We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address, and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O. Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com.
BEATING A DEAD CAT
Sometimes there is more to a story than first comes out. The reader who complained in a letter to Illinois Times a few weeks ago about being treated rudely at a recent cat show, stating it was just because she made eye contact with a cat, wrote a follow-up letter in the Nov. 23 edition in an attempt to further justify her action. However, in doing this she actually weakened her case.
She states that she actually touched the cat inside its cage in order to wake it up so she could see its eyes. This is a totally different situation than merely looking at the cat’s eyes, which is what she initially said in complaining about the cat owner’s reaction.
My initial feelings were sympathetic to her. After all, what could possibly be wrong with simply looking at a cat in a cage? But now I can see why the cat owner objected, albeit if somewhat rudely. If I was showing my cat in a show, I don’t think I’d want everyone touching it, let alone rousting it from a nap.
Dick McLane
Springfield
TIME TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
A month ago, I would have supported Beni Kitching’s cry for impeachment [“Letters,” Dec. 7], but U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi has made a good case against impeachment. President George W. Bush is basically a lame duck [and] a pathetic beaten animal — and Congress needs to move forward. A great deal can be done in two years, and important issues are in our grasp.
Democrats in Congress have presented the minimum-wage issue and making health care more accessible to every citizen, but the most pivotal move will come when campaigns are no longer influenced by corporate America.
Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina all had clean campaigns this year, publicly funded. Surely the last four years have proven to us that as long as Congress must go begging to corporations for campaign money, Congress will continue to be in the stranglehold of the rich and powerful. There is a Web site called public campaigns to make all campaigns publicly funded.
The invasion of Iraq would not have occurred if our representatives had been listening to their consciences instead of stockholders. This is our chance to make a difference. Let the old dog limp around till the end of his term and let us move on to rebuilding this country from the hovel Bush has left it. Besides, if we impeach the president, what about the rest of America — the voters who supported him, the news media who pandered to his agenda? Can we impeach them, too? That would be justice.
Anne Logue
Springfield
THE REASONS AMERICA NEEDS CHANGE
I have just read — and reread — the article by Hal Crowther titled “The jig is up” in your Dec. 14 issue, and once again I am quite amazed by the quality of writing I so often find in your publication.
The election results of this past Nov. 7 were a breath of fresh air and gave many Americans (and, I suspect, ordinary citizens around the world) some hope that our long nightmare is coming to an end and some semblance of order and civility may be possible in American politics. But on the very day I read Mr. Crowther’s writings, my personal moment of hope was suddenly threatened by the breaking news that U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, has suffered a sudden serious illness. Should this illness result in Johnson’s being unable to fulfill his obligations as a U.S. senator, South Dakota law requires that his replacement be selected by Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican.
I know almost nothing of Rounds and his intentions should he be required to make such a decision, but the tiny bit of idealism that I cling to, even in the face of the misery this current administration has heaped upon America and the world, prompts me to dream that Rounds will consider both the will of the majority of the American voters, as indicated by the recent elections, and the terrible situation wrought by the Republican-controlled 109th Congress (and, admittedly, the spineless Democratic minority that served as enabler).
Be that as it may, again I would like to say that Crowther brilliantly and quite concisely laid out, for all to see, the reasons America truly needs change. I thank him for his well-thought-out and truly informative article, and I thank your publication for giving your readers the opportunity to read his words.
I am one of the millions of Americans who feel that the only hope of overcoming the misery wrought by America’s worst president ever and his gang of destructive, oil-hungry, greedy thieves is a sea change in Congress that might, once again, bring us back to the system of checks and balances envisioned by our founding fathers, who, I suspect, are rolling over in their graves as they see what has been done to their dream.
Ed Lazarus
Springfield
WAS 9/11 OUR REICHSTAG FIRE?
In 1933 in Germany, just after Hitler came to power, the Reichstag was suddenly set ablaze. The Nazis blamed the Bolsheviks. Until recently, most historians believed that the Nazis themselves had set the fire. Only recently have historians begun to believe that the first was the product of a lone anarchist. The very next day, most of the civil liberties guaranteed by the democratic Weimar Republic were suspended, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and habeas corpus. Concentration camps were set up. “Traitors” were ruthlessly apprehended. Interrogation, torture, and death awaited them. A month later, through the Enabling Act, the Reichstag was deprived of all essential powers, including the power to make laws. Hitler’s government now had that power. He then used those powers to transform Germany into a totalitarian state.
Now we come to 9/11. Here we have an event that, in the current administration, was used to curtail civil liberties; apprehend, interrogate, and torture “terrorists”; and concentrate power in the hands of the executive branch. Those who rose to power in this administration had spoken a year prior to 9/11 of “a new Pearl Harbor,” an event that they hoped would get the American public to conform to their hegemonic agenda.
Whether on 9/11 we had a “new Pearl Harbor” or a “Reichstag fire” will be up to historians to decide. But, in any case, the events of 9/11 and what was to follow bear an eerie resemblance to the past.
Beni Kitching
Springfield
THE COSTS OF LEGAL GAMBLING
Why do we permit legalized gambling in this state?
A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign economic reported that the cost of pathological and problem gambling is nearly half the annual cost of drug abuse in this country. Reporting about three years ago, Earl Grinols said that the social costs of gambling — such as increased crime, lost work time, bankruptcies, and financial hardships — cost the national economy $54 billion annually.
It is believed that legalized gambling increases tax revenue and creates new jobs, but that is in isolated spots. Is any thought ever given to the big picture? Grinols found that casino gambling causes up to $289 in social costs for every $46 of economic benefit. Exactly how do we taxpayers win by having legalized gambling in the state with those numbers? Casinos that primarily serve tourists, such as those in Las Vegas, might create jobs and an inflow of revenue, but the casinos in the Midwest and South primarily only attract local clientele.
In addition, it was found that the 10 percent of the population that gambles regularly accounts for up to 80 percent of the wagers. What does that mean? It means that the profits casinos see are based on a relatively small number of addicted gamblers who run up huge costs to themselves, their families, and society.
Given these findings, does it make sense to have legalized gambling in this state? Granted, Illinois citizens may go to neighboring states to gamble and still leave the state bearing the social costs. Yet having casinos in this state only creates more problem gamblers, not less. Keeping the gambling money in state may not lower the net social cost. Instead, it may increase the social cost, because we make gambling more accessible to people, thus creating more problem and pathological gamblers.
Eric Dailey
Springfield
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2006.
