Union chief’s warning to Colorado governor
Re: “Union chief warns Ritter; Labor issue could ‘blow up’ in Colo.,” April 3 news story.
Teamsters union leader James Hoffa Jr.’s threat that the labor issue could “blow up” just before the Democratic National Convention reminds me of a 4-year-old in a checkout line crying for candy with the hope that a spineless parent caves in to shut him up.
Governors Bill Owens and Bill Ritter and Mayor John Hickenlooper have worked hard to give the metro area a national stage to spotlight why Denver is a great city to visit and live in. If the convention is plagued with walkouts and picket lines, it will be a reflection of the petty acts of the Teamsters. They will be the ones responsible for giving Denver a black eye by choosing to act like a child, not those who promote this as a positive chance to show the country that Denver and the West matter in national politics.
Robert Nichols, Erie
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If lying CEOs are a warm bubble bath cooing false forecasts, organized labor is a bunch of oversized football players throwing ice-cold Gatorade on everyone else.
Organized labor needs to retune its message. What are they going to do for the middle class? I don’t know; all I hear are threats. Also, what are the standards of the unions? I know, I know – livable wages, etc. How about being “partners in success”? How about a positive message that says “can do”?
The American public is right where you want them but you’re blowing your opportunity with threats and conducting “business as usual” with no positive models of company/organized labor success. You will not succeed until you become more sophisticated and positive in your organizations and messages. If you can’t or won’t do this, I pray a new group will morph out and up to appeal to the great middle class and help them in their time of need.
Tim Seaman, Arvada
Honoring local members of Tuskegee Airmen
Re: “Their mettle no longer denied,” March 30 news story.
When I saw news reports about the long-overdue presidential recognition of the Tuskegee Airmen’s many accomplishments, I could hardly wait to get my copy of The Denver Post so I could read more about many of these brave men who made their home in Denver.
It is shameful that you could not muster the journalistic effort to check this readily obtainable information. Denver-born Lt. Col. John W. Mosley comes to mind immediately, for his years of dedicated service in the U.S. Air Force, but also for his many years of public service with local and national institutions. Another stellar Tuskegee Airman was Omar Blair, for whom a branch of the Denver Public Library is named. He served as DPS board president and in other community-related activities. Many Tuskegee Airmen lived and worked in Denver and throughout Colorado. We can never thank them enough for their bravery in fighting for us in World War II while they were still treated like dirt by most of America.
Henry E. Lowenstein, Denver
Friendly fire and the death of a sports star
There has been a series of articles concerning the combat death of Pat Tillman. Certainly Tillman deserves to be honored for enlisting in the Army and being killed in action. However, I find the continuing publicity far out of line. His family deserves our sympathy, as do all the families of those killed in war.
Combat is not neat and tidy, and there are occasions where soldiers are accidently killed by their own comrades during the chaos that is involved in contact with the enemy. It has happened in every war.
I doubt that all the professional soldiers accidently killed in combat by friendly fire who are not well-known professional athletes are even mentioned in nationwide news releases. Since Tillman voluntarily enlisted, his death should be treated as any other GI’s. This continuing coverage of Tillman’s death and the confused circumstances of the reporting concerning the circumstances seems to result from the American fixation with professional athletes and not with the average professional American soldiers who also live and die in combat.
Clarke M. Brandt, Aurora
Al Knight’s column on gay adoptions
Re: “Court decision is due in battle over gay adoptions,” March 28 Al Knight column.
What animus does Al Knight have for gay citizens? This version of his perpetual attack argues that gay-rights groups use the courts to produce major “social changes without the full participation and approval of an informed public.” The trouble with his argument is that he assumes it’s OK for any citizen’s civil rights to be dependent on the varying whims of the public. He says that “gay-rights groups to bypass legislatures and the public.” If that’s true, then Brown vs. Board of Education was part of the efforts by race-rights groups to bypass legislatures and the public. And the country is better off for it. It is a sad fact that legislatures and majorities in some states used to deny equal rights to other citizens based only on their ethnicity. The fact that those majorities wanted it did not make it right or legal. Sometimes a court is the only place in which a citizen can secure the right to be treated by his government in the same way as more numerous citizens who would rather have him subservient to their will.
Stephen W. Seifert, Denver
Rural firearm values
Re: “Law allows readin’, writin’ and rifle,” April 4 Jim Spencer column.
Jim Spencer’s attempt to frame the Holyoke student who legally carried a .22-caliber small-game rifle in his pickup truck as a “rifle-toting freak” is disgusting, but not surprising given Spencer’s disconnect from rural Colorado values.
Irrational anti-gun zealots like Spencer continue to push the “hunting + kids = murderers” myth, with no factual evidence to support their assertions. When I was a youth, we all had easy access to guns, because most of our fathers hunted and kept their rifles in the hall closet. When we came of age, we hunted after school. But we understood the distinction between shooting a rabbit for the dinner table versus murdering students.
Louis Phillippe, Red Feather Lakes
Keefe and Mallard
Re: “What’s good for the duck is good for Mike Keefe,” April 2 Open Forum.
The reason your paper publishes Mike Keefe and Bruce Tinsley shows people that there are many different views on most subjects. Only in a truly free society – where the media may criticize, ask questions, laugh at things, explain, etc. – is this allowed.
We take it for granted that our television has many channels, our newspapers report all political details, etc., and we don’t remember that millions of people don’t have that luxury.
Sonia Yang, Aurora
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Mike Keefe’s March 27 cartoon of Irish leaders toasting each other should be required reading for all those Bush supporters who still insist that “you can’t negotiate with terrorists.” Catholic and Protestant terrorists have been killing each other since 1917. Because of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell’s diplomacy, they no longer do. Diplomacy solved the Israeli-Egyptian conflict as well as Bosnia-Serbia. But of course the Bush supporters don’t “get” a lot of things. I hope they do, soon.
James Warner, Denver
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