ASO board needs to be more creative
The Atlanta Symphony is one of our country’s finest orchestras. Its board is again instituting a lockout to enforce its budget goals. The board’s purpose is to support the orchestra with fund-raising and audience development; it has proven to have insufficient imagination and creativity to accomplish this. When, to achieve its bottom line, the board degrades the very art its presenting, it defeats its purpose.
In Atlanta we have the Emory University medical facilities, the CDC and Georgia Tech — large groups of doctors and scientists traditionally interested in music and the arts. This is an audience that should be specially invited with innovative and traditional programs tailored for them. Atlanta’s large Asian community also has long been involved in the arts … and other large minority communities should be brought further into the fold. The board should be increasing its outreach, particularly in educational programs.
Atlanta’s position among America’s cities is maintained by the high level of its arts. It attracts people, large corporations and little businesses. Who would want to come to a cultural desert?
ARTHUR LEWIS, ATLANTA
It’s hard to support a do-nothing GOP
In response to the letter, “Cast a vote to start restoring America” (Readers write, Sept. 19) implying that voting Republican will restore American supremacy, I have extreme difficulty supporting and voting for a Republican Party that birthed a do-nothing Congress with a dismal approval rating as low as 10 percent; rallies around denying affordable, life-saving health care to uninsured families; embraces the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court ruling; opposes common-sense gun control; causes our international credit rating to be jeopardized; refuses to address sensible immigration reform; shuts down the government, costing taxpayers $24 billion; denies science; mocks climate change; refuses to address minimum wage and equal pay for women; denies assistance to children; suppresses voter rights; believes a ground war is the only answer to international conflicts, and so much more. In November, I hope to help put an end to this madness and vote Democratic on the state and national levels.
PATRICIA COLE, SNELLVILLE
Curb health costs, expand Medicare
It is likely that rising health care costs will destroy the American economy before our gutless leaders muster the gumption to turn to the obvious answer: Medicare for all. While we’re waiting for the end, at least make all health care expenses, including premiums, deductibles and medications 100 percent tax deductible for all, not just for those who itemize or cross certain expense thresholds. Most folks are running out of things to sell at neighborhood yard sales, and working three jobs to make ends meet just isn’t any fun.
JAMES MILLER, HOSCHTON
