CBI’s report on school shooting in Bailey
Re: “CBI sheds light on dark day,” March 28 news story.
We may not know all, but we know enough about the coward who took young Emily Keyes’ life – and our entire community’s innocence. We know the coward chose to abuse young girls half his size. He needed a gun to do it. Taking innocent life, he violated our most universal, fundamental laws. He took his life to avoid answering to his peers and family. He blamed everyone else, even his father, for his actions, yet he knew clearly they were wrong. He planned those actions carefully, knowing what he did exactly, and knowing well that what he was doing was very, very wrong. A loser on all counts. Psychologists call these people sociopaths, people who live beyond common rules set by society to protect us all.
So what’s the lesson? Throw the coward’s name on the trash heap of failed humanity? No, for me the challenge that remains is to honor the Keyes family’s request, and protect and defend our precious children from other cowards still lurking among the shadows.
J.K. August, Arvada
…
One cannot help but be struck by the overpowering graciousness of John-Michael Keyes and Ellen Stoddard-Keyes in their statement regarding the events surrounding their daughter’s death. Even as they mourn Emily’s death, these parents were able to comfort the other victims and those who responded to this emergency. (Compare this to the finger- pointing and inane posturing that occurred for years after the Columbine disaster.) Very few parents, when faced with the loss of a child in such a senseless act of violence, would be able to evidence the compassion and class just demonstrated by the Keyes. If Emily were here today, I think she’d say, “Well done, Mom and Dad.”
Steve Poquette, Parker
Comments on Denver from an out-of-towner
I had to laugh when I read Nadya Lambert’s letter (March 28 Open Forum) complaining about trains and graffiti in Denver. Ms. Lambert wants to see the railroads moved out of lower downtown. It seems that she was horrified by the view from her car of railroad tracks in lower downtown as she drove south on Interstate 25 – possibly on her way to her home in Monument.
This may come as a shock to her, but the railroads were here first. It may also surprise her that the opinions of someone who lives some 50 miles from town might not carry too much water.
She does have a point about the graffiti, though. (Apparently it is visible from the highway.) It has gotten worse over the past four or five years, and the city is looking more run-down in general.
J.B. Reed, Denver
A call for publicly funded political campaigns
A newspaper editor once told me there was no such thing as an honest politician, just ones with a higher price tag than the others. We need to get rid of the politicians and elect representatives of the people.
Publicly funded campaigns would free our representatives to work for us, the people, instead of working for the special interests who make the huge contributions.
I don’t think it matters what office the candidate is running for; under the present system, he needs a huge amount of money to conduct a campaign with any chance of winning. So he works to get the money, and tells the voters what he thinks they want to hear, but once elected he has to remember that he has an obligation to the people who paid for the campaign.
Who do you think our elected representatives are most loyal to? Who do you think they listen to? The one who gives the most has the loudest voice. It’s time for a change.
Bill Hutchins, Aurora
Details of the state’s budgeting process
Re: “State budget favors roads over education,” March 28 editorial.
In your editorial, you say, “Don’t blame TABOR” for the limits that are in place on spending for higher education. However, the General Assembly’s own staff attorneys have advised that in their opinion, modifying the general fund 6 percent limit violates TABOR, which states that “other limits on revenue, spending and debt may be weakened only by future voter approval.”
While we are not so sure that a full legislative repeal of the 6 percent limit (passed by statute prior to TABOR) is a violation of TABOR, the General Assembly has to date acted as if it would be. Legislative legal counsel opinions are not binding, but the issue has never gone before the Supreme Court because no such legislative action has been taken. Thus, it is the legislative interpretation of the 6 percent limit in light of TABOR that gives it its power over sound fiscal policy.
We agree with you that Colorado needs sufficient public money invested in higher education, K- 12 education and roads (not to mention other vital services that were cut severely during the recession and continue to be starved). The 6 percent general fund spending cap is now the effective limit to our elected representatives being able to do their jobs of prioritizing public resources. It distorts sound policymaking and builds in an automatic bias toward capital spending, especially for transportation.
Jim Zelenski, Denver
The writer is a senior fiscal policy analyst for the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute.
Mallard Fillmore comic
One of the greatest strengths of our nation is the ability to express differing opinions on even the most vital matters of public policy. For this reason, it is important that there is representation from all angles of the political spectrum on the opinion page as well as in local and national government.
With this said, Wednesday’s Mallard Fillmore strip is troubling because the author takes the position that a decision-making body (the Ninth Circuit Court) must be consuming drugs because many of their rulings conflict with his own ideology.
Unless cartoonist Bruce Tinsley can substantiate these allegations, his strip cheapens and belittles the concept of public discourse, and constitutes nothing beyond slander of one of our nation’s critical decision-making bodies.
Rob Cassady, Louisville
Global-warming doubts
Re: “Global-warming skeptics haven’t given up,” March 23 Open Forum.
Letter-writer Peter K. Link insists the “skeptics might be right” about global warming and cites a BBC 4 television program, “The Global Warming Swindle.” If Link and his flat-Earth cohort did more reading, they’d have seen that that program has already been exposed for the fraud it is (see The Economist, March 17-23, “A Hot Topic Gets Hotter”). As the Economist article notes, critics have pointed out that nearly all the “scientists” were cherry-picked from the few contrarian outcasts in the U.S. In addition, one scientist – Carl Wunsch of MIT – has already gone on record that his views were misrepresented and distorted.
The Economist notes this isn’t the first time the producer (Martin Durkin) has pulled such shenanigans. Indeed, in 1998, the same BBC 4 had to apologize after one of Durkin’s documentaries “was found to have distorted contributors’ views.”
The “disagreements” within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that letter-writer Link references are all overblown and out of proportion. Other than a few vocal hardheads, this issue is settled.
Phil Stahl, Colorado Springs
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