Letters to the Editor: June 11, 2006

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. Letters can also be submitted via e-mail at letters@naplesnews.com.

Letter of the Day: Missed — most of the time

Editor, Daily News:

My wife and I live on Crayton Road in Naples, and we lost two big banyans to Hurricane Wilma last fall.

So we were interested in the note in Jeff Lytle's column last Sunday about the area making a nice comeback.

We miss our banyans. They provided a good deal of shade, privacy and beauty.

All the same, in my daily walks around the neighborhood lately, I've been reminded there's another, untidy side to banyans — one that led me a while ago to compose the following, to be sung to the tune of "(I'll Be With You In) Apple Blossom Time":

We'll be getting bombed in banyan berry time,
Then the sprinklers will turn it all to slime.
When those trees shed
Sidewalks run red
And on driveways cars lose their tread.
What a shady canopy they make;
What a bloody mess left in their wake.
I wouldn't mind
If I could squeeze them for wine
In banyan berry time.

— Henry de Fiebre / Naples

Mother knows best

Editor, Daily News:

As one of the hundreds of graduating seniors from our Collier County Public Schools this year, I have much love and respect for the families, teachers and community members who have made possible this special high school experience.

However, along with families and teachers, let us not forget to thank the guidance counselors who have helped guide us through high school and into the college or career of our choice.

Each of us at Naples High School can thank at least one these special people: Steve Weigle, Bernardo Torres, Evan Flamer, Robert Bradford and Lauren Bailey. Our guidance counselors spend a tremendous amount of time helping students balance their schedules, answering questions about classes and post-secondary schools, and writing many letters of recommendations for college.

Lauren Bailey is my mother. I want to offer her special thanks for guiding me through every day for over 18 years!

To my fellow classmates, don't forget to thank your parents, family members, teachers, administrators and guidance counselors for guiding you through such a memorable high school experience.

— Bradford Bailey / Naples

Picture this

Editor, Daily News:

It has come to a point in America that freedom of the press, innocent until proven guilty and always tell the truth have lost their true meaning.

I took my video camera down to the beach last Sunday. With camera and tripod in hand I carefully set up and composed each shot.

I shot sailboats, windsurfers, sea shells and a couple of men masterfully bouncing a soccer ball back and forth using their heads. The Naples Police stopped me.

Some woman had complained and assumed I was photographing her kids. I was told I needed a permit to shoot video on the beach, they wrote up what an officer called a "rap sheet" on me to put in their files.

They basically called me a liar and said I was guilty of everything someone had assumed I was doing.

Were the police harassing every person with a pair of binoculars or a camera phone?

Were they going through every cooler on the beach for alcohol?

Taking pictures in public is covered under the First Amendment but only if you have a permit from the city or nobody knows you're doing it and local code supercedes the Constitution.

Taking clandestine pictures with a camera phone, I would assume, warrants a permit from the city like any other camera.

The line between professional and amateur photography is crossed when you use the end result for profit in commercial use. I say if you don't want to be in the picture, get out of the shot.

— David Neesley / Naples

Safe boating no accident

Editor, Daily News:

In a June 1 editorial, credit was given, deservedly so, to the Parker family who facilitated a water rescue in New Pass.

The National Safe Boating Campaign slogan this year is "You're In Command — Boat Responsibly." As an auxiliarist with the U.S.

Coast Guard, I have four additional comments.

1.) Be an educated boater. Take a safe boating class through your local U.S.C.G. Auxiliary. Instructors are trained, certified, have local knowledge and boating experience.

Learn navigation, radio, weather, boat handling, GPS and more. Seventy percent of boating fatalities involve boaters with no formal training and who lacked skills in boat handling and/or boating safety. Graduates have good safety records and may receive discounts from insurance companies.

2.) Boat safely. Get a free vessel exam from your local auxiliary. Many times these exams find equipment which is lacking or outdated.

The decal awarded shows you are a conscientious boater. Also, remember, always file a float plan.

3.) Boat sober. Mixing alcohol with other stressors on the water like sun, heat, wave motion and weather is an invitation to disaster!

4.) Safe boaters save lives! Wear your PFD (life jacket). Of 676 boating fatalities in 2004, some 431 were not wearing a PFD.

Flotilla 93, Naples, will offer its next Basic Boating Skills and Seamanship course starting July 6. For more information, call 649-1080.

— Nancy Reisner / Naples

For the U.S.C.G. Auxiliary, Flotilla 93

Rhetoric and retaking the beach

Editor, Daily News:

I for one am sick of the continuous anti-Bush rhetoric, with no constructive solutions or alternatives proposed. I wish all the serial letter writers would do something positive, instead of attacking their keyboards and president at every turn. Rather than demeaning our president and military why don't they channel their anger and revulsion to positive purposes?

Those who have any knowledge whatsoever, other than of the Daily News' address, would be aware of the America First Committee and its platform prior to World War II. It has been hijacked by Pat Buchanan and the far right, but there is no reason that the anti-war crowd cannot take over America First or create a new party with an anti-war, isolationist platform.

After all, they say that 65-70 percent of Americans support their views. It should be a slam dunk.

I would much rather see constructive political opposition through legitimate means, rather than see a bedraggled Bush-hating protester demean the service and sacrifice of our lost military personnel on the beach in Naples.

I cannot help but wonder why the Naples mayor and City Council allow these protests to go on. The Naples Pier is a landmark in this area, and to have a politically motivated spectacle there every holiday is ridiculous.

If no permit is required, why doesn't the local VFW or other organizations use that section of the beach to honor our veterans, instead of allowing a small group of malcontents to dishonor them?

— Robert Trainor / Naples

From first to worst

Editor, Daily News:

Ronald Reagan said in his first presidential campaign, against Jimmy Carter: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

If this now famous question were asked today and expanded to five and a half years, only a small percentage Americans would answer "Yes."

Even those few who could possibly answer "Yes" would be wrong, once they put aside their greed and political hard-right views, or maybe they just cannot admit they voted for the wrong people.

The damage to the United States and the world inflicted by this administration and our Republican-led Congress is absolutely criminal.

In a survey conducted last month, Reagan, who had a Democrat Congress, was labeled the best president in the last 50 years.

George W. Bush with his Republican Congress of today was the worst.

— Joseph Yurko / Naples and Tuckerton, N.J.