Reaction to cartoons depicting Muslim prophet
Tolerance is a notion that receives much attention when controversies flare up. Unfortunately its comprehension, and therefore practice, is incomplete. The recent controversy over the Muslim caricatures is a prime example. Some world leaders have called upon the press to practice good judgment and tolerance toward religions in their releases, yet no one has called for tolerance and good judgment from religions toward free press (or much else, for that matter).
Responsibility for this crisis falls on both sides, yet assigning blame does not address or attempt to solve the problem. Advocating tolerance ought to be done with tolerance. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “I would urge my Muslim friends to accept the apology, to accept it in the name of Allah the Merciful, and let’s move on,” thus ignoring the intolerance of religion. Why must all other matters be tolerant, but religion (not just Islam) does not? Those who attack others they claim as being intolerant or preaching intolerance are exercising hypocrisy and intolerance. Burning embassies is intolerance towards intolerance. Protesting is one thing; agitative protesting and violence are quite another.
Jason Gladfelter, Denver
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Before the Internet, before television, there was honest reporting. My grandfather was an international photojournalist. He spent many years in the Mideast and understood the differences between faiths, and reported without bias or sensationalism.
Today, small events turn into mass riots, murder and mayhem. The recent violence resulted from religious caricatures. But were these caricatures the catalyst, or was it the manner in which they were reported? Further coverage not only prolongs the emotions which prompted this violence, but causes it to spread.
Would such protests have occurred during my grandfather’s time? If so, they would have been small. Few would spend days traveling to tell the tale.
It’s time the press used discretion over what they broadcast. Clearly, the media are playing into the terrorists’ hands. They make threats and the press spreads their story. Lopped heads instantly become international news. But this can change if the press is willing.
There is a need to broadcast news, but there is also a responsible way to report it. It is possible that by moderating their current approach, they might just save some lives.
Mark W. Danielson, Thornton
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Re: “Cartoon wars,” Feb. 7 Cal Thomas column.
Cal Thomas compares the 7th century God of the Muslims and the 21st century God of the West and implies that the God of the West is more merciful because He waits until judgment day to punish offenders, presumably by casting them into a burning hell for all eternity. Some mercy. He then finishes his column by stating, “It’s going to be a long war.”
When I read this kind of opinion, I almost understand the wrath from our Muslim brothers and sisters, although I am puzzled by this latest outbreak over a cartoon. But we all should know it isn’t just about a cartoon. It is about the attitude we have toward the rest of the world, especially the developing world. The attitude that we know what is best, we build what is best, and we do what is best; and those who don’t believe it get bombed into rubble. When any person, culture or nation shows only contempt to another person, culture or nation, there is going to be retaliation. And for the last 100 years and more, the West, lately led by the U.S., has shown nothing but contempt for the cultures and religions and institutions of the rest of the world. Then we wonder why they burn our flag and our leaders in effigy.
I think it’s going to be a long war, especially if we keep calling everything we don’t understand a “war.”
Robert Laughlin, Littleton
Highlands Ranch at 25 years old
Re: “Home on the Ranch,” Feb. 5 news story.
I see that Highlands Ranch is considering consolidating its four metro districts into one entity. As a Colorado native of 79 years, I say it’s about time. This satellite subdivision – and all others like it – should be required by the legislature to incorporate as a municipality long before their population ever reaches 86,000. Any rural multi-unit development with a density of more than one house per acre should be required to incorporate. Otherwise, there is no reason for cities to continue operating within boundaries.
I do not think the framers of the Colorado Constitution ever intended for county governments to compete with municipalities for housing development. Some counties, including Boulder (which governs unincorporated Niwot) also provide urban services such as law enforcement and street maintenance. City dwellers not only get taxed extra for urban services, naturally, but they also pony up to help finance the county’s delivery of these services to borderless subdivisions. Incorporating would remove any doubt about double taxation on city dwellers and who pays for what.
Urbanizing the countryside has become a popular game in Colorado, especially in Douglas and Weld counties. County governments like it because it empowers them. Good news for housing developers; bad news for people who fail to see the difference between “good sprawl” and “bad sprawl.”
Percy Conarroe, Longmont
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I cannot stop laughing at your front-page story on the 25th anniversary of Highlands Ranch and the feel-good tone of the article. When I moved my family to Ken Caryl in 1994 from Arizona, we loved it. Over the next two years, my commute to the Denver Tech Center went from 30 minutes to more than one hour as houses kept on being built in Highlands Ranch without checks and controls. The developers should have been required to invest in creation of highways, schools, police/fire resources as they built out the area to nearly 100,000 people. But greed and nepotism ruled the day – the developers were given free rein to develop at will without investing in the infrastructure. This is the classic case of the inmates running the asylum.
I now live in the mountains, and am glad that the developers cannot build another Highlands Ranch here. But who knows – money has a strange way of making people forget.
Scott Simmons, Morrison
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I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read the comments from Samuel Staley, director of urban and land-use policy at the Reason Foundation, regarding how impressed he is with Highlands Ranch’s complexity of the community and diversity of the neighborhoods. I assume he is talking about the copious amounts of shades of beige that have been painted on all the identical, wood-sided houses. Or maybe he was referring to the incredible amount of business franchises that have been built conveniently off their ubiquitous six-lane roads.
Personally, I don’t care about the color of the houses, the number of Starbucks, or the size of the roads. What bothers me is that Highlands Ranch is a perfect representation of all that’s wrong with America today: extreme materialism, disregard for our environment and self-righteousness.
Steve Parisi, Centennial
Cleaning up old mines
Re: “A way to clean up toxic mines,” Feb. 5 Perspective article.
I can’t agree more with the assertions made in this article. As a former environmental science teacher with The Logan School in Denver, I developed a class (in the 1990s) based on a multiyear study of an abandoned mine near Rollinsville, Colo. With support from state agencies and the Colorado School of Mines, the students developed a set of artificial wetlands and analyzed the impact of this pollution-abatement strategy against acidic mine drainage. Although this experiment produced some positive findings with the reduction of heavy metals and acidity, the solution could not expand into a full-scale treatment system or advocated as such because of the liability involved. The Clean Water Act offered no protection.
There are a large number of stalled cleanup efforts throughout the Rockies. For the sake of students and scientists who have an arsenal of solutions to throw at acidic mine drainage, it’s time for the policymakers to take action and amend the Clean Water Act to ensure the long-term water quality for Colorado.
I urge the whole Colorado congressional delegation to support Good Samaritan legislation and amend the Clean Water Act to further protect our natural resources.
Dan Kowal, Louisville
State Supreme Court nomination process
Re: “Judicial process flawed,” Feb. 5 John Andrews column.
I wish that John Andrews had checked the facts before writing his recent criticism of the state Supreme Court Nominating Commission. I spent six years on that commission, during which we nominated six Supreme Court justices and four judges to the appeals court.
The 15 commissioners are chosen as follows: two from each congressional district, one attorney and one lay citizen, plus one at large. One from each district must be a Democrat and the other a Republican. Contrary to Andrews’ assertion, the lay members are all appointed by the governor, but the attorney members are jointly appointed by the governor, the chief justice and the attorney general.
During my six years, I never heard any partisan comments or discussion about any applicant. I don’t know of a more balanced system. The process is deliberate, thoughtful and fair. The commissioners thoroughly read all applications and conduct interviews.
Subjection to Senate confirmation would put an applicant’s career on hold during the seven months that the Senate is in recess. The current system works well for Colorado.
Mary K. Blue, Longmont
Congressional ethics reform
Re: “Everyone pays for corruption,” Feb. 5 guest commentary.
Rep. Diana DeGette says the Democratic Party is promoting an ethical reform agenda in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act to clean up the Republican culture of corruption.
The Republicans have certainly been involved in influence peddling. And some of the reforms called for in the act might make the influence peddlers jump through a few hoops to get their way. But this will not solve the problem. The Democrats play this game also. DeGette must have forgotten about the donations from the People’s Liberation Army of China to both the Clinton and Kerry campaigns.
The problem is much bigger. Investment banking groups can include former presidents and secretaries of state and use their contacts at home and abroad to influence the policies of our government for their pecuniary interests. Campaign contributions to parties and candidates are just one way to influence policy. Former Pentagon officials can be paid consulting fees for unspecified consultation.
What can be done to increase the representation of an average voter? Political campaigns should be publicly financed. No private contributions should be allowed. TV and radio air time should be guaranteed so that ideas can be heard by the voters and discussed. Open debates should be held so that voters have a real choice.
Thomas Kelly, Co-chair, Colorado Green Party, Englewood
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Re: “Outside ethics panel needed,” Feb. 5 guest commentary.
I was pleased to read that Sen. Wayne Allard supports ethics reform in Congress. His words would carry more weight and be more credible if he would return the $4,000 in political contributions given to him by two Indian tribes at the request of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to collecting money from several tribes in order to buy influence in Washington. There is certainly the appearance, if not the fact, that the $4,000 is tainted. Hopefully, Allard will realize there is a contradiction between calling for stricter ethics and keeping this money.
Gary M. Wederspahn, Littleton
U.S. health care system
Re: “The worst of two systems,” Feb. 5 Ed Quillen column.
Ed Quillen is correct when he says our health care system – which benefits insurance companies more than anyone – is not as good as it could be.
But Quillen makes the usual comparisons to European countries and their nationalized health care systems. At first it sounds nice. Everyone get the same kind of care, whenever they want it. Unfortunately, it is not free and it comes with a price. It has to be paid for somehow and usually in higher taxes. You can look at the high taxes and see that a higher percentage of their able workforce is unemployed.
At least Quillen was open-minded enough to suggest removing the shackles of government and letting people take more responsibility for their own health care.
Scot Clark, Arvada
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After quoting from President Bush’s State of the Union address about the cost of health care and lack of coverage – “these problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care” – Ed Quillen opined: “… note the hypocrisy in the president’s statement. He gets medical care from the federal government, which ‘dictates care’ for him. Why is that bad for us if it’s good enough for him?”
There’s more hypocrisy in the president’s statement than his medical benefits. Governments from federal to local often offer better health care protection than most of their denizens can obtain. I don’t hear these public servants complaining about receiving 95 percent coverage of their health care premiums because it’s dictated care. The complaints I’ve heard are from people who want to leave government service before they’re eligible for Medicare but then have to pay for medical insurance from their own pocket.
Here’s a proposal: Beginning with the president, every government employee selects a health care plan with at least a $2,000 deductible. This allows each to establish a health savings account, just as the president has encouraged others to do. The cost of government for health care will fall, saving millions of taxpayer dollars.
Patrick Ivers, Laramie, Wyo.
Religion and culture
Re: “Who’s afraid of opera?” Feb. 5 Open Forum.
To those quick to label the offended parents of a few tormented children in Bennett as superstitious and ignorant, I ask what your evidence is for that judgment. Is it because they objected to material traumatic enough to cause some children nightmares? Is it because they objected to material displaying Satan? Or, instead, is it because they belong to a group known as the “religious right,” commonly regarded as unreasonable, unintelligent and without any sense of “cultural appreciation”? Would you have been so quick to label parents as ignorant if they had been offended atheists, wondering why children were learning about Satan and, by implication, questions of heaven and hell?
There is a double standard that it is legitimate to discuss Satan, witchcraft, atheism, polytheism and pantheism in the name of “cultural appreciation” as long as, heaven forbid, mention is not made of the Judeo-Christian God. If there had been no religious overtones, would these parents have been similarly labeled as superstitious and overprotective by objecting to violent material that caused nightmares? Please stop perpetuating a stereotype that all conservative religious individuals are fanatical idiots – we are not all as ignorant, or culturally unappreciative, as you may think.
Mary Ann Clements, Denver
Today’s teen fashion
Re: “Teenagers are dressing like sex slaves,” Feb. 5 Froma Harrop column.
I very much agree with Froma Harrop. When you see the store ads, it’s evident the designers aren’t designing anything new but cheap lingerie and selling it as outerwear (and they’re laughing all the way to the bank). I would hope that a parent from every high school in the state would send a copy of the column to their child’s high school to be displayed in a prominent place. How about it, parents?
Rosaline Smith, Lakewood
TO THE POINT: Short takes from readers
First, NBC announces that it will be canceling the “West Wing,” and now ABC says it’s suspending “Commander In Chief.” So now where can we turn to find some government officials with integrity?
Ray Yedinak, Highlands Ranch
This elderly gentleman finds it hard to understand how the GOP borrow-and-spend debtmeisters can call themselves “conservative.” I could call myself “The New Marilyn Monroe,” but that sure wouldn’t make me one.
Frederick C. Sage, Boulder
The government is not including the cost of the war in Iraq in its military budget. This is the same logic as budgeting a certain amount of money per month for groceries and if that money runs out before the end of the month, just eating out.
Geri David, Denver
Transparency is a good old word now being abused by most beleaguered public figures who claim to be completely open and honest. Many of them actually are transparent: We can see right through them.
John Davoren, Denver
We can all applaud the enlightened effort to exclude bars from that silly smoking ban. Everyone knows that secondhand smoke in bars and night clubs is not harmful or even irritating. Anyone who claims otherwise is just blowing smoke.
Glenn Taylor, Denver
A headline in the main section of last Sunday’s Post caught my eye. It read, “Anti-terrorism plan devised.” I’m sure glad somebody finally got on that.
Jim Bernath, Englewood
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