Jeffersonville: Blacktop capital of the Midwest



If Mayor Tom Galligan and the city council have their way, Jeffersonville will soon be the Asphalt Capital of the Midwest.

They are currently spending thousands of taxpayers dollars to mitigate wetlands, so they can spend millions building a road and a bridge that will only serve Hanson Quarry and Mac Asphalt.

This mitigation also will allow Mac Asphalt to more than triple the size of its asphalt plant. This thing will be gigantic. The smell will also be enormous. The smell from the current small plant is awful. Twenty-three acres of blacktop plant will stink up the whole city.

If you live near the Jeff Elks Golf Course or 10th Street area, the only thing falling faster than the soot from these plants will be your property values. The city has an ordinance that bans asphalt in the city, but instead of enforcing it, the council is helping to finance an expansion.

If you think this is a raw deal, contact your city councilman as soon as possible.

— Charles Hanka, Jeffersonville





Reader defends Curran



I’m not sure who Kelley Curran’s attackers are, but to call her racist without knowing her deflects from the points being made, and they don’t know Kelley.

Maybe, Kelley needs to write a column on a fundraiser we took a young 14-year-old boy to about six years ago. Kelley could explain the tears in the room after hearing of a confrontation with a young female from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky., with a truly racist group.

Kelley then could follow-up with the importance of hearing the WKU student, by the 14-year-old boy. Kelley could even reveal how she conspired to have the WKU student meet the 14-year-old boy.

Question — whether Kelley’s a real blonde! Question — her beliefs?

When you use words like “racist,” “Nazi,” “Communism,” “evil,” “socialist,” those are words that deflect from the process of debate, and only inflame, not solve or arrive at a reasonable solution. Labels are usually a sign of a lack of solutions, or the inability to reason with any amount of clarity.

Let’s get back to whether Kelley’s a real blonde ...

— Steve Fetter, Jeffersonville



Reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s



Parents of young athletes playing high-impact sports such as football and soccer may have watched with some trepidation as University of Florida Gator Tim Tebow returned to the game just two weeks after sustaining a concussion that knocked him out and sent him to the hospital overnight.

Perhaps they were wondering what kind of pressure their own kids might feel to get back on the field after a serious head injury, and whether going back too early would put the child’s future health at risk.

Fueling a lot of the discussion is a recent National Football League study showing that the rate of early-onset Alzheimer’s and other dementia is 19 times higher for NFL retirees than the norm for former players ages 30-49, and five times higher than the national average for former players ages 50 and older. Early onset Alzheimer’s, which affects people as early as age 30, can be a particularly devastating diagnosis.

While there are some limits to the NFL study and not all the contributing factors to Alzheimer’s are clear, the Alzheimer’s Association agrees that there appears to be a strong link between serious head injuries and future Alzheimer’s. The NFL study certainly indicates the need to look at what more we can do to understand that link, and also to reduce serious sports-related head injuries.

Meanwhile, what should athletes, parents and coaches be doing to protect young, maturing and college-age athletes? Certainly, insisting that they wear a properly fitted helmet at all times while practicing or playing any high-impact sport can help prevent serious injury in the first place.

Once an athlete has sustained a concussion, the general rule is that they should be symptom-free for one week before returning to strenuous activity. Symptoms of concussions include nausea, headaches and dizziness, as well as difficulty concentrating and vision problems. Some symptoms are more subtle; it might take much longer to complete certain tasks than prior to the injury, for example. It’s important for the player, his or her family and the physician to be honest with one another. Also recommended is a monitored exertion test during which the patient should remain symptom free before returning to the rough and tumble of the game.

We also know that, once an athlete has sustained a concussion, the chances of sustaining another are higher. And multiple concussions appear to increase the risks of later dementia, including early onset Alzheimer’s. These are important factors to consider when deciding whether and when to resume playing a high-impact sport after a serious head injury.

— Teri Shirk, president and CEO of the Greater Kentucky and Southern Indiana Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, Louisville