Writer expands on two issues in newspaper

There were two articles in the Wednesday edition of The Lancaster News that caused me concern and that require strong comment and rebuttal.

On page 4A, there is a human interest story about a flag being damaged that I thought unfairly characterized the reputation of Renee Bozeman, who reported that her American flag had been vandalized.

Surely, Ms. Bozeman knew whether her flag was vandalized. I don’t think this woman was falsely reporting this criminal act. However, The Lancaster News quoted the Lancaster Sheriffs Office incident report saying that it appears the flag was worn and damaged by weather. Putting this sheriff’s office quote in the story could have no other result but to put Ms. Bozeman’s story and her reputation into question. I don’t think that was the intent of The Lancaster News, but that’s the way this kind of report came out.

Instead of putting into question that the flag was not criminally damaged by an unknown person, but was worn and weather damaged, the story should have praised Ms. Bozeman for having the patriotism to display her American flag and decried that some lowlife individual damaged Ms. Bozeman’s flag.        

The second article I am commenting about was on the front page of the same edition, entitled “Bank overdraft laws to take effect Thursday.” Since this report was in the form of a public service announcement on the part of the newspaper, and thus did not contain any comments or editorializing, some factors about the new law need further comment.

This new law is another example of our liberal president and our likewise liberal Congress passing a law that was entirely unnecessary. It was instead an attempt to cater to people who overdraw their checking and credit card accounts and did not like the fees charged against them in such instances.

In other words, it’s the bank’s fault that the consumer overcharged their account. There was even a comment by a person who works in Lancaster, showing the misunderstanding people in general have about overdrawn accounts. This person was quoted as saying she believes the new law will be helpful, as it will possibly prevent you from withdrawing money you don’t have.

That doesn’t make sense, since one of the reasons we have the privilege of having checking accounts and credit cards is that as responsible check writers and credit users, it is our responsibility to know at all times how much money is in our account. Knowing what we have in our accounts would prevent overdrawing, thereby making this new law unnecessary.

The same person was again quoted as saying, “I feel the banks will try to make up for the lost revenue by adding another surcharge to some other service that they offer.” In other words, it is the bank’s fault that in the past, they were forced to make overcharge fees when a person tried to use money that didn’t exist in their account. So any procedure the bank uses to recoup the losses involved in the bank accounting for the overcharges is unfair.

It is time all consumers started paying attention to their own bank and credit card accounts and making sure they have adequate monies to cover their check writing and charges.

Charlie Seng

Lancaster