On Saturday, Aug. 28, Ultimate Fighting Championship 118 (UFC), a mixed martial arts (MMA) contest, came to Boston’s TD Garden.

On behalf of the Pembroke High School lighting team, I would like to thank you for shining the spotlight on what I call “Pembroke’s unsung heroes.” Your reporting was greatly appreciated from the inception of the project and appropriately deserving for those that volunteered.

By John Mattinson, Executive Director
Pembroke Media Broadcast Inc.  

I am excited to be writing this letter as a reflection of our first year as an independent PEG access corporation. I have a lot to be thankful for since stepping into my role as executive director for Pembroke Media Broadcast Inc. I have the privilege of working with many talented people within the community. Our volunteer base is varied, committed and fun.

Article 2 of the Constitution gives the states the sole ability to choose electors for president and vice president. These electors actually cast ballots for president and vice president every four years.  Each major party has a series of electors and, until the end of July, the majority of voters in Massachusetts decided whose electors would cast those ballots.  The Massachusetts legislature changed that.  A law was passed that will designate our 12 electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the nation. While technically allowable under the Constitution, this law rebukes everything our founding fathers believed, and completely rebukes the electoral college itself.

How many more times are people going to put up with getting the run-around at Town Hall or encountering unsatisfactory answers or comments and not demand some action from agencies outside of Pembroke to step in and set things right?

In 2008, voters passed the California Marriage Protection Act, an act recognizing marriage as only between a man and a woman.  This month, a federal appeals court blocked an earlier federal court’s ruling that would have made California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. The outcome could bring the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court. Moreover, if the court upholds the ban, there is a risk that the Roberts’ Court could make marriage equality laws in states like Massachusetts invalid. Whichever way a court may decide, the issue will continue to be a vastly divisive, unnecessary controversy.

Horatio Green wrote a sizable column in the Aug. 13 issue of the Express addressing his perception of racism in this country and accusing the Tea Party and Fox News of being guilty of promoting it. While I was pleased that someone with a strong liberal ideology chooses to watch a network that broadcasts fair and balanced news, it’s sad that Green just doesn’t get it about the Tea Party. His kind of continuous rhetoric denouncing the Tea Party promotes misunderstandings that can needlessly divide people instead of encouraging us to all stand together, regardless of ethnicity and insults the growing number of minority members of Tea Party chapters across the entire country.

Dottie MacInnes
MacDonald Way

Wow! And I thought our Solid Waste and Recycling Committee meetings were contentious! Monday’s selectmen meeting sure put that concept to rest. I really do not know what to say. There were totally outrageous things said and mixed in with those outrageous things were lots of really good things. The problem is that the general public has no way to differentiate between the rational and the outrageous.

When we value the individual, racism doesn’t work. In response to Mr. Green’s letter [Opinion, Aug. 13], I must say that I cannot agree more with his beliefs about how pervasive racism is in our lives and how it is an issue that is promulgated in politics, news and entertainment.

Over the past several weeks, I have seen several articles from residents indicating concern and displeasure over the new center plaza build-out. I have heard things equating the new CVS to the size of the Pyramids in Egypt. It is a monstrosity. I have read about the destruction of the historical nature of the center. While, yes, the CVS is larger than we may have expected, and this renovation means change for the center, it also means many jobs at a time when this community and this area need them. These jobs are important, and once completed the new plaza will generate additional tax revenue for the town. Yes, the new plaza and especially the new CVS will take some getting used to, and it will make our center look and even feel a bit different initially, but the town will be better off as a result of this change.

We have an ugly affliction in America that detracts its citizens from looking at issues compassionately and rejects diversity, and where critical thought is obstructed — an affliction that deters our nation’s growth and contradicts that for which America says it stands.

The proposed 10-lot Kallio Path subdivision on Monroe Street will alter and destroy wetlands and wildlife habitats, threaten the beautiful quality of Tubbs Meadow, and is simply not what Pembroke needs at this time. The review of this development is currently before the town’s Conservation Commission and Planning Board; however, given the numerous wetland issues with this property, it is the Conservation Commission that will ultimately decide the development’s fate.

I am not a stuffed shirt (not even when it is a clergy shirt), though I may have gained some weight this summer, returning to my bad habit of eating “Frosted Flakes” for breakfast, but I digress. The main point of this letter is simple: Sports are not religion.

I am tired of people constantly complaining about the Center Plaza project about the size of CVS or what direction it is facing. Then you have people complaining about how the town will lose that “small town” feeling they are used to. I hate to be the one to say it, but small towns grow into bigger towns, and shopping plazas grow, too.

This is a response to the article entitled “Talking Trash.” All you have to do is drive around town on trash day to see the lack of recycling practices in Pembroke. We have a family of four and we recycle everything we can. We put out one barrel every week. On trash day, I see 4-7 overflowing barrels, usually with evidence of recyclable materials inside, in front of houses that I know house five people or less.