Daily dose of comment and insight from our readers.

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.

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Read more about it?

Editor, Daily News:

The Naples Art Association’s benefit at the von Liebig Art Center, “Richard Segalman: From His Collection to Yours,” was a smashing success! It was so well done and so exciting.

A raffle of 60 of Segalman’s drawings and watercolors donated from his personal collection, and an auction of his recent oil, “Gulf Breezes,” brought more than $122,000 to the Naples Art Association.

Bill and Barbara Meek have done so many wonderful things for Naples for so many years. This latest event was one of the best. I hope that someone at the Daily News will do a story on this, so it will long be remembered.

Peter Thomas/Naples

Captured

Editor, Daily News:

As an “old-time” photographer for the Bangor Daily News, I go back to the days of 4-by-5 Speed Graphic cameras and foil flash bulbs.

I would like to say that many of the photos produced by your staff are outstanding. For example, David Ahntholz’s photo of an ordinary event, the swamp buggy queen getting dunked in the Sippy Hole.

He captured the action!

Photographers, keep up the good work.

Gordon I. Erikson/Naples and Bar Harbor, Maine

Let us pray

Editor, Daily News:

Regarding that chicken or the egg thing that folks keep writing in about:

What difference does it make? Isn’t it enough that life on this planet is just the most remarkable thing ever? And doesn’t it make a person want to thank someone? Doesn’t it?

And, perhaps that is the main reason man feels so insufficient in himself. He needs someone to talk to — to talk to deeply, privately, to ask for help — but also to thank!

And the only answer to this need is God.

What made America great is that each of us here has the right to his own God.

I have mine, and He helps me so!

He is the one who keeps me honest, too — at least as far as I know.

Gratefully, I thank you, God.

It’s quite a show, this life.

James F. Cantwell Jr./Naples

Was and is about golf

Editor, Daily News:

My parents are residents of Riviera Golf Estates. They have told me of the possibility of the sale of the golf course to developers.

They have many concerns of how this will change their community. They are truly saddened that what they thought would be their retirement community could change, and that their over-55 lifestyle will never be the same. I have many concerns myself.

I wonder if it will still be the peaceful environment that it currently is. I wonder how developers can ruin a beautiful golf course, which my father enjoys playing with his grandsons, by filling in lakes, tearing down trees.

Commissioners should see what kind of effect this could have. Lifestyles of those who maybe cannot afford to move and who thought they would live out their retirement in a golf-course community will change forever.

And why? Because of the greed of certain people who have the ability to decide the fate of a wonderful community. I hope others will come forward in this fight to keep Riviera Golf Estates as is — a golf community.

Victoria Sheahan/Centreville, Va.

Bundles, pieces of problems

Editor, Daily News:

Re: Riviera Golf Estates.

It would not be a monolithic lot being crammed full of gap housing.

Even a cursory look at the county land maps available on the Internet indicate that the existing golf course is four separate lots of tracts separated by housing and roads. Several of the lots appear to have very restricted access (golf cart trails). Therefore, in my view, any action on this land has to be done on a parcel-by-parcel basis.

I am concerned that any other action, such as treating these noncontiguous lots as a single entity, will establish a very dangerous precedent in land use. I can see developers in the future using this precedent to buy up and amalgamate into their development any parcels nearby to increase acreage, thereby increasing the number of units to be built and the profits to be gained, while skirting around land-use and growth regulations.

While building the maximum number of units on the main parcel, the outlying parcels may be designated preserve, or some such title, to avoid the costs of development as multiple, smaller parcels. I can even foresee an attempt to sell the outlying parcels to another developer so that these parcels can be amalgamated into another development, thereby being used a second time to increase acreage and the resulting housing density on the main lot.

William M. Cannon/Naples

Way out of bounds

Editor, Daily News:

Everywhere I go in East Naples, I see land — open land, buildable land — land that, if developed for affordable housing, would not disrupt the lives of 700 families, which would be the case if the golf course at Riviera Golf Estates were taken for such a project.

The original documents stipulate that land’s use should be forever a golf course. Let’s keep it that way.

Mary Teden-Doe/Naples

Way of life at stake

Editor, Daily News:

As a full-time resident and voter, I wish to express my dismay at the possibility of erecting a large gap housing development on the existing golf course in Riviera Golf Estates, a 55-plus retirement community. The effect on this community and the surrounding area would be devastating.

With all the expensive construction that has been going on in Collier County, plans should have been made to provide housing for the people required to service all these developments. Now, the people of Riviera Golf Estates are expected to shoulder the burden of fixing this problem, at the expense of changing their whole way of life.

My wife, Carol, and I, as well as many of our friends and neighbors, believe that a great injustice is being perpetrated on the owners of Riviera Golf Estates and that there has to be an alternate site where this gap housing can be built without causing such an adverse effect on so many current residents.

We request that the county commissioners vote against any proposed zone change that the developers would need in order to build on the existing golf course.

William J. Donovan/Naples

The law counts

Editor, Daily News:

Here yet is another follower of the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, Wolfowitz, Gonzales fascist doctrine of “any means justifies the ends” (as in, “We don’t need any stinking laws”).

Letter writer Ron Townsend lauds Franklin Roosevelt for incarcerating American citizens of Japanese descent for the duration of World War II.

The Supreme Court held constitutional the law, thus establishing the “clear and present danger” doctrine.

Townsend states it’s still a good law today. He laments that there is a “clear and present danger” we can be “attacked by a bunch of Islamic-fascists“

To thwart this attack we could round up every Muslim in the U.S. — that’s only about 5.2 million — hire Halliburton, et al., to build the camps and manage them to boot. That would increase their stock nicely and reward Bush’s base handsomely.

He berates “those who weep and whine over the so-called domestic spying program ... because it erodes their constitutional rights.”

He must be the one Ben Franklin was thinking of when he wrote “they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.”

I agree, Mr. Townsend: I’m not concerned who reads my mail, taps my phone, checks what books I read, etc.

Where we disagree is this must be according to law.

The government must show probable cause to require a warrant from a judge — not some Nazi, Gestapo, sneaky, secret, dishonest, underhanded way of bypassing our laws.

Heil Bush — the worst president ever. Bar none.

John F. Riccio/Naples

Follow the money

Editor, Daily News:

Regarding Vanderbilt Beach Road extension and last Monday night’s workshop:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to decide on which proposal! Let’s see: Take people’s livelihoods and homes, or vacant land and golf course. (Oh yeah, that’s right. We’re talking Collier County.)

But let’s not all forget who is pushing for the south-side extension — big money by the name of WCI and golf courses.

So don’t give up, neighbors, or give in. It’s only just begun! I think these commissioners have forgotten how they got their jobs — from us taxpaying citizens.

Watch out. Elections are coming up.

And also, they think it’s too expensive to run the road on the north side. Try taking our land and homes. They have no idea the price they will pay. They say they don’t have the funds now for the roads. Just wait till they start writing those checks for our homes and land.

Ching, ching.

Richard and Cheryl Williams/Golden Gate Estates

When will they ever learn?

Editor, Daily News:

I want to take this time to thank Democrat Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts. They have helped me in my decision to continue to vote Republican.

Kennedy’s performance at Judge Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearings was ridiculous. Kerry continues to show why he wasn’t elected president, nor will be elected in 2008 should he run.

The Democratic Party needs to understand God is holy, abortion is murder and war is sometimes necessary.

David R. Stevens/Naples

The no-spin church zone

Editor, Daily News:

Talk about having your cake and eating it, too! The homosexual activists have come as close to this as possible with their response to the homosexual scandals within our Catholic Church. The facts show that this is overwhelmingly an assault of male on young male — young, post-pubescent individuals such as altar boys. The activist homosexual “prizes” the young. This is clearly evidenced in the efforts of NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) to lower the age of sexual consent to 12 years old.

When we read about these scandalous events within the church we must recognize them for what they are, which is overwhelmingly homosexual attacks upon young males by sinful priests. We must remember not to paint all priests with this stripe of guilt.

Extensive studies on these molestations show 2 percent to 3 percent of priests are guilty. The vast majority are good and noble shepherds of the flock they serve.

Let’s get the facts on the table. Homosexual activists are spinning this story from primarily a homosexual problem to a child molestation/pedophilia problem — while at the same time attacking and silencing the very church which for 2,000 years has been consistent on Christ’s teachings on the evil of this lifestyle. Catholic theology clearly teaches that the homosexual lifestyle is sinful and disordered.

Once the homosexual priests who entered our church through a flawed seminary process are no longer admitted, the problem will stop. No matter how you spin it, it is as “simple” as that.

Jim Finnegan/Naples

Real people, real service

Editor, Daily News:

It pays to call your congressman!

My six-month problem was resolved in only three weeks by U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV’s office.

Following my mother’s move from a New York nursing home to a Florida nursing home, her Social Security checks stopped for six months, even after the necessary paperwork was processed to redirect her checks.

I checked the Internet (htpp://mack.house.gov/) and called three offices of Rep. Mack:

-- Naples: 774-8035 — I left a message which was promptly returned.

-- Washington: (202) 225-2536 — Referred me to a specific person in the Fort Myers office for Social Security matters.

-- Fort Myers: 332-4677 — Handled and resolved the problem within three weeks.

Needless to say, both the nursing home and I are happy with the results. I duly appreciate the efficiency and promptness with which this matter was handled, and praise all his staff for doing their jobs; i.e., helping the public.

In addition, for those of us who are annoyed with endless phone menus to reach a real, live person, I reached two out of three immediately.

Mary Abbott Smith/Naples

Still up to us

Editor, Daily News:

Two years ago, I moved my family to Naples hoping for a happy new life in the sun. My younger daughter, then 11 years old, struggled to cope with the transition and loss of her friends.

She had been in a special-needs program in England, and her new teachers here did an excellent job in helping her to settle. However, she has been picked on relentlessly by the boys at school about her accent, and laughed at and teased because we have an unfortunate last name.

My daughter has a cyst on her brain that affects her balance so she cannot do any sporting activities. She is also behind academically and constantly striving to keep up. All of this restricts her ability to find a peer group and accentuates her isolation.

She was always a happy, sunny child, but her personality is changing due to the constant stress of dealing with the teasing and name-calling. It breaks my heart to see her losing confidence and dreading Monday mornings.

There’s only so much a school can do to deal with bullying — teachers can’t be everywhere all the time.

Raising a child who has compassion, understanding and empathy is the job of parents.

Please teach your children to consider the consequences of their words and actions. They could be responsible for making another child’s life a misery.

Nina Mold/Naples

Out, out and away

Editor, Daily News:

We often hear that the freedoms we enjoy are “God-given rights,” but it wasn’t the clergy who wrote the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Nor was it the prophets who gave us democracy. These ideas came from the secular.

The Christian Church had known for centuries about Greek democracy but did nothing to advance the rights of man during the reign of the European monarchs. Quite the contrary, it formed dual dictatorships with the monarchs in order to maintain absolute rule over its people. Throughout the centuries the clergy never interpreted the Bible as providing for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or the right to assemble.

The faithful often put their religion above the Constitution. If you had to make a decision to live under one or the other, which would you choose? Would you give up all your civil rights under the Constitution? Would you put the safety of your family into the hands of a biblical autocracy ruled by the pope, Osama bin Laden, Pat Robertson or other spokesman of God?

I have no problem with “In God We Trust” and other historical mentions of God. However, religion itself gives no guarantee of earthly “due process.” Because of this, I feel we would all be a lot safer if we kept religion out of government and, in all fairness, government out of religion.

Tom Napolitano/Naples and Nanuet, N.Y.

Two small points

Editor, Daily News:

The Daily News is to be commended for printing Ivan Seligman’s letter, “Just one small point.”

Seligman laments “our taking freedom for granted and our collective forgetting of wounded veterans and millions of lives lost in all wars.”

Accentuating Seligman’s observation, it seems that too many of America’s citizens don’t want to serve their country, pay taxes or vote. Yet, so many of us never hesitate to belly up to the money trough.

It would probably be a shock to know what percentage of our congressional membership has served America, aside from the existing bloated financial bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, on another topic, you can always tell when a fresh load of corn has rolled into town: Your paper prints a letter from Fred Tobias!

Ed Frick/Naples

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