Army’s plan to buy Colo. land for firing range
Re: “Towns on Army radar in Ft. Carson land quest,” May 4 news story.
The Army is seeking to assemble 1 million acres in southeast Colorado for a new firing range, purchasing land from “only willing sellers.” Once the Abrams tanks and Scud busters let fly, I suppose this contingent will become the majority.
Interestingly, the total of wilderness land in Colorado is 3.4 million acres, so what the Army wants for its new shelling range is equal to about 28 percent the size of all our combined wilderness land. The difference is the public, in general, would be unwelcome except to pay taxes to support it.
With Colorado’s largest body of water, John Martin Reservoir, in the area, one would think that recreation and farming would provide a balance of economic opportunity without having to create work for all the recyclers moving in to get the spent brass.
Setting up firing ranges like these all over the state would probably help contain urban sprawl, but I thought paying the melon farmers with the new ethanol subsidies was supposed to head that off.
Tom Anthony, Denver
Catholic Church and sexual abuse legislation
Re: “Church wins as abuse bill collapses,” May 5 news story.
Paraphrasing a recent ad run by the Colorado Catholic Conference, the political lobbying arm of the Colorado bishops, “Any church that fails to protect children is corrupt.” As long as this archaic monarchy continues to fight for the right to operate above and outside the law, as long as people give it money to fight justice for those it has failed to protect, and as long as it is allowed to hide evidence of pedophile predators in our midst, the state of Colorado is guilty of enabling a corrupt institution and shunning its responsibility to protect all citizens, especially the youngest and most vulnerable.
Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can look at the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent recently in Colorado to fight legislation that would have revealed the extent of corruption or proved their innocence knows full well that the hierarchy must have much guilt and much to hide. It is only too bad that they are incapable of feeling the shame that they have brought upon the church and upon Christianity as a whole.
This is the classic abuse of power, position and authority behind all rape, and so they continue with impunity. How sad.
Jeb Barrett, Aurora
The writer is leader of Denver’s Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver has descended into moral bankruptcy in its fear of possible financial bankruptcy from lawsuits against it for covering up past crimes of child sexual abuse. Defeating legislation aimed at holding institutions accountable for their past neglect of protecting children from sexual predators is definitely not a “win” for the church, as reported in the May 5 headline of The Denver Post.
David R. Guilinger, Boulder
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Your lead story in last Friday’s Post had a terribly misleading headline that is abrogated by the sidebar right below it. The headline “Church wins as abuse bill collapses” is contradicted by the information in the shaded box “What’s next,” which explains that the bill may be dead, but it may not be dead if the Senate brings it to a vote. The Senate, your sidebar goes on to explain, could pass it and send it on to Gov. Bill Owens for his signature. That doesn’t sound like the definite “win for the church” that your headline announces.
It is interesting to watch your coverage of this issue. You definitely have a bias against the Catholic Church, which is obvious by your placement of articles (the Rocky Mountain News ran a small teaser box in the bottom righthand corner of its front page with the actual story on Page 4 – more like where it belongs), and their headline “Sex abuse bill revised” is infinitely more accurate than yours.
Donna Jorgenson Farrell, Broomfield
Editor’s note: House Bill 1090 did not pass the Senate, as it died when the legislative session ended Monday.
Remembering the heroes of United Flight 232
Re: “From burning plane to run for the roses; A rescue reunion,” May 5 news story.
I was quite touched by your article concerning the United Flight 232 survivors, yet disturbed that it failed to mention the true heroes of that miraculous moment in aviation history.
But for the exceptional skill of Capt. Al Haynes, his crew, and the instructor pilot who assisted them in controlling the theoretically uncontrollable plane by handling the two operational throttles from a standing position (as well, no doubt, more than a little luck or divine intervention), the ending would have been far different. The passengers who survived Flight 232 did so because, through most of its history, United employed only la crème de la crème, such as ex-Marine fighter pilot Haynes, and operated the finest commercial pilot training center in the world.
Now, when many airlines treat, and compensate, their pilots as glorified bus drivers rendered superfluous by computerization, frequent fliers should still wonder whenever they board an aircraft whether the man or woman in the lefthand seat has, as did Capt. Haynes and his crew, “the right stuff.”
Mark E. Brennan, Centennial
Marriage and the Bible
Re: “A year when Rome didn’t fall,” May 6 Bob Ewegen column.
It seems that every time there is a moral question, Bob Ewegen trots out a selected biblical passage to “prove” his point. His favorite seems to be Matthew 22:21, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,” which he does for the Colorado Domestic Partnership Benefits and Responsibilities Act. If you take a text out of context, it is a pretext. A better verse for Ewegen and this question is God’s command, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage be be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:5).
J.D. Moyers, Centennial
Effects of smoking
All the people who are against the smoking ban in Colorado should be required to go to the “Body Worlds 2” exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and look at the healthy lungs next to the smoker’s lungs.
After that, I think they should talk to a smoker who is terminally ill with lung cancer and see if they think smoking was worth losing years of their life. They should talk to someone with lung cancer from secondhand smoke and try to get them to see the smoker’s side. After that, talk to people who have lost loved ones to lung cancer and see how they feel. Then start on all the many other diseases smoking causes, go to hospitals, hospices, chemotherapy clinics, etc.
Get into the real world of smoking and then let’s talk about whether it should be legal to smoke in public, to be so selfish to expose innocent people to a deadly poison.
Barbara Gates, Denver
Mexico drug laws
I was disappointed but not surprised to read that Mexican president Vicente Fox declined to sign his country’s drug decriminalization bill. Such a novel approach to a perennial problem was doomed from the start. The decriminalization bill may not have been perfect, but at least it was an attempt to break the abuse-enforcement cycle.
As the adage goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. With that in mind, how do you think our own war on drugs is working out?
Jeff Gregory, Sedalia
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