Letters to the Editor: Nov. 12, 2003

The Naples Daily News welcomes letters of up to 250 words. We reserve the right to reject letters or edit for clarity, brevity, good taste and accuracy, and to prevent libel. No poetry, attacks on private individuals, or letter-writing campaigns, please. Writers should limit submissions to one letter every two weeks. Include a phone number and make certain you have signed your letter.

Letter of the Day — Been to the brink

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Six feet under or not makes a difference!

I was saved by my living will and by my friend who insisted that the plugs not be pulled for at least six weeks. I had named him in the will to take care of me if I could not do so myself.

I had a massive stroke five years ago.

The neurologist gave me a 1 percent chance to come out of the eight-day coma I was in.

I am alive and getting around.

With great interest I am following the story of Mrs. Terri Schiavo. I am glad that finally a guardian was appointed for her.

I believe if her family would read with her, eat with her, do things with her, she would get better -- like I did.

You've got the wrong guy

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Come on, Daily News. Get with the times!

This cartoon, above right, (published Monday) is way out of date.

You should have shown George W. Bush as the liar reading Rosie O'Donnell's inappropriate threat.

Bush and his administration have repeatedly lied to the American public and the rest of the world, e.g. that Iraq was an imminent threat to our national security, that we are safer now than we were before the invasion, and that the war is not about oil.

But then sex sells and is so much more sinful than the killing of over 350 U.S. servicemen/women, the wounding of 1,500 more and the killing of thousands of Iraqis.

Here we go again

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Let me concede at the outset that the undue influence of religion on secular matters is a delicate subject and I expect that theological extremists are likely to object.

But the intrusion of religion into current affairs has become so aggressive as to be an affront to Americans who do not accept the role of some deity in public policy, and this corruption of democracy needs to be identified and opposed.

The latest manifestation of religious distortion, of course, is in the Terri Schiavo case, where the right-to-life advocates and allied religious groups have persuaded Gov. Bush to intervene and halt humanitarian efforts to end the 13-year ordeal of the victim and her husband.

There is little doubt that the plug should be pulled, but hypocritical holy dissenters and their cohorts are reluctant to yield on the issue.

Radical theologians are also spreading their biased propaganda beyond these shores, preventing aid -- financial or otherwise -- to any countries, however needy, where family planning is a policy. Another damaging religious shibboleth.

Back home, right-to-lifers have been poisoning the atmosphere for years in the abortion dispute. Ultra-conservatives are also distorting the homosexual issues, on the specious grounds that being gay is a sin, according to Scriptures.

These and other offenses are solid reasons why moderates of both parties must continue to reject "wacko" right-wing candidates for judicial posts -- as "Rusty Limburger" might put it.

Room for improvement

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Just what is Veterans Day all about?

I began my career with IBM as a service technician in Nashville, Tenn., back in the 1960s. At that time all technicians began by servicing the lowly keypunch machine. After you proved your worth in that area, you moved on to bigger and better things.

My training ground was the Tennessee Department of Revenue. The keypunch area was an enormous room filled with 8 zillion keypunch machines. The assignment was a young man's dream. Those 8 zillion machines were staffed by 8 zillion young ladies.

The state observed many more holidays than did our company. We would take advantage of the time that state workers were off and we were working by doing preventive maintenance. On Veterans Day I was in the huge room all alone with the 8 zillion keypunch machines. As I worked away it suddenly occurred to me that something was wrong with this picture. All of those young ladies had the day off. Probably not one of them had ever been anywhere near a military installation. I am a veteran, and I was working.

What was wrong with that picture so many years ago is still wrong today. Why don't we honor the veteran by insuring that each and every veteran in the United States gets a holiday on Veterans Day or at least is compensated appropriately for working on a holiday? Would it be too far-fetched to suggest that veterans have the day off and everyone else has to work?

This is something that needs to happen!

Violence, violence, etc.

Editor, Naples Daily News:

President Bush spoke of stopping violence when he signed his and the Republican Congress' misnamed abortion prohibition law.

Yet, it is Bush himself who does and continues to do violence:

Violence to the right of women to control their private bodies.

Violence to our freedom of religion by his endorsement of the hateful fundamentalism of the twisted righteous.

Violence to the fabric of our society through obscene tax cuts for the rich and the concomitant, unimaginable financial burden shifted to our children.

Violence to the truth in his lies about the Iraq war.

Violence to the environment in his deceptively named air and water and forest initiatives.

Violence to our freedom of speech by his unlawful detentions and his equating dissent with treason.

President Bush's dangerous, self-righteous religious certitude (masked as self-confidence) produces a sick vision of everything in the world as either good or evil, with him the champion of the former. As the pope of the evangelicals, the fundamentalists and the biblical literalists, he knows absolute truth, and there is no room for tolerance of challenging or incompatible beliefs or interpretations.

This country and the world remain in peril as long we have such a violent president with few in power opposing his viciousness.

Disgusting

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Gene Vaccaro declared himself and presumably others as "behind enemy lines." Whether the Democrats' Countdown Rally number was 600 or 1,600, it is fortunately an insignificant number in the overall population. Frankly, this is disgusting leadership!

Plainly divisive, this attitude spawns the clearly orchestrated vitriolic rhetoric, full of outright lies, innuendo, misrepresentation, misquotes, distortion and spin we are subjected to on an almost daily basis on these pages by the rabid types who are clearly part of Mr. Vaccaro's "army."

This is patently aid and succor to our true enemies, the terrorists of al-Qaida and Iraq, and plainly encourages them in their cowardly attacks on our troops in the belief that this is evidence that will break the spirit of Americans and send us scurrying with our tail between our legs, as we did from Mogadishu, Somalia.

During World War II, there was a Briton who broadcast similar distorted propaganda, siding with Germany. His name was William Joyce with a radio name of Lord Haw-Haw.

After the war the Brits captured him and charged him with treason against the state, found him guilty and promptly hanged him.

When we face a war of any nature, where our government unanimously commits to the need, it is not unreasonable to expect solid support from the nation. After all, notwithstanding Mr. Vaccaro's "behind enemy lines" statement or our individual political persuasion, we are all Americans and the Pledge of Allegiance contains the words "...

One nation ... indivisible ... "

Apparently this is not so in Mr. Vaccaro's world.

Rest of the story

Editor, Naples Daily News:

All the facts, please! The Daily News repeatedly has shown a propensity for bias in articles involving issues related to teachers. Simply put, you foster an attitude of contempt and disregard. You deliver flawed information based on selective exclusion of pertinent data.

The "spin" continued with your article headlined "Staff got most of the $2.5 million in FCAT bonus cash." You neglected to include a key component by omitting the directives given in the state statute.

Why wasn't at least the intent of the law included in the article?

The law says in part: "The Legislature finds that there is a need for a performance incentive program for outstanding faculty and staff in highly productive schools. The Legislature further finds that performance-based incentives are commonplace in the private sector and should be infused into the public sector as a reward for productivity."

This entire law can be accessed at the Florida Department of Education Web site http://www.firn.edu/doe/opri/ leg.htm

Please note, even the state sees the need for a performance incentive program and that they are commonplace in the private sector. How many businessmen would be expected to use their earned bonus to purchase supplies?

Teachers deserve the FCAT bonus and much, much more.

What a bummer

Editor, Naples Daily News:

I, along with a full house, were witness to the latest production at Sugden Community Theatre last Sunday. I don't think that those who I discussed the play with are prudes, but we felt that this was not a play suitable to the Naples Players.

The set was spectacular. The acting was superb. The costumes were in very good taste. But the dialogue was not any of these. After the first half I was ready to go home, but my seat, being in the center of Row J, prevented a retreat, so I stayed. Not a good idea.

The reviews by Nancy Stetson and in letters to the editor indicated that this was not a play I would like to see, but I went anyway thinking I could depart if I needed to and go to the band in the park concert in Cambier Park.

I had brought my beach chair, too, just in case.

We who discussed the play wondered why they chose this particular play to produce. Out of the seven years of attendance, there was only one other play that I was displeased with. Not bad for seven years, but folks take heed. This ain't a nice play.

Giant step backward

Editor, Naples Daily News:

There are laws which prohibit practicing medicine without a license, yet, with a vote and a signature, Congress and the president have done just that. They have taken it upon themselves to unlawfully insinuate their will between a woman and her physician in the area of abortion.

This is an unprecedented act of raw, unreasoned power. Medical procedures do not fall within the realm of government "wisdom." The Congress and president are not qualified to prohibit anyone from getting what a licensed, professional physician deems necessary.

Any government powerful enough to forbid a procedure judged necessary by a physician is also powerful enough to force just such a procedure. Think about it. Be very afraid of a government which overreaches its proper place, and starts to practice medicine.

If a person does not completely own his/her own body, who does, the government? Anyone who does not own their own bodies owns nothing. The right to get any procedure deemed necessary by a woman and her physician must remain out of the realm of government or we potentially all lose the right to our own bodies.

And those who do not own their bodies are properly called "slaves."

Big stuff

Editor, Naples Daily News:

I heard a wise saying once: "Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff."

True -- with one exception: personal responsibility, especially in the public domain.

Whether some of Collier County Commissioner Jim Coletta's doublespeak is small stuff depends on our concern over destroyed protected lands. A quotation from his statement in the article on road expansion: "My concern is, and I hate to say this because I've been very active in the environmental movement myself ..."

Since when? I have a clear recollection of a photograph of Mr. Coletta standing on top of an all-terrain vehicle in the middle of Hard Luck Prairie. The occasion?

He was supporting a crowd of ATV riders in their lawsuit against the federal government because they were refused the right to expand their already permitted route to thousands of acres more of the Big Cypress National Park, home of many endangered plant and animal species.

However, Jim looks like a Sunday school teacher next to some.

I refer to the shocking editorial on Oct. 26, "Runaway growth reigns as protections slip away." Bruce Boler, an efficient federal environmental regulator, received an assignment to get a grip on growth run amok. Developers moved in on him and he quit. Nobody, but nobody should have that kind of limitless power.

Where were the commissioners? Hiding under the table, as usual.

Isn't it time to rein in these coat-and-tie anarchists? How about holding off on building permits until Boler or someone like him is reinstated and allowed to do this necessary job -- unimpeded?

Needed: new policy

Editor, Naples Daily News:

A letter to the editor by Roy Stull about Israel resulted in his being mailed a filthy- worded letter sent under my name. Any intelligent discussion on Israel's relationship to our country experiences such tactics.

Israel is a thorn in the side of this country. Unlimited and biased support of that religious state results in many international problems this nation faces. Many question the benefit of arming Israel with U.S. supplies and billions of dollars in yearly aid. The United States' Israeli policies result from heavy lobbying and un democratic meddling in our national affairs by foreign interests and Jewish organizations with a big purse -- some money given it by the country it preys upon! They simply cannot leave us alone!

Mossad, Israeli intelligence, operates a network of agents (sayanim) within the United States. The treason of Jonathan Pollard provided Israel with the greatest number of secrets ever stolen from this country. Where was the press when Israel recently launched three new nuclear- armed submarines and when it continues to build its wall fort around Palestinians -- enclosing the best lands? Why is any question of Israel automatically branded as anti-Semitism?

Many Israelis condemn policies of state-sponsored terrorism against Arab and Christian neighbors. Like any of us who want an end to this horrible situation, they are suppressed by those committed at any price to create a "Greater Israel." Peace will never occur in the world until the United States applies a fair Mideast policy. Too many forces are at work to assure this doesn't happen.

Spare us the spin

Editor, Naples Daily News:

I enjoy reading the letters about politics and in particular this president. Most who read what I write can conclude I am no fan of GeeW and rightly so.

One thing I have noticed about most letters defending this president is they do so with the absence of factual content, while his detractors employ facts, statistics and truth.

I too am a Republican. I was registered as an independent for many years before.

I share many of letter-writer Jane Varner's beliefs, as I do Regis Reynolds'.

Rarely do I feel the need to ask the likes of Barry Willoughby, why instead of personal attacks on people like Jim Reith, you won't defend this president with facts? I can only conclude you can't.

It's very sad for American ideology when dissent is considered unpatriotic and dangerous.

Vietnam has detained three unpatriotic monks under house arrest for two years without a hearing or trail; the communist administration concludes they are or may be a danger to the government. Vietnamese law allows detention for up to two years without a trial of anyone deemed a national security threat. This sounds frighteningly familiar. I guess we did learn a thing or two from our Vietnam experience.

So, Mr. Willoughby and others who defend the likes of GeeW, John Ashcroft, Paul Wolfowitz: your point would be much better received if you only employ facts instead of truly unpatriotic rhetoric.

Deal me in

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Poor old letter writer Fred Tobias and his golf woes!

Maybe its a virus that's going around!

I have it also!

Rx: Find some dummies and play gin rummy with them!