Questioning city attorney's pay

$3,500 a month?! There are people he will be serving who have less than $500 to get through a month — what a slap in the face this is.

Bonny Ann

 ●●●

About Crestview Manor's death-predicting cat

Newman is a very beautiful cat. The Manor is lucky to have him.

I do believe cats comfort people when they are sick or near the end. My cat, Miss Lady, is always near me. When I was very sick last year, she stayed by my side.

I got her from S.O.C.K.S three years ago. Well, she picked me to be her owner/ caretaker, and has helped me through many tough times.

Jennifer Reynolds 

 ●●●

Cats have ulterior motives

Fact is, the cat is claiming you, waiting. Dogs will wait days and weeks without eating their dead owners, while a cat will start to nibble within 24 hours.

Troy Siron 

●●●

Confederate flag removal not trivial

This may seem like a trivial issue to some, but it is not. The City of Crestview made great strides (Monday) night toward growth and attractiveness of our city to new businesses; more residents. And with that will come traffic solutions and other growth management solutions. This was the right decision.

Erica Louise 

 ●●●

Flag decision was political

It only goes to show you what can happen when people don't know history and allow political agendas to govern their decision making.

AW Ratliff 

 ●●●

Majority wanted flag to stay so…

It's time we as the people make sure our elected officials reflect our own values and beliefs.

Dorrian Vance

Join the conversation on our Facebook page>>

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HUBBUB: Questioning Crestview attorney's pay; cats have ulterior motives

By Mechelle Prevoznik

Bus drivers love their jobs

Bus drivers, as a rule, are looked at as being at the bottom at the educational food chain. People tend to think that we are uneducated or unable to obtain another job.

Fact: a lot of drivers are retired from other careers; some hold more degrees than some of the teaching faculty.

We are, in fact, a bit crazy! We choose to work in conditions that no sane person would want to.

Most of us drive buses with no air conditioning in the summer; insufficient heat in the winter.

Drive a lot of children that are loud, and act as if they've had no home training!

We've all had to put up with verbally abusive parents that believe their little Johnny or Susie is perfect.

On a daily basis, I have people pass my stop signs — unfortunately, a lot of them are parents! I see their children strapped in car seats in the back of their cars, as they're texting or talking on the phone; never looking up, just flying through my stop sign.

Or the person that crosses the double yellow line because they don't want to be stuck behind a bus!

As bus drivers, we are underpaid given the responsibility that we have; underappreciated by parents for our job.

Most the duties I do on my bus are no different than what I do as a parent.

So, given everything that I just described about our jobs, someone might ask why we do this.

I'm a bus driver because I choose to be. With all the negativity that goes with the job, there's a lot of positive things. I've been on my route for four years; I've gotten to watch children grow and learn from little guys to young adults.

In an average day from my little guys, I get 167 hugs and several "I love you Miss Mechelle"s — that alone makes everything worthwhile.

Most of us drivers love our jobs and can't imagine doing anything else.

●●●

Comments about bus driver 'made me sick'

I cannot believe how little empathy the people in this area have. First of all, everyone is acting like these are elementary-aged kids, when they were middle school and high school students.

Are they at risk when they wait at the bus stop before it arrives? Do you think some sexual predator or kidnapper would approach 50 teenagers and try to snatch one of them when they would be so greatly outnumbered? Kids that age are allowed to walk to neighbors' houses and to the store. Yet they wouldn't be safe in such a large number waiting for another bus for 30 minutes?

… Second, we don't know how sick the bus driver was … Now many are angry that she was on paid leave. Some are suggesting criminal charges… After I read the comments in the paper (Sunday), all but one just made me sick. Sure, our kids are precious to us, but too many of you were acting like these kids were toddlers left on the side of the road.

… I hope when each of you have a health scare or severe illness that you think back on how cruel your comments were toward the sick bus driver.

Nannette McGowan

●●●

Students can walk to school

When I was in middle and high school, I walked to school. What are you people doing, raising full-grown infants who can't stand on the side of the road?

Guy Gordon 

 ●●●

Challenging Pastor's Perspective column on Kim Davis

Sir, I respect you and anyone else for your religious beliefs. However, if you are in a position of operating under the guidance of law, you cannot pick and choose how to administer those laws.

Simply put, if her beliefs are so strong that it impedes her from lawfully carrying out her duties, she should find another line of work.

Mark Purvis 

  ●●●

Cures are bad for business

If there are cures in medicine, that's bad for business. Sad but true. There is no money in health.

Pharmaceuticals need sick people to stay in business. If there was a cure for cancer, there would be no more need for overpriced drugs.

I'm sure there have been big breakthroughs, but the government won't allow it, or stops it once found. Corporations buy the government and tell them what to do.

We are not a democracy, but rather being taken over by corporations who buy people out to get what they want. Medicine is just one of the many aspects of this.

Daniel Rivera 

 ●●●

Rethinking prescription medication prices

I think the solution for medication is a complicated issue.

The businesses producing medication need to make a profit to continue production, and expenses continue to rise alongside the cost of living as it rises.

We need to reintroduce checks and balances into the economy. Society as a whole has become dependent on loans that not everyone pays back.

Sabrina Knost 

Join the conversation on our Facebook page>>

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: HUBBUB: Bus drivers love their jobs, Comments about bus driver 'made me sick'

Patients are raving about a series of newer, more effective medicines.

There's just one catch.

These drugs are really expensive. Xeljanz, a new rheumatoid arthritis drug, costs $25,000 a year. Sovaldi, a breakthrough hepatitis C cure, costs $84,000.

To contain rising healthcare spending, some policymakers want the government to impose price controls on medicines. They believe price caps will help patients by making medications more affordable.

In reality, price controls will bring drug development to a standstill, depriving patients of future medications that could improve or even save their lives. To ensure patients have access to groundbreaking medical advances, lawmakers must avoid short-sighted price controls.

The average medicine requires an investment of $2.6 billion and over a decade of research. Just 12 percent of medicines that enter experimental human testing receive FDA approval. That means revenue from successful drugs must also cover costs of those that never make it to market.

If price caps prevent companies from recovering steep costs associated with drug development, firms will stop investing in risky research projects that lead to breakthrough treatments and cures.

According to a National Bureau of Economic Research study, price controls that cut drug prices by 40 or 50 percent would decrease early stage development projects by up to 60 percent.

That'd be devastating for patients with chronic diseases like Alzheimer's. By 2050, Alzheimer's will afflict 14 million Americans, and annual treatment costs will reach $1.1 trillion. A new treatment that delays the disease by just five years annually would save the healthcare system $367 billion.

Such a treatment likely will come from private-sector drug companies, which fund almost 80 percent of experimental Alzheimer's drug testing. With a 99 percent failure rate, Alzheimer's drug trials are a risky investment. Drug companies won't pour billions into highly uncertain research if they know price caps will make it impossible to recoup costs.

The lack of price controls has already yielded better treatments for 50 million Americans who live with autoimmune diseases, which cause the body's immune system to attack healthy cells.

In 2011, drug companies introduced Benlysta, the first treatment targeted specifically at lupus in over a half-century. In 2012, the FDA approved Xeljanz, designed for rheumatoid arthritis patients who hadn't responded to earlier medications.

These life changing treatment advances wouldn't have been possible under a price control regime.

Policymakers can make drugs more affordable for patients without jeopardizing research. Prohibiting insurance companies from charging high co-pays and co-insurance would lower patients' out-of-pocket expenses. Stronger trade agreements would prevent other companies from freeloading off American research spending.

Affordability is a real concern for today's patients. But price controls aren't the answer. 

Virginia Ladd is the president of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association.

What's your view? Write a letter to the editor or tweet @cnbeditor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: LADD: Drug price controls will hurt patients

When it comes to the bigger picture, I am pretty naïve. There is much I don’t understand or comprehend.

For instance, I do not understand fanaticism. Some people are extremely passionate about certain aspects of their lives, to the point where it is “us” versus “them.”

Take sporting events. Many people have a favorite team; they are dyed in the wool fans. That team is “us.” The opponent is “them.” And “them” is on the wrong side and must be defeated. 

I understand the notion of sports. But when a person is a rabid fan of one team, excluding all others, I believe a line has been crossed. There have been far too many arguments and physical altercations to say otherwise.

Many other examples of fanaticism cause people to cross the line of decency. We hear, “Black lives matter!” “White lives matter!” “Latino lives matter!” and so on. And I agree. Life matters!

What I cannot comprehend, in my naiveté, is why it seems as though each proclamation is made to exclude the value of others.  And, like many other “us-versus-them” scenarios, if you are not one of “us,” you are one of “them” — and you are of less value and must be shunned.

This is lunacy.

No color of skin is more or less important than another! In Jesus Christ, we have received the message about how each person is a child of God — no more, no less.

The apostle Paul said in his letter to the Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

In Him we are one. Human beings are the ones who make distinctions. And if we make distinctions, we can certainly rediscover our similarities.

What parent doesn’t ultimately love his or her child?

Who doesn’t bleed red when cut?

Who doesn’t grieve after a loved one dies?

Who doesn’t long to be loved and accepted?

Who doesn’t desire to live a long, full and enjoyable life?

Yes, there will always be differences between persons. But that is no reason to allow hatred toward others who are different to grow to the point of physical or rhetorical violence. 

Fanaticism — which, for some, is simply an excuse for legitimating violent tendencies — must end. 

We are all children of God. We all matter.

 The Rev. Mark Broadhead is pastor at Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church of Crestview.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: BROADHEAD: We are all children of God; we all matter