Letters policy
We welcome letters, but please include your full name, address and a daytime
telephone number. We edit all letters for libel, length and clarity.
Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois
62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com
NOT JUST JOE’S TRANSIT SYSTEM
Joe Schleyhahn’s tirade [“Letters,” Dec. 9] regarding Mila Dvoretskaya-Lemme’s opinion of the state of Springfield’s mass-transit system sounded pretty much like the unfortunate image of the uglier, selfish side of being an American. Apparently Joe feels that the system works for him, so the system works, everyone else be damned.
Imagine how much more beautiful and efficiently planned this country would be if we didn’t rely on our cars (by choice or necessity) quite so much.
Douglas Mayol
Springfield
WHAT’S IN A PICTURE?
Thank you for your longstanding support of the fundamental right to privacy in reproductive matters, including abortion. Your Dec. 9 cover illustration of an eight- or nine-months-pregnant woman accompanied by a story on abortion [Deirdre Fulton, “Last choice”] misrepresents the issue by implying that many women have abortions in the later stages of pregnancy.
This misconception furthers the anti-legal abortion propaganda campaign. In fact, all but a few abortions take place in the earliest stages of pregnancy. For those few women (such as the woman in your illustration) who do seek later-term abortions, the consequences to their health and well-being require much more sensitivity on the part of both illustrators and anti-abortion extremists.
Although I don’t believe that anti-abortion activists will understand the plight of a woman whose health and life depends on the availability of specific abortion procedures, I am hopeful Illinois Times can.
Terry Cosgrove
President and CEO
Personal PAC
Chicago
CHOICE BY ANOTHER NAME
I must take issue with the article by Deirdre Fulton [“Last choice,” Dec. 9]. I am sure that you will get plenty of angry letters about this, but my letter may come from a slightly differently point of view than your average “anti-choice” activist.
I take issue with the use of the term “anti-choice,” as well as her characterization of us as dangerous to women’s “reproductive rights.” I know, from my own experience, that no matter if abortion is legal or illegal in the U.S., my right to get pregnant and reproduce will never be lost and there will always be plenty of choice involved.
You see, when I got pregnant at 16, I was the one to choose to have sex with a boy I wasn’t married to and who wasn’t capable of supporting a family. I also chose to contemplate adoption and parenting. After a lot of thought, I chose my daughter’s parents from the hundreds of families that I was presented with by my adoption agency. (This same agency paid for all of my medical care, maternity clothes, and would have provided me with housing had I needed it. They provided counseling for me and my family, and nonjudgmental support.)
At the hospital, just hours after my daughter was born, I chose to kiss her head, smell that sweet, baby smell, whisper “I love you,” and then place her in her parents’ arms.
I chose to give my daughter all of the best things in life, even when I couldn’t provide them. I chose what all good moms choose — I made sure that she had a wonderful life, full of love and security, no matter how hard it was for me to do.
That is choice. That is real reproductive freedom. And making abortion illegal will not take that away from any woman.
Emily Roberts
Springfield
BUSH WILL GIVE US JUSTICES
I felt that the article “Last choice” by Deirdre Fulton in last week’s Illinois Times was a sad commentary on how most women feel about their reproductive rights. The sad fact remains that Roe v. Wade will not be overturned at this time. However, thank God that we do have a president who would like to secure Supreme Court justices that respect the God-given right to life. Nevertheless, only when society and media open their eyes to the proven facts that abortion isn’t an easy, quick and painless process (and is bad medicine) will women have safe reproductive rights. The facts show that women who have had abortions continue to suffer from that tragic decision for years and years afterwards, leading many to unexplained grief, psychosis, early mortality, inability to cope with life, and so on. When, we as a country and society, show the true side to abortion and its horrible aftermath, women’s reproductive rights will flourish on the side of life for all God’s children.
Joe Kaufmann
Jacksonville
LIBRARY ISN’T BEING IGNORED
Todd Spivak’s article in this week’s Illinois Times presents an unnecessarily bleak picture of the Lincoln Library, the public library of Springfield [“Overdue,” Dec. 9]. During my interview with Mr. Spivak, he repeatedly tried to get me to criticize the former and current city administration’s funding for the library. When I would not do so, he deliberately misrepresented my remarks. I never stated or implied that I expected budget cuts. I did describe for Mr. Spivak a reduction in our fiscal year 2006 budget. I noted that it was approximately $100,000 less than the current year’s budget. The reason for this decrease is that in fiscal year 2005, the library received grant funds to redo the lighting in the library to make it more energy-efficient. This was a one-time grant that we will not have in fiscal year 2006, so our budget is naturally less. We are not cutting this amount because we have been “cowed into submission.”
Mr. Spivak also ignored the fact that in fiscal year 2005, the library received a corporate-fund subsidy of more than $450,000 to restore hours and services at the library branches and to fully fund all of the outstanding vacant positions. I believe this money is evidence of a commitment on the part of Mayor Tim Davlin and the City Council to support the public library of Springfield.
Mr. Spivak implies that Lincoln Library is languishing in obscurity while other libraries in central Illinois are thriving. I think it is wonderful that Champaign is getting a new facility and exciting that Urbana has been able to build an addition to the Carnegie building. I am not envious of these libraries. We have a wonderful facility here in Springfield, with a marvelous staff that works so hard each day to provide quality services to the community. The library offers many fine programs and services: computer-training classes, book-discussion groups, storytimes, meeting space, and reading programs for children and adults, not to mention thousands of new titles each year. We have the support of Mayor Davlin and the council, the community, and a board of trustees committed to excellence.
Yes, we need new carpeting at the main library, but I have no doubt that we will get it, and no, we don’t have a coffee bar, but that may be in our future. There have been years when funding for the library was not a priority, but that is in the past. Complaining about it now is not going to change anything. We have to move forward, and I believe the staff, administration, and board of Lincoln Library are ready to do so.
Nancy Huntley
Director, Lincoln Library
Springfield
ALMOST A MONTH’S WORTH OF FOOD
Thank you, Illinois Times, for the publicity given to the benefit concert and silent auction recently sponsored by the Episcopal Food Pantry!
Between the concert, the 50-50 raffle, the silent auction, and donations, we raised almost enough money for a month’s worth of food for our hungry clients. We also wish to thank all those who helped make this event a success, particularly the Mature Mob, dancers from Jan’s Dance Studio, and the Hoogland Center for the Arts (where the concert was held).
Dick McLane
Springfield
THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE
For more than 2,000 years, a babe born in a manger has touched millions of lives. No world leader has been remembered as has this infant. What better time than on this Christmas Day to take our family to church, and thank God for all the blessings He has given us. And in your prayers, remember the brave men and women who serve our country in the armed forces all over the world.
I know God will answer out prayers and bless our nation once again. Prayer is the most powerful force in the world.
Danny Faulkner
Springfield
WHAT WE HAVE, NOT WHAT WE WANT
“Why, Mr. Secretary?” the soldier asked. “I’m an old man, and I’m gathering my thoughts,” the secretary of defense replied as he searched for an excuse. “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time,” was the best that he could do. So the boys from Tennessee will continue to raid the garbage dumps to build hillbilly armor from junk and the boys from Illinois will continue to plant Flanders Fields in Fallujah while the Army we have fights the messy war we have, not the glorious war that Washington wished for. And the president of the United States, costumed once again in the trappings of war — an Eisenhower jacket this time, with Washington’s title embroidered on his breast — stood in the California sun to tell the Marines we would fight on to victory. Nobody embarrassed the president by asking, “Why, Mr. President?”
The tactics, they are a-changin’ in that civil war we made of Iraq with the Army we have, not the Army we might want or wish to have at a later date. The Iraqi resistance — we have trained the compliant media to call them “insurgents” or “terrorists” rather than what they are — has shifted its targets from the army of occupation that we have to the easier prey of local lightly armed police forces, and more Iraqis die in Mr. Bush’s civil war than do Americans — more than 70 last week.
While the trial process goes on and the West Virginia guardsmen face military justice because they caught themselves with pictures at Abu Ghraib, the word leaks out that their pictures just showed the tip of the torture iceberg. What was happening in that one prison ward in that one prison camp wasn’t a surprise in Washington. The only surprise was that the pictures got out. Washington knew, the Pentagon knew, but it was hidden beneath the surface of the only war we have, not the war we might want and wish for, and we justify it because of what they are — terrorists and murderers. Why, Mr. Secretary? Why, Mr. President, do we justify abuse by what they are rather than defining our conduct by what we claim to be? Has Abu Ghraib come to be the hallmark of a Christian nation?
Last week the secretary told us that we would be in Iraq as long as it takes — that he hoped we could begin drawing down the troops by the end of the president’s term in Four More Years. So Illinois reservists caught in the backdoor draft will continue to die and Tennessee boys will continue to raid the junkyards for hillbilly armor while the old man gathers his thoughts and the wardrobe mistress stitches up another costume for the president.
It is, after all the only war we’ve got — and it promises to go on for at least Four More Years.
Keith Hays
Monticello
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2004.
