We welcome letters, but please include your
full name, address, and daytime telephone number. We edit all
letters for libel, length, and clarity. Send letters to Letters, Illinois Times, P.O.
Box 5256, Springfield, IL 62705; fax 217-753-3958; e-mail editor@illinoistimes.com. THANKS FOR SHOWING THE LIGHT Your recent article on the local Springfield
underground music scene couldn’t have made me happier
[Marissa Monson, “Growing underground,” Jan. 26]. I
grew up going to the Asylum, Rise, and Viele’s Planet. It
gave me a place to go where I knew I was accepted and I made
lifelong friends at shows. Many of my best memories are being at
those places, listening to great local bands and even groups I had
never heard of but was quickly turned on to. I hope it has
shown the light to some people who think we’re all a bunch of
drug addicts. Give the Black Sheep the support it needs to
get off the ground, it might keep your kids from being the ones we
read about and see on the news being arrested for dealing drugs and
being criminals. We’re good people who love good music. Kudos to you, Illinois
Times — you have no idea
how much many of us appreciate it. Katie Connelly Springfield SOMEBODY NEEDS A HUG I have become increasingly pessimistic about
the fate of this country, as well as the fate of the planet. We have done very little, in the past 30
years, to address the issues of the depletion of fossil fuels and
global warming, which could lead to sudden catastrophic climate
change. Although there have been proposals in the past to commit
government resources to the development of alternative energy
sources, they have been roundly defeated. As Al Franken said recently on CSPAN, we have
a government that is “looting” the country. There is
widespread corruption in all reaches of the government by a party
that controls all three branches of the government, which has
resulted in the elimination of the checks and balances so important
in maintaining our democracy. This is a government run by thugs that has
trampled on our liberties, waged an illegal and unnecessary war
costing hundreds of billions of dollars, engaged in a war against
the poor (and the middle classes, I might add), bankrupted the
country for the benefit of the rich, gutted the Constitution. And
we are now heading toward a police state, it seems. All the while,
this government has been engaged in a propaganda-and-disinformation
campaign — lying to the American public — and
succeeding in fooling half of the country. Beni Kitching Springfield POPE’S SURPRISE MESSAGE OF LOVE I was very surprised to see Pope Benedict XVI
referring to the spiritual importance of eros. He seems to be
saying that ecstatic love is likely to be important in any
significant spiritual maturity within the church and humanity in
the future. He makes the powerful connection that nonsexual love of
neighbor — even of enemy and of adults for children —
is actually rooted and sustained in healthy ecstatic erotic love
between committed adult partners. I never expected the pope to be talking in
such a vein, for the Catholic Church has been so involved for
centuries, along with much Protestant emphasis, in demonizing
genuinely ecstatic sexuality, or eros, as understood by the Greeks.
I am just quite amazed and encouraged at this, for the church has tended to even punish, socially if not
physically, any rich enjoyment of human sexuality through the
centuries. Negation of sexual joy has been a most common interpretation
of the sin of Adam and Eve. What a tragedy. This negative view of eros is also part of
the reason, I believe, for emotionally negative judgments of
homosexual love. The reality of sexual ecstatic joy’s being
experienced with no possibility of procreation is enough to make it
wrong from a typical church perspective, even if the two people are
in a committed responsible relationship. I’m convinced that
our culture and the church have a primary sexual problem, not a
homosexual problem, as so many are expressing. If we did not so
minimize the spiritual meaning and importance of erotic
heterosexual love, there would not be the upset regarding
homosexual love. The words of many clearly show there is a fear
that homosexual love will somehow harm heterosexual love, that gay
marriage would harm the genuine quality of heterosexual marriage.
There is no logic or indications of any such thing. It appears to
me to be mostly pure irrational emotional fear. Humans in general will have to be much more
humble and truly in awe if sustained erotic love is to become a
more common experience between partners. I trust that the pope is
sincere and genuine and will show it by other actions and words
designed to get people really looking at the meaning and place of
sexuality in God’s scheme of giving what is good and truly
loving to humankind. Jim Hibbett Springfield RAIDING THE PUBLIC TREASURY Recently the U.S. Congress has debated
extension of the temporary tax concessions for capital gains and
dividend income. The tax loopholes enacted for the wealthy in 2003,
which are scheduled to expire in 2008, currently tax capital
gains/dividends at 15 percent. The top tax rate is now 35 percent,
which is what the coupon-clippers will pay on dividends after, and
if, the loopholes expire. Capital gains will go to a 20 percent tax
rate. In the current corporate-backed legislation,
the richest 1 percent of the population, with an average income of
over $1 million, will enjoy 53 percent of the tax cuts in 2009.
Their average tax cut would be $13,000 in 2009. This average tax
cut would provide heating for an average family for a year or more.
The majority of taxpaying citizens would
receive nothing at all from the extension of these special tax
privileges for the wealthy. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. taxpaying
citizens would get no tax cut. About 10 percent of citizens would
get less than $100. Perhaps those of us who may receive that miserly $100 could then invest it in
lottery tickets, the smoke dreams of the poor. Extending tax breaks for unearned income
would severely worsen the nation’s fiscal health, increasing
the already stupendous fiscal deficits by an additional $35 billion
in 2009. At a time when services for the poor are about to be
erased by massive raids on the public treasury, think of the
benefits which could be provided to at-risk populations for $35
billion, medical care, therapy, nutritional aid, even probably
infrastructure improvements. George W. Bush’s Advisory Panel on
Federal Tax Reform is calling for adding $7 trillion more to the to
the deficit over the next two decades and calls for shifting more
of the tax burden from coupon-clippers onto us working people,
wage-earners. Unless citizens wake up to what is going on, more
raiding of the public treasury is sure to follow. The Wall Street
people call this “mining the public sector.” Ed Gutierrez-Perry Pleasant Plains BILL REQUIRES PRESENCE OF R.N. Every patient deserves a registered nurse,
especially in one of the important areas in the hospital, the
surgical suite or operating room. As a registered nurse for 43
years and a member of the Illinois Nurses Association, I believe
patients are most vulnerable when undergoing surgical procedures or
anesthesia. Senate Bill 2238 mandates that a registered nurse
qualified by training/education and experience in operating-room
nursing shall be present in the operating room and function as the
circulating nurse during all invasive or operative procedures. The
circulating nurse is responsible for coordinating all nursing care,
patient-safety needs, and the needs of the surgical team in the
operating room. Anything less than a registered nurse in this
position puts every patient who has surgery at risk. P. Joan Larsen, R.N. Monmouth END OF ROE WON’T ELIMINATE CHOICE Is Danny Faulkner aware that if Roe v. Wade is
overturned, abortion will not come to an end [“Letters,” Jan. 26]?
If Roe is
overturned, it will not make abortion illegal in the United States.
If it is overturned, the abortion issue will simply revert back to
being a state-by-state issue. States such as Illinois, California,
New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts will retain a woman’s
right to choice. Thankfully, Illinois is controlled by liberal,
progressive legislators who will keep reproductive rights where
they belong — in the hands of women. Stephen M. Truman Springfield
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2006.
