June 27, 2009 06:49 pm
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No justification for calls to censor Toles
This is in response to Van Cottom’s latest contribution. In a letter published June 10, Mr. Cottom stated that the editorial cartoons of Mr. Tom Toles were both “unnecessary, and generally demeaning to your readership”, and went on to ask “that the Tribune-Star cease featuring this degrading material.”
When called on this blatant encouragement of censorship by another letter writer, he then changed his story. Now, he states that he only wants the cartoons removed because they are “inappropriate” for the children that he teaches to read from the Tribune-Star, not because he wishes to stifle any thought, opinion or idea that is different than his own. I’d like to remind Mr. Cottom that subscribers who pay to receive the paper tend to be adults, not children. Therefore the content tends to be geared toward adults.
Does Mr. Cottom also teach the children to read from the articles written about child molesters, drug dealers and murderers that are featured in the Tribune-Star? I don’t consider that appropriate material for children, either. Would Mr. Cottom like to have any unpleasant news removed also, in order to protect the children? If we stop printing anything that isn’t “appropriate for children” in our paper, we will soon find that our newspaper is pretty short on any newsworthy material.
Might I suggest that Mr. Cottom avail himself of the thousands of children’s books that are readily obtained at the Vigo County Public Library? They are chock full of material that is appropriate for children, written specifically with younger readers in mind, and they have the added bonus of being free to borrow.
Don’t try to justify censorship by blaming it on a noble cause.
— Jenny Zacha
Terre Haute
More letters, Page D3
Dershowitz might be on right track
As one of the premier legal minds in America, Alan Dershowitz probably has better credentials for a position on the Supreme Court than most appointed to that bench. Few have exceeded his study and defense of our Constitution, our civil rights and our civil liberties. As teacher, attorney and author of about 20 books over half a lifetime, he merits some respect on matters judicial.
“Shouting Fire” is a voluminous collection of his writings over four decades. It was published in the year following the 9/11 tragedy and, among many other issues, addresses the subject of terrorism in a way that demands a radical shift in our thinking.
The new paradigm he proposes seems to play havoc with his reputation as a legal scholar as well as a quintessential liberal. Far more than laws restricting the speech of anyone falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater, or, for that matter, inciting a jihadist attack, Dershowitz petitions for a congressional statute designed to prevent the horror of a new 9/11 attack or far worse.
The new law would prevent rogue interrogators (whether in the CIA, FBI, military or other security agencies) from initiating torture techniques to extract vital information. Instead, Dershowitz urges a “procedure for advance judicial scrutiny. This would be akin to the warrant requirement in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is a traditional role for judges to play, since it is the job of the judiciary to balance the needs for security against the imperatives of liberty. Interrogators from the security service are not trained to strike such a delicate balance. Their mission is single-minded: to prevent terrorism. Similarly, the mission of civil liberties lawyers who oppose torture is single-minded: to vindicate the individual rights of suspected terrorists. It is the role of the court to strike the appropriate balance. The essence of a democracy is placing responsibilities for difficult choices in a visible and neutral institution like the judiciary.”
Dershowitz offers a hypothetical “ticking bomb” scenario prior to the World Trade Center disaster:
“Had law enforcement officials arrested terrorists boarding one of the airplanes and learned that other planes, then airborne, were headed toward unknown occupied buildings, there would have been an understandable incentive to torture those terrorists in order to learn the identity of the buildings and evacuate them. It is easy to imagine similar future scenarios.”
Anti-torture advocates, whether the president, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Council, legislators, military bigwigs, etc., won’t be rushing to endorse Dershowitz’s ideas, but draconian events of the future may give them second thoughts about a preventive imperative based on judicial decisions and warrants from the bench.
Tough legal constraints would have clearly reigned in the excesses of the Bush/Cheney policy.
In essence, the proposed policy would neither condone nor condemn torture, as befits a very complex and delicate legal balance.
Since time is of the essence before an impending terrorist strike, immediate action may be urgent even before a warrant can be issued. In which case a proviso in the law could allow a safeguard against prosecution of the interrogator, but only if the evidence warranted it after a hardnosed judicial review.
In such a critical situation, the interrogator would be “flying by the seat of his pants,” as an astronaut once put it when faced with an existential choice and no rule book to follow. Such was the case with Apollo 13, both in Houston and in the spacecraft, when the oxygen tank blew up. You went with your gut and prayed to God you got it right.
I don’t envy the interrogator confronted with no less a critical choice. And not just involving a life and death choice of a few individuals, but a choice that may mean the life or death of a city.
— Saul Rosenthal
Terre Haute
Fed up with oil industry’s antics
With the economy in the mess that it is in — the refineries and minimarts are still at it.
So many of our citizens are hurting from job loss, lower-paying jobs and high food prices (which high fuel helped create). In my opinion, high fuel prices started this mess a few years ago. Every little excuse the oil companies came up with was an opportunity to raise gas prices, which were passed on to you and me.
Look at the auto sales industry. People are afraid to buy large cars or trucks, knowing the oil industry will certainly continue to play their selfish game.
I’m sure someone who reads this article will reply and tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. This, no doubt, will be someone who has ties with the refineries or minimarts. So stay tuned for their excuses to continue gouging the American people.
It is high time the government stepped up and got this major problem under control. We all knew “Bush, the oil man” wouldn’t.
I hope one day soon we find an alternate energy source that we can all afford.
In closing, I’m betting when we find that alternate source the greedy oil industry will have its hand in it too.
— Ward Frazier
New Goshen
Salter commentary makes people think
“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think they’ll hate you.” — Don Marquis, American journalist, 1878-1937.
This quotation reminds me of the letters to the editor critical of Stephanie Salter’s columns. People don’t want to question their core religious beliefs, the beliefs they have held since childhood. They certainly don’t want to think about where these ideas came from — Uncle Joe’s blather, dad’s man-on-the-street “common sense,” an uneducated Sunday School teacher spouting the party line of that particular church, the ideas the preacher transmits from his years of seminary school indoctrination.
Whatever your religious view may be, most humans disagree with you. Are they all wrong, those billions of people with ideas as well or as poorly thought-through as yours? The largest church, the Catholic Church, has 1 billion members, still less than one-sixth of the humans on earth. Did God split open the sky and reveal Absolute Truth to your church only? I guess you have to believe that, but of course it isn’t that simple.
And churches don’t say, “You believe what you want, and we’ll believe what we want, and we’ll respect each others’ views.” Each church thinks it, and it alone, is correct. For example, just a very few years ago the pope reaffirmed that non-Catholics aren’t going to heaven, they are going to hell!
Stephanie Salter makes us think. Readers seem to want those banal Church Lady articles that never make one question his or her beliefs, those “Bible Study” bromides that keep people believing that the flood covered the entire earth, that Eve was made from Adam’s rib less than 6,000 years ago, that Jonah survived for three days in the belly of a whale.
Nice stories, perfectly appropriate for people living in prescientific times, but about as believable as Paul Bunyan legends are today.
Yes, Terre Haute is very lucky to have Stephanie Salter.
— Ian MacIver
Terre Haute
Thanks for support of service learning
Chauncey Rose Middle School has an 18-year tradition of implementing and providing a Service Learning Program for our students. This program was first initiated by former principal Daniel Tanoos in 1991. We still carry on this meaningful tradition by providing a learning experience through active participation in an organized service experience both on campus and o in our community.
Every fall, our students select an area of our campus to maintain during the school year with their advisory teacher’s guidance. Some students undertake the decision-making roles and responsibilities of maintaining our memorial garden, constructed in the memory of Chauncey Rose students, staff and friends we have loved and lost.
Other students choose to practice their landscaping skills, planting flowers and mulching, while others choose to paint, clean, or help beautify our campus in other ways.
On May 15 of this year our entire student body provided service to a number of businesses throughout our community. Some chose to work at elementary schools and day-care centers, while others helped at cemeteries, parks, nursing homes, the public library, Boys and Girls Club, and other charities.
Our goal for our service learning instruction is to enhance what is taught in school by extending student learning beyond the classroom. Our hope is to foster the development of a sense of caring for others, to gain ownership and pride in our own accomplishments, and of our community. This is the Chauncey Rose way of “paying it forward.”
We would like to thank all of the businesses and organizations that allow us to continue this worthy tradition, who once a year have the patience to allow 20-plus middle school students into their place of work to teach, demonstrate, and share their own knowledge with our future leaders.
Thank you to Franklin, Quabache, Davis Park and Deming Elementary Schools, Terre Haute Parks Department, Vigo County Parks Department, Woodlawn Cemetery, Veterans of Foreign War, Vigo County Public Library, Happiness Bag, Kings Kids Day Care, St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, Covenant Cooperative Ministries, Garfield Towers, Terre Haute Boys and Girls Club, and to all who have hosted us in the past. We are grateful for the learning opportunity.
— Meg Merrill
Dean of students
Chauncey Rose Middle School
More Americans should fly our flag
It is amazing and very disturbing to drive around our city and county and see how few homes and businesses fly the American flag, even on patriotic days.
In these troubling times, I wish more people would realize how important this symbol is to us because, heaven forbid, there may come a day when this right is taken from us.
— Frank G. Walker
Terre Haute
Congrats to Vikes from neighbors
Congratulations to West Vigo’s baseball team on a great season and making the state finals!
Marshall, Ill., Community Schools send them our best wishes.
— Rick Manuell
Superintendent
Marshall Community Schools
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