Daily Camera: Letters to the Editor

Editor’s note: Starting on Feb. 15, 2012, we will no longer be adding letters to the editor to this blog.
Because of its location, and our readers’ online habits, it unfortunately did not get the traction that we had hoped it would. In order to enhance our user experience, we will be posting both published letters and most of the other qualified letters to the editor to our home page. We will not be posting profane letters, spam, personal attacks, or letters deemed to be libelous or unsuitable for publication. From now on, letters will be at www.dailycamera.com/letters.
We will leave this blog up for now. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, send it to openforum@dailycamera.com. If you would like to offer comments or criticism not for publication, send it to the editorial page editor Erika Stutzman, stutzmane@dailycamera.com.

Letter to the Editor:

Colorado has the 6th highest rate of suicide in the nation. 867 Coloradans died by suicide in 2010 – there were 447 in the seven county metro area. The largest number of suicides is among men of working age (35 to 54). These men are sons, husbands, fathers, wage earners.  Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among young people (ages 10 to 34) who then do not have the opportunity to live out their potential. Men over age 75 are at highest risk.  A death by suicide affects the entire community; it has a profound impact on family and friends, and the workplace, and results in an untold loss of productivity.

House Bill 1140, sponsored by Representative Matt Jones and Senator Linda Newell, will help prevent suicide. If passed, it will ask hospitals to provide information about suicide (risk factors, signs, and sources of help) to family and friends to whom a suicidal person is being discharged. The State Office of Suicide Prevention would work with hospitals to develop appropriate materials. Suicidal persons who go to the hospital are often those who have attempted suicide, and these individuals are at serious risk for eventually dying of suicide. Any effort that gets information into the hands of those closest to suicidal persons will help save lives.

Our son might still be alive if we had been informed that he was at very high risk because of a number of factors. He had just been discharged from the hospital, but we received no information about these risks. If we had known these things, we would never have left him alone the day he died by his own hand.

Susan Marine
Board, Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado
Boulder

To the Editor,

Much has been made over the Obama administration’s rule that would require health insurance plans – including those offered by Roman Catholic institutions – to provide free birth control to female employees.  The hue and cry has accused the president of an unconscionable affront to religious freedom and as an enemy of morality.  A couple questions arise.

Since when did the US Conference of Catholic Bishops become the arbiters of conscience and morality?  Surely not in the wake of the scandals that have rocked the church over the last decade, and with which Catholic bishops are criminally implicated.

And while contraception as a factor in women’s health has been duly reported, why is there no discussion, from either the left or the right, about birth control as a factor in the health of the planet?  Is it really so unseemly to mention that the earth is groaning under the weight of 7 billion human beings?

To quote Boulder’s inestimable Al Bartlett: “Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population?”

As we move forward into the 21st Century, perhaps it is time we develop some ethical measures and standards of morality that account for the welfare of planet earth – the very ground from which all our freedoms arise.

Tim Hogan
Boulder

In November of 2010, we lost our 16-year-old son to suicide. Jesse was exuberant, sweet, friendly, and loving. He was also impulsive, angry, and intense. About a year before his death, after an argument with us over homework, we received a call from the ER at the local hospital informing us that Jesse had walked in and stated that he had taken an overdose of Advil. We rushed to the hospital and were there for several hours while Jesse was treated with activated charcoal to absorb the medicine.

The hospital had a psychiatrist come down to the ER to talk with Jesse and with us prior to releasing him. We assured him that we would follow up with a counselor and psychiatrist. In the moment, Jesse assured us that he had made a mistake and that he would never do such a thing again. But at no time did the hospital staff, or any mental health professional, ever inform us that this “suicide gesture” meant an increase in Jesse’s risk for a completed suicide in the future. We were never told that “a nonfatal suicide attempt is the strongest known clinical predictor of eventual suicide.” (American Journal of Psychiatry, March, 2004.)

I do not know if this information would have meant the difference in saving Jesse’s life. However, it might have influenced the choices Jesse and we made in moving forward. This is why we support House Bill 1140, sponsored by Rep. Matt Jones, asking hospitals to provide information about suicide (risk factors, danger signs, and sources of help) to family members or friends to whom a suicidal person is being discharged. HB 1140 is scheduled to be heard in the House Health and Environment Committee on Thursday, February 16. Please help this bill to move forward by contacting the Health and Environment Committee at 303-866-4789 and asking them to vote “yes” on HB1140

There is no way to bring our Jesse back, but perhaps HB1140 will be the difference for someone else’s son or daughter, sister or brother, mother, father, Aunt, Uncle or friend.

Sincerely,

Andi Jason & David Simon
Boulder

The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out against the newly revised regulation concerning access to contraceptives for women.  This will surely play into the hands of Republicans in their efforts to rescind Obamacare.  Apparently Catholic bishops are ready to throw more than 40 million uninsured American under the bus in order to preserve their almost universally ignored and medieval regulation against contraception.  If priests and bishops do not accept the statistic of a 98% rate of use of contraceptives by sexually active women, they simply need to open their eyes and look out at their congregations, made up mostly of families of 3 or less children, to realize that their contraception teaching has been ignored for decades.  The bishops do not have the power to force or convince Catholics of their silly regulation, but they do have the power to increase the risk that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will continue to live without adequate health care.

Sincerely,

David R. Guilinger
Boulder

Dear Daily Camera,

Today we went swimming with our baby at the East Boulder Rec. Center. We were horrified when we came out and heard gunshots, and saw a goose falling from the sky. Then we stood by as a goose was strangled before our eyes, and the rest of the flock sat paralyzed in fear. We did not know it was possible, legal, or acceptable for people to be firing guns and killing geese within a short earshot and eyeshot of a major City of Boulder facility (in the field to the north) and right in our peaceful neighborhood.

What can be done to protect the citizens from being exposed this tragic and unsafe practice? Private property rights and gun rights aren’t the only “rights” that need to be respected. We citizens have a right to peace and tranquility, too.

Sincerely,

Steve Jones
Boulder

I was amazed to see how easy it was for Mr. Obama to solve the conflict with the Catholic Church over the paid for birth control (abortion) measures.  His compromise solution, that the insurance companies and not the church would pay for the costs, was a stroke of genius.  How could the church object?  And according to the New York Times Feb. 11, 2011 editorial:  “Mr. Obama’s new rule on birth control coverage lets institutions affliated with a religion shift the cost of coverage to their insurance companies, but Mr. Obama assured Americans it would not result in other women, or the rest of the country, subsidizing that shift.”  Wow, it will be a cost only the insurance companies will bear.  He is a miracle worker.  Now that he has established the precedent that companies can be forced to provide services for free, he should apply this new power to balancing the Federal $1.3 Trillion Budget deficit.  All companies doing business with the government should be instructed to work for free until the budget is balanced.  One miracle begets another.

George Narcavage
Boulder

While I do not agree with most of John Ahrens points in his guest commentary “Caucus voting night, but I had to take a seat” in Sunday’s Camera, I do want to compliment him for his ability to write so well, since he is not yet four years old. How do I know he is so young, since he didn’t mention his age in the article? He wrote: “Obama has driven us further apart then (sic) any president in my lifetime”. This indicates he was not alive when George W. Bush was alive.

Jack Zeller
Lafayette

I must say that Whitney Bryen’s article on “Luxury Student Living” (Feb. 12) struck me as tone-deaf to the point of being comical. Given this country’s current economic state of affairs, especially in relation to the still-abysmal housing market with tens of thousands of Americans struggling to make ends meet and stay in their homes, it seems silly and out of step, if not downright insensitive to hear college undergraduates talking about being unable to live without private bathrooms and en suite washer/dryer sets.

The rents on most of these units matches or exceeds the monthly income for single adults living at the poverty line in a state that saw almost a five percent jump in poverty levels over the past decade. I can’t imagine that these students are paying for these high-end properties themselves and treating these living arrangements as though they are the status quo for CU students only serves to strengthen the University’s reputation as a playground for wealthy out-of-staters.

I can’t blame the students for wanting to live in these cushy apartments—what 19-year-old wouldn’t appreciate a kegerator, four balconies and a rooftop hot tub—but I do question the editorial decision to use five columns on this sort of frivolity.

John K. Wilson
Boulder

As a self-employed carpenter, I set my own wage, and it is somewhat below the maximum that I could make for my skill level.

We need to make a living, but I believe that there are many reasons for working that are more important than making the maximum wage; such as:

a)  excelling at what we do
b)  enjoying what we do
c)  the comradeship of our co-workers
d)  the pleasure of a job well done

If a person’s highest priority is making the maximum amount of money, then they will never be satisfied.  This is not the kind of person that you wish to employ, whether it be the C. U. administrator or the C. U. janitor.

David Levin
Eldorado Springs

Clay Evans’ essay on the horrors of raising pigs/aka bacon, raises many interesting issues about WHO, not WHAT, we choose to put in our mouth. Pigs and tens of millions of other factory farmed animals are sentient beings who suffer incredible pain before they’re mercilessly and brutally killed. From the get go it’s really “Dead pig walking” for these unfortunate beings. Sure, there are more humane ways to raise food, but killing animals for most if not all food, and surely bacon, is thoroughly unnecessary and is indeed a brutal assault on their lives. No one has to eat bacon so let’s just say “‘no” to food that we don’t need and stop allowing animals to be born solely for our pleasure. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato is really Babe, lettuce, and tomato and we shouldn’t forget that fact.

Marc Bekoff
Boulder

Dear Editor,

Michael Rabb in his letter (February 4) is asking for support to compel the University of Colorado to divest from companies that support Israel’s “apartheid” of Palestine.

I have a much better suggestion. Why don’t we compel our politicians to divest the United States from the entire Israeli-Palestinian question?

It’s positively nuts to think the United States can craft some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians of whose gripes go back to Biblical times.

So far in this presidential campaign Ron Paul appears to be the only politician with the back-bone to do it.

Quentin Mckenna
Boulder

As a neo-Kenyan Boulder socialist/commie/nazi with no birth certificate, I hesitate to offer my opinion about the rich spectacle of the current Republican presidential nominating process. However, I think the moment is a rare one for American politics, so here goes.

The miracle of Republicanism since Reagan has been the party bosses’ ability to persuade people of average or below average means that millionaires and billionaires actually give a damn about them. They accomplish this by diversions: interjecting social issues like racism, religion, abortion, and more in order to distract very sincere people of the non-wealthy class from the rampant rape they are committing on the body politic and the economy, exclusively for their own gain in the long run. This helps contextualize the appalling rightward shift of this year’s Republican rhetoric.

I don’t want to denigrate people who sincerely hold passionate beliefs about social issues, to the extent that they will vote against their own economic self-interest, but they seem to believe that a majority of their fellow citizens agree with them. And cynical candidates (except perhaps Pope Ric) are more than willing to use this fervor to advance the pro-wealthy, exclusionist, militaristic goals of the rich (nothing stimulates the economy and increases profit like a nice war, after all: are you listening, Iran?).

So the misinformation goes on, the birthers won’t go away, the implicit racism in the far right’s hatred of that middle-of-the-road non-liberal Obama surges ahead, and all of the little right-wing social fantasies continue to be advanced as majority opinion.

This election, I say let’s have it out, Republicans: please nominate the most conservative, social issue-oriented, intolerant person you can find (I think that’s Santorum, but keep turning those rocks over), and let’s see what percentage of the electorate really takes that point of view in a modern, pluralistic society, as opposed to a fantastic, Ozzie and Harriet imaginary 1950’s forever world that never really existed.

Milquetoast or madman: let’s choose, America!

And if the fanatic right loses, please shut up. If you win, in my capacity as a lunatic leftie, I will.

Jim Drevescraft
Nederland

I read in today’s paper that the “braintrust” of the organization that owns the Times Call
and the Camera have outsourced 17 (I believe) jobs to India.

Shame on you.

This, I am sure, has nothing to do with trying to protect their subscribers and advertisers
from a price increase, in order to keep these precious jobs in Colorado, but rather is solely
aimed at increasing their profits.

Is it any wonder that the public is sick of Corporate Greed? Does it surprise you that the
Occupy Movement has so much momentum?

If the Real Estate people would get together with the car dealers, they could hire these
folks, have their own display advertising staff, create their own ads, pull their advertising
dollars from the newspapers, thereby preserving Colorado jobs AND saving themselves a
bundle as well.

Then we’d see how smart these selfish bean counters at corporate really are when they
have to report huge losses in revenue at their next annual meeting.

Herb Padwick
Longmont

Question for high school students and editors:
How do you go east from the south pole?

Robert H. Bushnell PhD PE
Boulder

Letter to the Editor:

RTD will make a decision next month as to whether to include Longmont in the new  FasTracks tax package that will be on this year’s November ballot. If Longmont cares about how their RTD dollars are being spent, now is the time for them to speak up.

Eight years ago, Longmont voters approved the FasTracks tax increase by a 54% to 46%
margin. This means that Longmont shoppers have contributed over $10 million each year to
RTD coffers in order to build a metro area rail system that is designated to reach Longmont.

Now, RTD wants to walk away from the rail deal that Longmont voters approved, but yet they still expect Longmont voters to pass a second tax increase to build rail to all of the other cities listed in the Fastracks plan. Longmont’s consolation prize is “more” bus service. If we want a cleaner environment, a comprehensive rail system that connects Longmont to the rest of the metro area, and smarter land development–rail is the answer.

What is RTD thinking? It will be very difficult to get 51% of the metro voters to approve a tax increase during a recession while snubbing Longmont’s 40,000 voters in the process.

Their tax effort will fail.

Tell your elected officials—city council members, state representatives, and county
commissioners—to call RTD and tell them that Longmont voted for rail in 2004 and will vote for rail in 2012 only if Longmont receives the rail line that was promised to us in a realistic timeframe. Don’t you think 20 years is a bit long to wait?

Karen Benker
Longmont

Whatever happened to the local newspaper?  Seventeen employees laid off at Praire Mountain Publishing.  Where did these jobs go?
According to Al Manzi “Its a broader initiative to outsource print and digital advertising.”  Does Al really mean, “Its the CEO’s decision to contract these jobs to India or Indonesia, where labor is cheaper, to enable us to lower costs and increase profit.”
Maybe not.  Because Al says he “values our employees.”  Are these the same valued employees that are told the quality, the speed, the digital expertise is better in some third world country!  The same valued employees with a severance package about the size of your CEO’s monthly stipend.  Or is it the valued employees in India?  Whos next to go Al.  Maybe you can find a way to outsource photographers, editors, sales reps or how about the layout people.  That would really add to the bottom line.
Your company is like the auto industry, one big bailout.  You just pretend to care about the employees, the real caring is the profit margin. Hello corporate America.
Here is our new Local BASED Newspaper? Punjub Mountain Publishing, announces Employee of the month, Milka Singh, who worked 80 hours a week for little pay.  Thats dedication folks!

Scot Mortimer
Erie

In a letter in today’s Camera Kathleen Branch asks: “How would Ms. Bayer feel if the federal government decided that Jewish and Muslim groups (schools, hospitals, etc.) must provide pork products free to everyone?”   Perhaps if the Institute of Medicine and all our best
scientists had found that pork or any other food is a medicine essential to women and their families, protects them from unwanted pregnancies and abortions, can be prescribed to lower the risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer, significantly reduces health costs,
and then that many women cannot afford to buy this medicine, we hope HHS would recommend that all women have access to it and that coverage be offered by all employers along with all other preventive services.

Keep in mind that these benefits are already in place under Colorado law and twenty seven other state laws and all churches have been given exemptions for their employees who have chosen to affiliate with a religious entity and follow its rules.  But hospitals, colleges and
charities run by churches are another matter.  They have chosen to operate in the secular sphere, to hire employees of diverse beliefs or no belief, and to accept public benefits like financial aid for students and Medicare, paid for from the taxes of all of us. They need
to operate under the same laws as all other employers.  Remember also that there are many  politicians including Republican candidates who have pledged to make family planning and all clinics that provide affordable women’s health care illegal.  This IS a health issue for
all of us.

Carole Bayer
Boulder

A letter from Don Lloyd (Feb. 9) is another depressing example of the massive factual error that shapes public opinion on the Israel-Palestine issue.

Facts: The Palestinian Authority is controlled by the Fatah Party, which accepted a two-state solution and thus, de facto, the existence of Israel nearly 25 years ago. The Hamas leadership has been asking for a truce and signaling its acceptance of a two-state solution for several years. As the New York Times recently reported, top Hamas leaders are now moving toward a strategy of nonviolent resistance to Israel’s control of Palestinian lives.

When Israel abandoned its settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005, it retained total control over all traffic into Gaza. That allowed Israel to strangle the economy of Gaza, where the standard of living has been kept tragically low. It’s hardly surprising that Gazans continued to resist, though I would not condone their choice of violent means. In the last couple of years, although the suffering in Gaza has grown worse, there has been little shelling from Gaza to Israel, and it’s virtually always in response to military attacks by Israel upon Palestinians.

there is no longer any Palestinian “terrorism” inside Israel. According to Israeli government statistics, that only one Israeli civilian has died from hostile attack inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders in the last three years.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not protect Israel. Opinion polls consistently show a sizeable majority of Palestinians ready to accept a two-state solution once the settlements are withdrawn, so that Palestine can become a single territorially contiguous state. the settlements prevent the peace that Israelis as well as Palestinians need so badly.

We need a public discussion based on facts so that we can shape a policy that serves U.S. interests. That won’t happen as long as these outdated, now wholly fictional, stereotypes of “terrorists” bent on destroying Israel dominate the conversation.

Ira Chernus
Longmont

We have a significant number of young women and men, without papers, moving through our public high schools. Many are college material, many have dreams of professions that only university education might make possible. The ASSET bill will help them develop skills that might benefit us all. Certainly, it costs us nothing to affirm standard tuition. Let’s fill those student seats with willing learners. Let’s encourage them to build learning for the benefit of Colorado.

Sheila Dierks
Boulder