Letters: The omnipresent Allen Iverson

WHAT do this paper and Allen Iverson have going on? Part ownership? When the Sixers were in the playoffs in 2006, I think his face was on the front and back pages 30- some days in a row. Do we have to see it every day now that he's a Sixer again? Some of us aren't interested.

Joseph R. Kenny, Philadelphia

I believe Allen Iverson will change his ways, on and off the court. If he doesn't, it's curtains - if he does, he'll be known as "Iverson the Great." He has the tools; all he needs is the frame of mind.

Doug Leaman, Oaks, Pa.

Real Mummers calculus

How can the city afford to lose the $9 million or so the Mummers Parade generates? The city needs to start looking at what these events make, not what they cost.

Vic Derrick, Philadelphia

The John Lewis saga

The script for convicted cop-killer John "Jordan" Lewis' life could have been written in hell.

His mother was only 16 when he was born. His father was murdered in a drive-by shooting when he was just 5. He dropped out of school and was later kicked out of his home.

During the penalty phase, his grandmother testified that he'd told her he was unable to find a job. So he was unable to support his daughter. By 21, he was out committing armed robberies. On Oct, 31, 2007, he murdered a police officer.

I'm not saying it's impossible for a person to grow up in the inner city under such abysmal circumstances and become a productive member of society, because many people have.

But the deck was stacked against Lewis from the moment he took his first breath.

Rob Boyden, Drexel Hill

Attorney Michael Coard called it "hypocrisy" to take a life for a life. But Mr. Lewis took many and changed a family's future.

He was at a place of business where innocent people were working to make a living, something he had an aversion to. He was there to rob.

He really didn't mean to kill the officer? Panicked? No, he killed a person sworn to protect those same people, and you're appalled by the sentence. It was unfair, the punishment doesn't fit the crime, time to appeal.

Let's house, feed and clothe him, maybe educate him - give him a new start at taxpayer expense. But death is exactly what he should get. He handed it out: judge, jury and executioner, no appeal. Now it's his turn.

Sonny Galati, Philadelphia

How to pay for health care

Not one word about taxing Big Oil or pharmaceutical companies. With the insane profits they make, health care could be paid in full by the end of the second quarter of 2010.

Joseph Carlin, Philadelphia