ABC boards and stores should be abolished

Thanks to Andy Ellen (“Why the state of NC shouldn’t sell alcohol,” Sept. 15) for his views on why state-owned retail alcohol sales are an anachronism and way past usefulness. He might also have mentioned that the ABC boards and stores have proven to be corrupt and mismanaged. This is one of the worst forms of patronage and should be abolished. All alcohol sales should be handled by commercial retailers as they are in most states. To claim that the ABC stores exercise some form of control over citizen purchase of liquor is a joke. Go to any store and bring 4 half gallons of liquor to the check-out counter. I guarantee they’ll ring you out.

—James Rapp

Raleigh

Colossal fraud?

Regarding “If you don’t see US is a colossal fraud, privilege made you blind” (Sept. 9) by J. Peder Zane, the author does not suffer the accusations heaped on Republicans and other conservatives lightly. Now I wonder when the N&O will publish a detailed column by him outlining with disapproval our Republican president’s use of over 4,000 lies, some of them stated repeatedly. The few times that Zane has mentioned, in passing, the president’s frequent departures from reality does not convince me of his disapproval. The president’s outright lies need to have light shed upon them often. Until that happens, a majority of the public will not be convinced to act.

—Mark Zimmerman

Durham

Kavanaugh misquoted

A letter writer recently produced a false statement for your readers regarding Judge Brett Kavanaugh when she falsely claimed he “described contraceptives as ‘abortion inducing drugs.’” This is blatantly false and results from Sen. Kamala Harris deliberately editing Kavanaugh’s response to a question where he was citing the words of someone else. This is another case of Democrats framing Republicans by using edited comments to create fake news. The “news” then makes it around the world multiple times before it ever corrected.

—Randy Bates

Raleigh

More storms

Ned Barnett’s recent column (“Ready for a hurricane? Only if we act on climate change,” Sept. 13) stating the need to reassess our views concerning climate change should give readers pause, especially after the devastating impacts of Hurricane Florence. Unfortunately, because this issue has become unnecessarily politicized, our legislators will continue to ignore it, and instead pass detrimental legislation enforcing policies that will result in more deaths as these storms begin to occur much more frequently in the future.

Sooner or later, with the increase in storms and their intensity, it will become difficult to ignore unprecedented rainfall volumes, areas that have flooded that have never flooded before, and the resulting loss of life and property. And although it is very sad to read of the unfortunate people who lost their lives in this storm, we should consider ourselves relatively “lucky” this time that Hurricane Florence did not impact the coast as a Category 4, or 5 storm. In the coming years, however, we may not be so “lucky.”

—Debra Kling

Clayton

Ripe argument

The article, “Wake County wants residents to avoid nonnative plants (Sept. 11),” raises several good points as well as several that are ripe for argument. Credible research indicates that the greatest biodiversity of pollinating insects occurs when about 50 percent of plants are native, 25 pervent near native and 25 percent exotic. This combination extends flowering time and benefits the widest range of pollinators.

“Near natives” are closely related to their native counterparts-sharing the same genus, but a different species designation. The use of native Aster novae-angliae shouldn’t mean that the near native, Aster tartaricus, which hails from Siberia, should be exiled from the garden. Nor should pan-tropical exotics such as Moonflower Vine, Ipomoea alba, which is frequented by night flying moths.

Commercial and municipal landscapes do suffer from a lack of plant diversity. Excluding thousands of beautiful and useful plants from around the globe is lamentable. When used responsibly, near natives and exotics contribute to the beauty of the landscaped environment and provide food sources for wildlife that can rival that of native plants.

—Linda Anderson

Fuquay-Varina

This story was originally published September 17, 2018 at 1:40 PM.