An open letter to Jamie Miles (re: Morgan County Citizen, July 16 column)
To the Editor:
    I read with dismay that deer had ransacked your garden and left you a bit discouraged about gardening. Living next to Lake Oconee with a hungry deer population, I know firsthand how disappointing this can be to any gardener.
    My advice: Get over it. You are a gardener now, and have a tradition of toughness to live up to! We have at least several good gardening months to enjoy, it makes no sense to give up on your prepared and formerly productive garden now. So, clean up the carnage and replant. If the deer just ate the tops off, it may not be necessary to replant the whole garden. Some of the damaged plants may come back from the roots if you continue to feed and water them. All you need after that is a good deer deterrent plan. From high tech to low tech, here are some strategies to consider:
    1. A yard dog or cat. Call it country security for the garden. If your dog learns to prefer inside air conditioning at night, he may be unwilling to serve. He can still help. Collect dog hair when you groom and distribute it around the garden. If you don’t want to maintain a pet, offer to brush the neighbors. This is not fool-proof,  but it can’t hurt. The neighbors’ dog  will appreciate your interest. Cats? Some folks claim that deer don’t like to smell the cat urine in your garden. Personally, I just like to see a cat lounging in a garden. He is conserving energy to chase away squirrels.

Letter to the Editor:
    The Morgan County Citizen is downright infested with fireflies! Those little lightening bugs are flitting from page to page to page....we've almost lost count. If any of the Citizen's faithful readers don't know about the Firefly Festival this Friday and Saturday, maybe they're just not paying attention.
Madison Main Street Advisory Board
City of Madison

To the Editor: 
    A friend asked me the other night if I ever read fiction.
    “Occasionally,” I replied, “I will read a Bill Scholly Letter to the Editor.” 
    After chastising David Belton for not understanding the “very difficult and knotty problem” of global warming,
    Mr. Scholly writes: “Pssst and we should look into the statement that '96 percent of greenhouse [g]ases come naturally from the oceans,’ that just doesn’t sound quite right.”
    It sounds right to me. The gas in question is water vapor. The oceans cover roughly 80 percent of the Earth’s surface, and water evaporates from the surface of the oceans. The current level of carbon dioxide in the air which is causing all this ruckus is 385 parts per million by volume, or 582 parts per million by weight. On a mild, pleasant day (77 degrees F, 50 percent relative humidity), the concentration of water vapor in the air by weight is 10,000 parts per million.
    These numbers result in a calculated value of 94.5 percent. This is lower than Mr. Belton’s quoted figure of 96 percent, but in the same ballpark.
    Perhaps Mr. Belton performed his calculation using concentrations by volume, or by assuming a higher average temperature or relative humidity. Mr. Scholly’s letter is one fallacy after another, beginning with the classic argumentum ad hominem, complete with scare quotes.
    The scientists at OISM become “scientists,” their original research becomes “research,” the degreed scientists who signed the OISM petition become “scientists” with “degrees.” (Full disclosure: I am one of the Ph.D. scientists who signed that petition.)

To the Editor:
    To all County Board of Commissioners and especially Mack Bohlen.
    I want to talk about the issues you all raised about Brandon Jolly. I didn’t know him but when I read in the Morgan County Citizen that he was fired after learning that he had filed bankruptcy.
    It was questioned about his integrity about handling the money for the hospital.
    My wife and I have filed bankruptcy losing everything we had made for 50 years of hard work. It made me extremely mad.
    I suspect that if someone dug deep enough into your past that they could find something on each of you.
    I hope that this letter makes you as mad as it made me for letting Mr. Jolly go.
    I realize that I am not privilege to all the information that you’ll had.
Carter Campbell
Madison
A tax-paying citizen
Hand delivered

To the Editor:  
    I’m always amazed at the ability of some people to ignore simple facts.
    I recently wrote that, “31,000 scientists have recently signed a petition rejecting human-made global warming…” A week later, a writer spent 600 words questioning that fact, stating, “there are NOT 31,000 scientists who have “recently” signed a petition rejecting man made global warming!”  
    Sorry, but there are. The scientist’s credentials are verified, and those who don’t meet the criterion are thrown out. What I wrote is perfectly true.  
    He then defames the organizer of the petition and the scientists who signed it. Then, he opines that while I might have a degree in science, I wasn’t an expert in global-warming. 
     It’s a classic leftist ploy. Incapable of competing in the arena of ideas, attack the writer instead. Failing that, target one fact among many, and then denigrate the source of the fact.
    Don’t debate the message, obfuscate instead.  
    The writer is correct about two things: I do have a degree in Chemistry and I’m not an expert in global warming. But I do know enough about science to know that global warming is a theory and not a fact. Yet the United Nations and an over-zealous media desperately try to pretend that it is.   I’d rather listen to the courageous scientists who are looking at data instead of polls.
    And the most recent data says the world is getting colder, not warmer.  

To the Editor:
    I would like to preface my comments by stating that I appreciate the role of local newspapers in delivering news that while not globally or nationally relevant is important to members of small-town communities. Though I don't expect a newspaper like the Morgan County Citizen to report on high profile international stories, I do expect that the stories they do report meet the same standards of journalistic integrity as that of any other news source.
    In your recent article titled "Local man busted for child pornography" you provide a detailed narrative of a Mr. John Bankhead, director of public affairs at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
    However, you fail to mention any attempt to contact the accused or his representatives. I have never before read, heard, or watched a news story covering a criminal event in which the reporters did not bother to obtain the viewpoint of the accused party.
    The absence of statements from Mr. Mastrogiovanni, or at the very least "representatives of Mr. Mastrogiovanni were contacted but did not immediately respond," suggests that you and your staff are merely acting the role of journalists.
    I very much doubt that you will publish this letter, but even if you do it does not change the fact that the aforementioned article is not a news report. It is a biased hand-fed press report that borders on the line of propaganda. I don't want you to exonerate or favor my father, I want you to perform your duties as a journalist and attempt to present both sides to every story.
    I understand that different news sources may present a story with a slant, but to not include or, at the very least, seek the voice of an involved party is irresponsible at best and libel at worst.
Sincerely,
Daniel Mastrogiovanni
Piscataway, NJ