To the Editor:

Voting is patriotic. Restoring people’s rights, including voting, after they have served their time is also part of the democratic vision. So why are we one of two states that doesn’t automatically restore these rights? In Kentucky the Governor can grant a partial pardon, but hundreds of applications have never been processed. Almost 200,000 people are barred from voting in Kentucky. HB7O has passed through the House already and now sits in the Senate. Encourage your senators to vote yes. And when it is on the ballot in 2010, vote yes.

Sharman Chapman-Crane

KFTC Member

Eolia, Ky.

To the Editor:

Change and Generalities: The dire warnings of Henry Paulson, Harry Reid and Nancy Polosi resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street from the calamitous results of their own greed in leveraging up debt through derivatives to over 60 to 1 in order to make extraordinary earnings in up-markets to justify the collective multi-billion dollar bonuses they voted to themselves from what should have been shareholder earnings. When the excessive up-market adjusted, as always happens, the risk side of gambling with excesive leverage in this 680 trillion dollar worldwide derivatives market brought most of Wall Street to virtual bankruptcy, as Warren Buffet foretold several years ago when he said the immense derivative market was a walking time bomb. However, not to worry. Treasury Secretary Paulson created a wall of fear to get taxpayer money to bail out his Wall Street buddies. The almost 90 percent disapproval of this bailout by our people was considered by many congressmen to be based on ignorance, but it appears that it was the approving congressman who were ignorant. The proper means for resolving these problems was Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, as overseen by the court, rather than throwing taxpayer money at the problem, and with no oversight.

Unfortunately, Obama, too, appears to be relying on the fear factor to sell his immense $800 billion program, presumably to create jobs. Private sector jobs move to other necessary work when the job is finished and provide tax revenue, unlike the many government jobs which are anticipated in tbs plan. And, as Ronald Reagan said, government jobs remain after the need is past. It is the private sector jobs we need, and for work which is truly necessary, not just prettying up the place. To get these jobs our industry, and particularly small business, needs tax incentives, The other way to do it is to let the government take charge and we can have the former Soviet ethic in our own society, “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” Although some pork has been removed from the bill, clearly, at its present level, much remains, Pork is purely for the purpose of buying votes which, ultimately will be paid for by all of us in the inevitable “inflation tax”. The many congressmen who continue to place pork in the bills which go through Congress should review the Oath Of Office they took to truly represent their constituents.

Obama should consider that what he is buying into as “change” appears to be no change at all, and the youth who gave him a large majority of their vote find little change in job opportunity resulting from this spending program.

Malcolm L. Lilly

Louisville, Ky.

Dear Editor,

I am writing a book on the Castle/Cassell /Cassel Family and currently have 1,700 pages complete.

I am still looking for lines that I may have missed or that I have incomplete information on. I was hoping that you would print this letter.

I would like to encourage any individual with the surname of Castle, Cassell, Cassel and in some cases Kassel to contact me with their information. I will provide an ancestry graph of each individual that responds to this letter.

For those that do respond, please go back as far as you can and advise me of that ancestor since this will make it easier for me to connect your lines. I need dates of birth and location, spouses as well as marriage dates and locations and the children from that issue.

This family is mostly concentrated in Southwest Virginia , Southeastern Kentucky, Southwestern Tennessee, Eastern & Western West Virginia and Southern ,Southeastern and Central Ohio.You may reply via email: icastleekns.net.

You may also send any photos that you may have (the older the better). If you send via email I can scan these in. If you use regular mail, all photos will be returned once I have scanned. Regardless of how you send photos, please be sure to identify those included in the photo as well as your relation to them since I already have many photos from many different lines.

For the record, I represent the lOth and 11th generations in my Castle lines with my ancestor being Inman Castle who was born circa 1801 at Castlewood, Va. but later migrated to Johnson County, Kentucky with three brothers.

I look forward to your responses.

Respectfully,

Names W. Castle

Aberdeen, Ohio