Letters to the Editor: June 12

Letter of the Day: Running on empty

Editor, Daily News:

Roads? Who needs roads?

The government must not think them needed. Astaldi Construction Co.? Nope, we are left wondering and laughing, in the case of Bonita Springs Mayor Jay Arend. While certain blame cannot be placed on one individual nor one organization, it can be blamed on one age-old problem — laziness and apathy.

It's symptomatic of a larger problem, an epidemic of bureaucratic "boondogglery," if I can coin a phrase. The inmates are running the asylum.

Astaldi is bonused to the tune of $1 million (Daily News, June 7) to finish "on schedule." Huh? Isn't that a requirement of contracts? Only does the public's money in the hands of the irresponsible spend so easily! And only $1 million — a pittance — after all, it is not the city's money, it is yours and mine!

Let's do the math: penalties start May 9 at $6,078 dollars per day, so they could go to nearly Dec. 1 before their $1 million bonus is eaten up. Where is their incentive? In the bilking of Bonita Springs, and our government's willingness to take one for the team — against our wishes!

I drove the forsaken road today and counted 13 large vehicles ... 12 sat idle. Nice job, Bonita, in exemplifying to my children on how not to perform in the world! And clever of the lofty neighbor, Collier County, in their due diligence discovering Astaldi's outstanding reputation. You take "outstanding" however you like, I know what I mean. Astaldi, be proud, you have taken it to the next level.

Brian Nelson , Naples

Letter of the Day: Got it made

Editor, Daily News:

Playing in the shade!

Kudos to the city of Naples community services department for putting up beautiful green sun-sail shades over the new park equipment at Fleishmann Park.

We were there last Saturday at 2 in the afternoon when it was almost 90 degrees outside. It was beautiful under the shade sails and many kids were running around — and the parents were watching without passing out!

Normally you can't go to any playground past morning once June hits, but these shades made it unbelievably bearable!

I hope Collier County will follow by putting some of these shade sails at its playgrounds.

Michele and Chelsea Baker , Naples

Letter: What I mean to say

Editor, Daily News:

Within two blocks of my house, an attractive lodging and restaurant establishment displays a sign that declares "French and German spoken here."

If the English-only movement is successful, will they have to change it to "Only English spoken here"?

Will all foreign language accommodation be forbidden, or will the ban be more keenly focused on one particular foreign language?

Will all good, true American patriots be expected to honor the ban in both their private and business lives? Will foreign language teachers in our schools be considered unpatriotic?

It is illogical to suppose that a ban on the business use of Spanish in places like Publix or Home Depot will help ease the social discomfort that has resulted from the most recent immigration. If we are unable to feel sufficient compassion for the newcomers to help ease their struggles to learn a new language, at least let's not follow the lead of the English-only radicals. They appear to be consumed by hate. Their insistence that people speak a language they cannot speak is the linguistic equivalent to punishing a helpless puppy for not doing a trick that it cannot do.

Encouragement works better.

There is a meanness in some people that we should not encourage — nor should we let them be in charge.

George Kearney , Naples

Letter: Lifestyles

Editor, Daily News:

The cost of housing and almost everything else has risen astronomically in the past 50 years.

I bought my first two-bedroom house in California in 1960 for $7,000.

In three years, I bought my second house for $18,000 in a new tract.

In 1970, I bought my third house for $28,000.

In three years, I bought a mobile home on seven acres. I don't remember the cost. I moved back to town in three years and paid $45,000 for a three-bedroom house.

I then moved to Arkansas in 1983 and bought an old house on 14 acres for $18,000. In 1986, I moved to Florida and bought my present house (800 square feet) on five acres for $44,000. I'm told I could sell it for about $300,000 now.

Collier County has become too expensive for people who are on the lower echelon of society. This is not a good place for people of modest means to rent or buy. I couldn't afford to move here now if I had to do it all over again.

I am one of a fortunate few. I live well on $803 a month Social Security. I am eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. I live simply but have what I need to be reasonably comfortable. I didn't even save for my retirement.

I couldn't live like most people in Collier County. They want too many things and aren't taught to be thrifty and frugal.

The chasm between rich and poor grows ever wider.

Eddie Filer , Big Corkscrew Island

Letter: Hate it when she's right?

Editor, Daily News:

Please refer to Hans Mirka's recent letter citing Jane Varner's "diatribe."

Mirka specifically refers to Varner's "blind hatred," which prompts me to ask: Is it possible that he's been reading a new book? There's plenty of social hostility without feeling compelled to accuse Varner of the hate syndrome (which makes about as much sense as accusing Pat Robertson of being a flaming liberal).

Mirka also refers to Vice President Dick Cheney voicing a criticism of Moscow, as if to put a clincher on Mirka's position. If the public opinion polls can be any indication, very little credence can be given a Cheney comment.

Guilty of blind hate? No, but Jane Varner is sure guilty of being intelligent.

Ed Frick , Naples

Letter: Honked off

Editor, Daily News:

Thank you, Jack Tymann, for your wonderful June 4 Perspective guest commentary on "Time out in America."

I agree wholeheartedly.

Except, you forgot to include yourself. In my opinion, you also need a big "time out" and a good, long look in the mirror in your special room with your maker for a broader view of humanity.

Though you do live in Pelican Bay, what more is there to say except what's good for all of the geese should also be good for the goose.

Or should we all just roll over and play dead?

That's not the American way.

Pat Solie , Naples

Letter: Treat them in return

Editor, Daily News:

Vineyards Elementary School teachers and staff members would like to thank the Stonewood Grill for inviting our staff to lunch on June 2 to celebrate the end of the school year.

Jennifer Getz from the Tampa office and Anthony Valvano, the manager at the local Stonewood Grill on Airport-Pulling and Vanderbilt Beach roads, were so gracious.

The food was outstanding, and the service was impeccable.

Residents of Collier County, if you haven't had the pleasure of eating at Stonewood Grill, please make plans to have dinner there and let them know what a nice gesture it was for them to do this for the teachers of Vineyards Elementary.

Mary Smith , Principal, Vineyards Elementary School

Letter: Onward and upward

Editor, Daily News:

I am happy to report to the many dedicated citizens out there who generously supported Eagle Forum's luncheon and private party when Phyllis Schlafly was in town in March for the 26th year.

Over 100 high school graduates are now in Washington for a three-day meeting with conservative congressmen with Schlafly.

Eagle Forum has a great leadership course for these wonderful young men and women to take back to their respective colleges. Surely, your readers must know how important this is.

I want to congratulate Sandy McShea on going to Notre Dame and Brad Bailey, who is heading off to Harvard. They are the local students to whom we gave scholarships.

Needless to say, they will be our leaders of tomorrow. We hope to sponsor more from Naples next year.

God bless America.

Alyse O'Neill , President, Eagle Forum, Naples Chapter

Letter: This is not helping

Editor, Daily News:

It is certainly a sorry day when the American mainstream media chooses to malign and defame our Marines and military in Iraq who have, throughout history, demonstrated not only their bravery and heroism to keep us free, but compassion towards all civilian noncombatants, especially women and children.

The media convicts them of wrongdoing in articles such as "Killings toughen U.S. job; Haditha revelations give boost to insurgency" and "Abuses taint all American troops."

They contain innuendo couched in terms such as "allegedly," but with clear words of conviction that they are guilty without waiting for the results of the ongoing inquiry.

There are also related stories on civilian casualties without telling the American public and the world that most of these casualties, both Shiites and Sunnis, were caused by terrorists and al-Qaida, a great many to provoke sectarian violence.

Just how many more than the 300,000-plus civilians murdered by Saddam Hussein up to 2003 would have been killed had he stayed in power?

Ralph E. Patsfall , Fort Myers

Letter: Not the first

Editor, Daily News:

The massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq, has been featured prominently in recent headlines.

The Pentagon tries to explain away this incident as an anomaly. In reality, it was anything but. On Oct. 17, 2005, a U.S. jet bombed a crowd of civilians near Ramadi. Eighteen children and seven adults were killed.

On Nov. 19, the Haditha massacre took place. U.S. Marines fired on a taxi and stormed three houses in Haditha, massacring 24 unarmed men, women, and children. They shot some victims in the head while they knelt and pleaded for mercy. They threw a grenade onto the lap of a blind grandfather who was confined to a wheelchair. They burned his son to death. They were laughing all the while.

On March 15, 2006, U.S. soldiers raided a house in Ishaki. They tied up and executed a family of at least 11 men, women, and children, including a 6-month-old infant. Then they called in an air strike to destroy the house and the evidence.

On April 26 in Hamdaniya, Marines dragged a middle-aged, disabled Iraqi man from his house and shot him dead. Then they planted a shovel and an assault rifle on the body, pretending that this innocent civilian was an insurgent killed while placing a roadside bomb.

On May 31 near Samarra, a pregnant Iraqi woman and her cousin were killed when a U.S. sniper fired two bullets through their car's windshield.

These murders are war crimes and must be punished as such.

Michael Rodriguez , Naples

Letter: VA and a little spice

Editor, Daily News:

So we have a class action lawsuit against Veterans Affairs because one of its employees took home files on 26 million veterans, thus making their personal data at risk for crooks to use in identity theft. The suit asks damages of $1,000 per veteran or a total of $26 billion.

As a veteran, I stand to benefit, or do I? If The VA loses, the U.S. government must raise another $26 billion. As a high-rate taxpayer, what will my share of this be?

Then there must be a crowd of lawyers pushing the suit. From what I have read, they will get most of any award. Hopefully, my share will cover my tax increase.

But what if my ID is stolen and I take a big hit? The class action will prevent me from going after appropriate damages from the VA. We need to change the law to prevent maggot lawyers from feasting on the carcasses of both sides in a class action suit which they cook up. ( No offense intended to my honest lawyer friends.)

And while we're at it, we need to appoint Supreme Court justices who will correct the greatest mistake the court ever made when it ruled that lawyers and doctors had the right to clutter up the papers and airwaves with advertisements.

Or, if we cannot accomplish that, let's add a little spice to things by permitting crooks to advertise offers to split the loot with anyone who gives them a good lead.

Harold Ford , Naples

Letter: The 3 Ts

Editor, Daily News:

I agree with Dianne Shanley's June 7 letter that urged readers to "become part of the solution."

We need to let the Collier County commissioners, Collier Environmental Advisory Council and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers know that more is not better, and that we oppose developers buying more and more of our decreasing supply of land and building even more golf course communities and strip malls.

We need to say that we care about environmentally sensitive wetlands that support our dwindling native fauna and flora and also serve as an aquifer for our water supply.

We need to support groups such as the National Audubon Society, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the Florida Wildlife Federation by volunteering our time, talent and our treasure to help their cause (and support their timely lawsuit against the cluster of five major developments in northern Collier County that would destroy 1,500 acres of wetlands).

Incidentally, during the past few days I heard three different full-time Naples residents relating why they are selling and leaving "paradise." They said they cannot stand to see Naples change so drastically — and not for the better.

They cannot deal with the overdevelopment, traffic and infrastructure problems, the fight to keep Naples a nice place to live and the constantly escalating cost to live here. They feel that more is not better.

Let's all become part of the solution. Let's get the important message out to those who can do something about it:

More is not better.

Connie S. Kindsvater , Naples

Letter: Critical conditions

Editor, Daily News:

Rarely do most great nations realize when they are in their death throes. Undoubtedly, the citizens of ancient Rome should have done more than merely attend the games, and the Aztecs should have challenged the bluster of the Conquistadors.

We Americans have an advantage, in that we have the ability, if not the willingness, to diagnose that we are in fact dying. As importantly, we are also able to identify the diseases that may do us in.

Our public school system is yielding far too few educated citizens to support the needs of our future society. It is primarily the horrors that they succeed in teaching that provides the quandary. Money hasn't, and cannot, cure this problem. We cannot be "both free and ignorant." This is the disease of pollution.

If the ludicrous Senate Immigration Bill becomes law, there will be 60 million to 200 million new "residents" over the next 20 years. This will destroy the cultural forces that have allowed us to be the greatest global benefactor. Most of these new arrivals will be uneducated agrarians. This is the disease of dilution.

With political correctness running amok, we are unwilling to comfort the hideous brutality of the worldwide Islamic jihad. Look at Europe to see this disease in its early stages. Muslims, as a fulfillment of Islamic dogma, consume their host countries through violence, threats of savagery and/or by sheer weight of reproductive success. This is the disease of displacement.

If you're old enough (80 or more), your nation's demise probably won't happen in your lifetime. If you are younger, however, then your failure to respond appropriately to the diseases above will have you living within the "corpse" of an America that used to be, but no longer is.

Andrew R. Joppa , Naples

Letter: Age 99 — and still right on

Editor, Daily News:

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, birthplace, or origin.

But this is predicted upon the person becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all.

We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language; and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.

This I believe. So did Theodore Roosevelt. He spoke these words in 1907!

Henry Holzkamper , Naples

Letter: Bend and stretch

Editor, Daily News:

Once and for all, let us discuss the "facts" regarding the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction; then move on.

It simply doesn't matter what others thought about WMDs, as they didn't have the current "intel" on the same. As the most current "intel" clearly stated there was no substantive evidence that indeed existed.

Many former operatives, inspectors and analysts have come out and openly stated this was, and is, what they told the powers that be; and that this "real" intelligence was ignored or "cherrypicked."

This is why people can say with confidence that truth was indeed stretched.

If you stretch the truth, is it still the truth?

Not that I am holier than thou. It's just that the truth means so much more to some people than it does to others.

Unfortunately, truth was the first casualty of this war.

Robert G. Jenkins , Naples

Letter: That bugs me

Editor, Daily News:

Shame on the Daily News for publishing Barry Willoughby's ugly, mean-spirited personal attack letter on John Riccio, a local hero and strong supporter of our troops.

Willoughby's vicious language, obviously fueled by a sense of impotence over his party's total incompetence and failures, passed a line that I thought the Daily News had drawn.

Willoughby's reference to cockroaches in his letter was ironic. Cockroaches run for cover when the light hits them.

A lot of conservative cockroaches have taken cover in recent years, since the light of truth has been shone on the miserable, pathetic, unbelievably inept performances of virtually every government department touched by this unfit-for-office bunch of clowns.

Willoughby would do well to try not to embarrass himself anymore by trying to defend the indefensible.

Robert E. Dimond , Naples

Letter: Then drop it

Editor, Daily News:

The Naples City Council is wasting a lot of time discussing how much money they can get out of the Naples Airport Authority.

The question shouldn't be to complain about low lease payments. They need to determine how much the city spends on the airport and decide if they want to keep paying them or have the airport reimburse the city for those costs.

If the answer is the city doesn't contribute any money to support the airport, then the issue should be dropped.

The Airport Authority and the city are both public entities. Maybe the City Council should ask the School Board to pay them some money, because some of the schools are inside the city limits. That would make as much sense as the current complaint about low lease payments.

After all, what percent of the people in Naples have kids in school? That is the kind of argument we are hearing as a reason for trying to get more money from the airport.

The airport wasn't built to enrich the City Council.

Brian Betsworth , Naples

Letter: Tragic, peculiar

Editor, Daily News:

Your coverage (or lack thereof) of the triathlon on Sunday, June 4, is mysterious and once again shows the lack of judgment by the sports/news editors.

It was a great event, involving some 300 participants, plus a large crowd; and you completely ignored it.

How tragic. How peculiar.

Also, your sports department's lack of interest in collegiate lacrosse all season is not understood. You did cover Duke's unfortunate situation. Why? Sensationalism? But weekly scores were entirely missing.

You did us the favor of at least publishing the NCAA finals a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, well.

Boyd McDowell II , Naples

Letter: Let us prey

Editor, Daily News:

The last thing his religious adviser, whom he was visiting, whispered in Zarqawi's ear: "The wages of sin are death."

Jim Lennane , Naples

Letter: Let's do it

Editor, Daily News:

As reported June 8, the Naples City Council wants the Naples Airport Authority to "consider renegotiating the $1 a year lease agreement to operate Naples Municipal Airport on 700 acres of city-owned property."

Yes, that would seem only fair and equitable. If we taxpaying citizens are expected to pay a "fair-market" rate on property we own, the Naples Airport Authority should be expected to pay a "fair-market" rate on property that the City of Naples owns.

Assuming the city can legally charge the authority a fair-market lease amount, as City Attorney Robert Pritt has opined, one would hope that both our City Council and the NAA will work together on this to do the right thing for the taxpaying citizens of Naples.

T.M. Laughlin , Naples

Letter: No comment?

Editor, Daily News:

As baseball's latest drug/steroid scandal unfolds, it is quite telling that Fort Myers Miracle manager Kevin Boles refused to comment on the issue, hoping to avoid putting baseball in a negative light.

It brings to mind a spring training interview one or two years ago with Red Sox manager Terry Francona.

When asked about a (now) long-forgotten scandal, Francona claimed to never see any evidence of drug/steroid use in decades of big-league clubhouse life.

Unfortunately, this "See no evil, Hear no evil, Admit no evil" attitude by people at all levels of management, and all levels of all organizations, is exactly why the game is now such a mess.

The league that had the nerve and foresight to confront their demons decades ago was the NFL. It is also one of the reasons why football is our new national pastime and baseball fans will forever be condemned to looking back at the good old days.

Frank Madden , Golden Gate Estates

Letter: Trilingual

Editor, Daily News:

Think of all our legal immigrants coming to America, working, paying taxes, obeying the laws of the land, going to high school or obtaining a tutor to learn English.

They may soon have to learn Spanish.

Maxine Newman , Naples