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Send letters to: Letters, Illinois Times. P.O. Box 5256. Springfield, Illinois
62705. Fax: (217) 753-3958. E-mail: editor@illinoistimes.com
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CAUGHT BY THE GOB PILE
I went to Hannibal, Mo., and picked up your publication along the way. Something about the article “Gob story” [Shelley Smithson, Feb. 26] caught my attention and simply wouldn’t let go, so I guess I’m supposed to respond.
The high-sulfur coal dust in the gob pile should be securely buried. Spread the lime and put the rubber cap on, but cap that thing with concrete. It’s cheap, and a lot harder to dig in or pull off. Then terrace the sides and plant prairie grass and windmills on every square foot. This will hopefully turn what ExxonMobil now sees as a useless money hole back into a profitable piece of property.
As to the water pumped from the aquifer, I would suggest mediation or at least third-party testing by the state water survey or some similar group. Definitely get a sewage treatment plant, if possible. Even pumping the water back upstream a few miles would be preferable to the mini-lagoon system described in the article.
Thank you for this fine publication.
Glynis Long
Champaign
DENNIS THE MENACE?
Thank you for publishing the article a few weeks ago about the media’s largely successful attempt to choose the presidential candidates for us, and the poor media coverage that Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich has received [Calvin Hennick, “Causal observers,” Jan. 8]. It has been shown that voter support roughly follows media coverage, but with a time delay. One study determined that Kucinich has gotten just one percent of the media coverage given to the Democratic campaign. In spite of this minimal coverage, he has managed to get 3, 6, 7, 8, 16 and now, in Hawaii, 30 percent of the vote. What does that say about how much support he could be getting if he’d been receiving equal coverage?
Interestingly, most of the media ignored Kucinich’s recent second-place finish in Hawaii. One AP story reported that Kerry came in first, Edwards third, and didn’t even mention the second place winner! Spooky.
Because of this heavily biased coverage by the mainstream media, I would hope that you would not only point out that the coverage is biased, but actually publish an article that tells something about Kucinich (and Al Sharpton for that matter), his record and his positions on the issues. For example, Kucinich rallied nearly two-thirds of the Democratic Representatives to vote against the Iraq war resolution in October 2002. (Before he did that, only one or two dozen Representatives were going to vote against it.) He is the only candidate with a plan for Universal Health Care, including full prescription drug, dental and mental health benefits that would cover every single American for the same amount of money that we now spend on health care in this country. Studies by Harvard, the Congressional Budget Office and others agree that we could do this, if only we wanted to. The insurance lobby doesn’t want us to. (The so-called “major candidates,” John Kerry and John Edwards, instead advocate using precious taxpayer dollars to subsidize the insurance industry.)
Kucinich has the highest pro-labor voting record (98 percent) according to the AFL-CIO of any of the ten candidates who have run. He has been endorsed by Rep. John Conyers, the “Dean” of the Congressional Black Caucus for his support of issues important to African Americans. Kucinich has introduced, several times, legislation to require the labeling of genetically-engineered foods. Three-fourths of Americans have consistently supported labeling of these foods. In fact, most of his positions are what a majority, and often a significant majority, of the American public wants, but politicians won’t give to them. Somehow the corporate interests keep getting more say than the American people. Based on Kucinich’s positions favoring the American public over corporate special interests, the corporate-owned media labeled Kucinich “unelectable” early on even though he sometimes drew crowds of 1,000 and 2,000 people on the campaign trail as early as spring of 2003.
Regardless of who gets the Democratic nomination, voting for Dennis Kucinich and sending delegates pledged to him to the Democratic Convention is a way for the public to tell the Democratic Party that these issues should be taken seriously.
Charles Hershey
Springfield
AMERICA IS NOT A THEOCRACY
I write because of the spate of letters in newspapers opposing same-sex marriage based on fundamentalist literal interpretations of selected Biblical passages together with President Bush and other politicians opposing same-sex marriage because, in their view, marriage is “sacred” [see Rich Miller, “Pride and prejudice,” Feb. 5]. Both the word “sacred” and appeals to Biblical interpretations are inherently religious. America is not a theocracy and no one group’s theological or religious beliefs should be imposed on the general citizenry. I was raised an Episcopalian and was taught that marriage was a sacrament along with baptism, Holy Communion, priestly orders and other rites. If the government chooses to prohibit same-sex marriage because of some group’s interpretations of Biblical texts, can it likewise determine who may be baptized, who may receive communion, who may have a bris, or who may have a bar mitzvah? The government should have no role in selectively enforcing sectarian religious viewpoints . . . .
Religious institutions are free to determine whom they will allow to marry in the rite of marriage within the principles of their own religion. They should not be free to impose their religious concepts on those who do not believe them. Mainstream religious organizations should be very wary of the radical religious right’s move to impose their religious concepts and beliefs on the general population. That is the history of the last three decades of Iran.
Same-sex couples seeking the right to civil marriage are not limiting the rights of any religious body to determine whom they will or will not allow to marry and are not threatening the rights of heterosexual couples to continue to marry should they choose to do so. Although religious marriage may properly be restricted to adherents to a given creed, civil marriage should not be so limited. Indeed, by the states’ limiting civil marriage to only those sanctioned by certain religious groups (that is, opposite-sex couples), other religious denominations are prohibited from the free exercise of their religion. A number of mainstream religious denominations have sanctioned and blessed same-sex marriages, but they are prevented from doing so by various states’ laws. One could readily argue that the religious freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment is being curtailed to those religious institutions and individuals by the states’ prohibitions against their performing same-sex marriage ceremonies.
Rational discourse is required, not grandstanding and demagoguery. In a secular, pluralistic, free and democratic society, the government should not be persuaded to impose one set of religious views upon all citizens as exemplified by Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s appeal to the “sacredness” of marriage, or President Bush’s advocating a constitutional amendment that would deny citizens fundamental equality before the law, or letter writers justifying bigotry by appealing to the primacy of their religious traditions over those of others.
I urge people of good conscience and mainstream beliefs to rise up and oppose the current trend towards incipient religious totalitarianism as embodied in the rhetoric of the religious right’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
B. Douglas Anderson
Member, Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,
Illinois State Bar Association
Springfield
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2004.
