was an amazing amount of grace given to make this event possible. Whether it be the three school district superintendents who allowed brochure dissemination, or the 15 sponsors who generously donated items for door prizes, the support was overwhelming.

I am blessed immensely to live in a community where generosity, compassion, personal responsibility and integrity can be evidently seen.

The communal support of this event helps me to believe that maybe, just maybe, there is hope the moral decline of this country can not only be stayed, but reversed. All we need is more good men, and women for that matter, willing to shoulder the responsibility to stand for what is right, come what may.

Hopefully this event has successfully lit a fire in the bosom of fathers to embrace their God given roles of being responsible for their families, resulting in a more virtuous community. Greater virtue will help to correct the current course of travel for this state and this once great nation.

Jeremy Becker, Oakhurst