How disrespectful. Memorial Day is a holiday to honor and mourn U.S. military members. What a way to honor them by setting off fireworks unlawfully that traumatize surviving military who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. What about wildlife and domestic animals that are terrified by loud fireworks? This started when fireworks became legal in Indiana and gets worse every year. Starting Memorial Day weekend, it continues throughout the summer. I am absolutely sick of people disturbing the peace and terrorizing my animals.
It is time to speak up and report violations. Police can’t be everywhere to catch people in the act. In St. Joseph County, we have Consumer Fireworks Restrictions: June 29 through July 9 from 5 to 11:30 p.m. (way too long both for the number of days and times); Dec. 31, 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Jan. 1. There are no restrictions on people with a parcel exceeding five acres to set them off on their own property.
Take a video and document addresses of the offenders, then report it to St Joseph County sheriff. For the sake of veterans and for every living creature, wildlife or domestic, that are terrified by fireworks, speak up!
Lynda Mallory
Clay Township
Can’t be trusted
Tobacco companies have built a reputation on deception. For decades, they downplayed the health risks of their products, denied nicotine’s addictive nature and worked to hook new generations — all motivated by profit, not public health. Today’s push to market “harm reduction” products follows the same playbook: An industry that created a health crisis now claims it can solve it by selling new nicotine products disguised as “less harmful.” It’s important to note these products have not been proven to help people quit smoking.
History tells a different story. Internal documents show companies knew nicotine was addictive while publicly denying it and funding efforts to create doubt about the dangers of smoking. Meanwhile, they aggressively targeted communities — especially Black Americans, youth, LGBTQ and women — with tailored marketing such as menthol products, contributing to long-standing health disparities.
And the claim that tobacco relieves stress? That, too, is misleading. Nicotine temporarily eases withdrawal symptoms it creates, trapping users in a cycle of addiction rather than reducing real stress. Tobacco only solves the problems it causes.
We should be clear: An industry driven by profit cannot be trusted to protect public health. The best way forward is prevention, education and support to quit — not more products that keep people hooked.
Sandi Pontius
Tobacco education coordinator, Smoke Free St. Joe
Another Gilded Age
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me again and again, I should probably get professional help.
First, we had the Enclosure Movement where property owners evicted peasants who had tilled the fields for generations. The land became more profitable as sheep pasture to supply wool for the textile industry that drove England’s Industrial Revolution. So, bottom line, the peasants are out of luck.
In the U.S., the Industrial Revolution got a big kick start from the Transcontinental Railroad, which was built with public funds. And, of course, the ethnic “cleansing” of the native population, courtesy of the American Army. The rich got richer and the poor scraped by if they were lucky. We had a 19th century Gilded Age.
Today, we have an internet that was designed and built with public funds. The rich got richer and the poor scraped by if they were lucky. We’re having another Gilded Age.
How many times do you think people will put up with this?
Dave Coyne
Goshen
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Firework violations disturb the peace | Letters
Reporting by Letters to the Editor, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Letters to the Editor, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
