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Rising gas prices not a good thing
Leave Ryan Freel alone

Rising gas prices not a good thing

I'm afraid that you truly missed the mark in your editorial last week on rising gas prices ("Rising Gas Prices May Have Silver Lining.") Your implied that if gas prices continue to rise, society may actually see a noticeable decrease in air pollution, provided that the price increase is enough to negate the benefit of the 2003 Tax Act, which gives even white-collar small business owners a tax write-off of up to $100,000 for purchasing a large, unneeded, fuel-inefficient SUV or truck.

Unfortunately, you left out one key fact: Driving a large, unneeded, fuel-inefficient SUV or truck is freaking awesome!

Take it from me, nothing beats the thrill of going for an unnecessary evening ride in your Escalade, and pulling right behind a little shit-of-a-car like a Toyota Echo at a stoplight, so that his pansy-ass rear-view mirror blinds him with the reflection of your over-sized fog lights. Or cutting off 3 cars as you make your way across 4 lanes of highway without a turn signal, forcing people to slam on their brakes but be too afraid to honk the horn because they're afraid a gangster rapper might be behind the tinted glass.

Do yourself a favor. Take a large, unneeded, fuel-inefficient SUV or truck out for a test drive. Then I guarantee you'll weep everytime gas goes up by a penny.

Phillip Hornsby
Fairfield

Leave Ryan Freel alone

Enough about Ryan Freel's DUI arrest!  So he got behind the wheel of a car and drove drunk.  He made a mistake. So have alot of other people in Cincinnati, but they haven't had their mug shots plastered all over local newspapers and television.

And no, that has nothing to do with the fact that DUI arrests happen daily to people whom the average media viewer neither knows or cares about, and therefore is not newsworthy.

And it has nothing to do with the fact that I think baseball players are gods, or that I'm lashing out like a 5-year old because I can't fathom that someone who I worship is flawed.

But it has everything to do with the cruel media stripping celebrities like Ryan Freel of their privacy because they are out to get them.

It's perfectly acceptable that an individual like Freel gets a salary a hundred times greater than ninety-nine percent of other Tri-staters for being a local celebrity, but when something unfavorable happens to that person, the millions or so people in the city who recognize him should not be informed of his mistake.

So in closing, remember:  Famous people should only be famous for the stuff that gets them paid millions of dollars.  Everything unfavorable that they do should be kept in a sealed document. Got it?

Bob Beckinghaus
Colerain