To the editor:

I was wearing a campaign button that said "Sara for Senate." The first person I talked to said "I saw her debate on TV." I replied quickly: Oh no, you didn't. You saw the Sarah from Alaska who is running for vice president. This button is for Sara Orozco from Needham. She is running for the state Senate representing 12 towns from Attleboro (wards 1, 2 and 3A), through all of North Attleboro, Plainville, Wrentham and Norfolk to as far as Wayland.

The two Saras are both attractive young mothers running for office, but in most respects they are opposites. Sara Orozco is a highly intelligent, competent, calm, personable, remarkably fair-minded Democrat. She has a PhD, a private medical practice and her own small business. Those who have met her have been overwhelmingly impressed.

In a district this large, though, she cannot visit every voter. There is however, a virtual way for you to see her. Watch her brief e-mail production called "Knock, Knock, Who's There?" Go to SaraOrozco.com and click on the Virtual Door Knock section in the right margin. I strongly recommend it.

Sterling Alam Attleboro

Make it a point to be at Seekonk town meeting

To the editor:

When was the last time you attended town meeting? When was the last time you stayed for the whole meeting? When was the last time you asked a question during the meeting? Proposed an amendment to an article?

Some people say they only go to town meeting if there is something exciting on the warrant like a 21/2 override proposal. Or that they would rather stay home and watch television. Or that there are too many issues to decide.

The way to get things changed and to conduct the town's business is to attend town meeting. Attending town meeting is your civic duty. It is a key component to accountability in our form of government.

Some articles may not be self-explanatory. You must ask yourself, "What is the impact on Seekonk?" If you are unclear and need more information before you vote, ask for clarification before the vote is taken. Most likely, your neighbor has the same questions you do.

We now have the option of the secret ballot when voting on sensitive issues. I urge you to become part of the process.

I would like to see a time of peace and cooperation between the school committee and the board of selectmen. That means we all must give trust and respect if we want to receive it in return. I am approaching that objective by entering into regular and respectful dialogue. I know there will be glitches but I am hopeful that the constant criticism will end.

Attend Seekonk town meeting 7 p.m. Nov. 3 and 4 p.m. Nov. 8. Francis Cavaco

Seekonk

THIS WRITER is a Seekonk selectman.

Incumbent too scared

to answer questions

To the editor:

As the Obama campaign viciously attacks Sen. John McCain with outright lies, smears, and character assassination, the same thing is happening in Massachusetts with the Kerry campaign doing the same things to Senate candidate Jeff

Beatty!

In a recent PolitickerMa.com interview, Kerry's media propagandist accused his opponent Jeff Beatty of waging a campaign that "has been a litany of personal attacks on John Kerry." She went on to further insult Mr. Beatty with a nasty insinuation that he is a Yankees fan. It's very clear from this insulting attack that Kerry is fearful of Jeff Beatty and goes out of his way to avoid answering the hard questions that Mr. Beatty is asking. The way I see it, if Kerry has nothing to worry about, then he ought to answer those questions being posed to him by Mr. Beatty, instead of being a coward and assassinating Jeff Beatty's good character!

As we can clearly see, Kerry continues his long tradition of publicly smearing proud military veterans like Jeff Beatty, most recently in 2006 with his rude insult of me and other Iraq war vets by insinuating that we must be uneducated because we got "stuck in Iraq." Kerry has a reputation that no real American would be proud of. And typical Democrat that he is, he is going out of his way to avoid the hard questions that Jeff Beatty is asking him regarding his well-documented involvement in the current financial crisis.

I'm a veteran and an independent, and I support Jeff Beatty for U.S. Senate!

Paul Couturier

North Attleboro

Take it from grad, there

was a Plainville High

To the editor:

Re: "Back at KP after 50 years" (Oct. 11):

You could not be expected to know of the existence of Plainville High School, nor of the excellent education received by its pupils from 1890 through 1957. However, former students who provided information for your article must have suffered memory loss or were never friendly with their classmates from Plainville.Very few pupils from Plainville went to North Attleboro High, as their parents had to pay tuition. There were a few boys who went there in order to play ball, both foot and base. Plainville was the team which owned one baseball, one basketball and no football. But the education at Plainville High was second to none.

Perhaps I should not be hard on the early King Philip Regional High School grads since it was KP policy from day one never to identify the town from which a pupil came. This always seemed to me to be a mistake, and it still does. Many Plainville High School graduates attended college, earning fine academic records which allowed those who followed to enter college with only an aptitude test and no college entrance exams.

My children graduated from King Philip and I was a substitute teacher there for a few years. However my father in 1913 and I, in 1939, graduated from Plainville High School. Dad and I were always proud of our PHS education.

Barbara P. Fluck

Plainville

Low-cost detectors available to seniors

To the editor:

On behalf of the Attleboro Council on Aging, I am writing in response to a recent editorial, "Battle a silent, invisible killer." Since 2001, the Attleboro TRIAD program, a local cooperative initiative between the Attleboro Council on Aging, seniors, public safety officials and the Bristol County Sheriff's Department, have worked together to improve the quality of life for older citizens residing in their community by increasing their safety and confidence through education and crime prevention. TRIAD has had a direct effect on the lives of thousands of elders in Attleboro

Vigilance against carbon monoxide took new importance last winter with the high cost of home heating fuel and the use coal, wood, pellet burning stoves and other alternative heat sources.

Carbon monoxide and smoke detectors have been distributed to hundreds of elders, through the Senior Fire Safety Program sponsored through TRIAD. Kidde "Talking Alarm Detectors" which offer protection from two deadly households threats - smoke and carbon monoxide - during power outages, and emit loud voice alarms are offered to low-income, frail seniors through the continued generosity of Lowe's Home Centers, a Wal-Mart grant ($1,500) and the Bristol County Commission grant.

In addition to free smoke alarms, Fire Capt. Al Murrant and Attleboro firefighter Robert Silva also perform home safety checks and an alarm maintenance program. Checking for potentially life threatening hazards such as home heating systems (fireplaces, furnaces, flues, dryer vents) that are not properly working or free of debris has possibly saved the lives of elders, prevented injuries or fires.

Through the generosity of the Bristol County Sheriff's Department, 5,000 flyers of each of the TRIAD Alert Bulletins, Senior Fire Safety Tips and Carbon Monoxide: The Silent Killer, are distributed through the Attleboro Council on Aging newsletter, at Fire Safety educational forums in October and during home safety visits.

On Thursday, Oct. 30, at 10 a.m., the council on aging will present an alternative heating safety workshop. Capt. Murrant will discuss safety tips for installing and using wood, pellet stoves and space heaters. This is a perfect opportunity for seniors to ask questions and avoid a potential tragedy. Free carbon monoxide detectors will be given to those who attend and have not previously received them. Call the senior center at 508-223-2235 to register.

Madeline McNeilly

Attleboro

THIS WRITER is executive director of the Attleboro Council on Aging.

Thanks for reminder

of better times in US

To the editor:

Harold Crowell should be commended for his letter of Oct. 13 which reminded us that the Republican party was once the party of moderation and common sense. Mr. Crowell pointed out that it was Republican president Dwight Eisenhower who in 1957 formed the Civil Rights Commission.

Mr. Crowell goes on to remind us that the Republican minority in Congress reached out and worked with the liberals of the Democratic party in 1964 to pass the Civil Rights Bill and in 1965 they helped pass the Voting Rights Act. It was the dogmatic Southern conservatives of the Democratic Party that tried to hold back the universal freedoms that we all hold so dear today.

Those were the memorable years when the Republican party stood for smaller government, lower taxes, and peaceful coexistence. I do hope that Mr. Crowell still holds a warm spot in his heart for those wonderful days when the world looked up to the United States as a country that believed in equality, justice, and the rule of law.

Robert Saquet

Mansfield

Argument insults

readers' intelligence

To the editor:

Gerald Chase says support of same-sex marriage comes from "muddled thinking," but his own reasoning would not pass muster in a middle school ("Marriage legal issues are about children only," Oct. 8). Mr. Chase says same-sex marriage should be barred because (1.) Marriage was only created for child-rearing. (2.) Since gay couples cannot procreate, they have no need to marry.

To say that child-rearing is the exclusive purpose of marriage is laughable. Children may or may not exist in a marriage. It has nothing to do with eligibility for marriage.

According to Mr. Chase, states that ban same sex marriage are well within their right to do so and, "None of this is discriminatory." The double standard in his logic tells us otherwise. By one standard, heterosexuals are always allowed to marry, including those who cannot produce children (i.e. the infertile and the elderly). By the other standard, homosexuals can never marry, even those with children.

The overriding purpose of marriage is to legally create kinship between unrelated people. All human beings, gay or straight, seek the security, support, affection that marriage affords. These dynamics exist between married partners whether children are present or not.

There are virtually no qualifications for marriage other than age and gender. Death row inmates, convicted murderers, child molesters and violent felons all take for granted their right to marry. Yet, Mr. Chase feels gay people are unworthy of this basic human right because they "cannot produce children." He insults our intelligence when he says this has nothing to do with discrimination.

Mr. Chase argues for double standards that are the hallmark of bigotry. He should work on his own "muddled thinking" first.

Kenneth Watson

Foxboro