Today's Lettesr: Anonymous takes to the streets for everyone
Letters to the EditorPublished February 16, 2008
On Feb. 10, in dedication to Lisa McPherson, thousands of anonymous protesters took to the streets worldwide to protest the Church of Scientology. The protesters, all incognito, did much more than "poke at Scientology," as the title of the article says. The protesters, most in their early 20s or late teens, did something that many believe their generation would not do: stand up, instead of sit down, when faced with an issue that is dropped in their lap.
The Church of Scientology, writing to the Times, stated that the protesters are a "cyber-terrorist" organization yet, out of more than 8,000 protesters worldwide, there has yet to be a single arrest recorded. After all, one can't be arrested when one is only exercising their most fundamental rights, right? Scientology didn't agree though, and much to their dismay, their squads of private investigators, photographers and cars with tinted windows did not scare the protesters.
So, who's Anonymous? According to the church, they're "cowards." But in staying anonymous, the group shows that they are the antithesis of a group. The only archetype of Anonymous is, therefore, the everyman: the mother, the student, the high school dropout, the professor, the businessman, the artist, and even, in the case of one protester, a grandfather.
On March 15, when Anonymous once again takes to the streets to protest Scientology, things will be different. First, the Church of Scientology now knows that it can no longer intimidate those who criticize it. Second, hundreds of people who drove past protests, honked their horns in support, and got fliers from demonstrators will be out on the streets too. Why? Because now every person of every generation, age, sex, race and religion knows that they, too, can have a part in dismantling the cult of greed.
Tyler Brenner Crawford, Palm Harbor
Protesters are disgraceful
When we marched with Martin Luther King Jr. back in the '60s, none of us wore masks, and we had a lot more to fear than those Anonymous protesters. We were people of different races, concerned about creating equality among Americans. Those Anonymous people are a sham wearing masks to instill fear in the public. That's why they are wearing them. Who knows who they will protest next!
They are a disgrace to the American way of life. They have no business griping about someone's church, and it is apparent that they haven't been in any lately. They should spend less time making trouble and more time doing positive things to improve mankind.
A. Long, St. Petersburg
Insulting comparisons
It's amazing to me that Pat Harney, spokeswoman for the church, would compare Anonymous to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. Comparing a small group of protesters, participating in a very peaceful demonstration, is a far cry from lynching African-Americans and mass murdering Jews. This is so insulting to those groups of people that they should be outraged.
I was downtown observing the protest on Sunday, and the church members themselves were making things uncomfortable for everyone by videotaping and taking pictures of all the happenings. Harney claims "the church would use the pictures to identify the protesters because any of them could be a security risk." You tell me which actions seem more like Naziism?
James Devine, Clearwater
Remember the past
Those sincere protesters of Scientology should remember the prediction that those who do not know their own history are bound to repeat it. Their actions are reminiscent of others who were against new religious orders, especially of the Mormons. Recently we had a Mormon running for president!
What, really, is a "sect"? Just an offshoot of usually status-quo faiths. Christianity started as one such "sect" of Judaism, and lots of folks with drawn swords objected.
I'd just say to the hidden-faced protesters, "Calm down, go home, and pray and teach in your own faith." But, of course, I see Jesus' peaceful positive protests as the correct way of countering perceived wrong in society. (No, I'm not a Scientologist.)
Nadine Duke,Oldsmar
The Grammy Awards
Album of the Year choice elevated art over commerce
The Grammy Awards have a history of surprising picks, and it's a shame they didn't follow Sean Daly's game plan as his deadline loomed (Hancock? No, no no, Feb. 12). But many of us rejoice at Herbie Hancock's Album of the Year honor.
The Joni Mitchell tribute, which includes music by Duke Ellington and Wayne Shorter, is a rewarding collection by an artist who has been groundbreaking and fearless for nearly 50 years. What a pleasure to see sales skyrocket within a day for a musician who avoids the self-aggrandizement and posturing so prevalent on the music landscape.
Daly, who seldom mentions jazz except in a patronizing way, worries this award erodes the Grammy's credibility. I suggest that Hancock, Mitchell and the all-star cast on River are perpetually modern, and this surprising choice was a rare and welcome triumph of art over commerce.
Bob Seymour, jazz director, WUSF 89.7, Tampa
Bad music plagues industry
Sean Daly says, "The industry is in the toilet, album sales have never been worse and layoffs at major labels are brutal" (From "Rehab" to "huh?", Feb. 11).
Could it be that the so-called "music" of today is as bad as many of us believe? Maybe it's time to get back to real music with a recognizable melody performed by singers who can clearly enunciate and don't have to scream to be heard. A little variety might bring back the generation that now appears to be turning its backs on the industry.
John Bryans, Homosassa
No jail for mom who gave up her son Feb. 13 article
Law needs more sympathy for struggling parents
I have read with interest the story of Cheryl Holley and her attempt to obtain treatment for her seriously disturbed 12-year-old adopted son. Here is a mother who loves her son deeply but knows that she cannot provide him with the care, both medical and mental, that he requires. So in desperation she attempts to enlist the state of Florida to help her and her son find an answer.
The state answers by charging her with abandonment. I was both shocked and angered to learn that Florida has no provision to help a mother in her situation.
In most states there has been for years a provision in the law that allows for the giving up of custody to the state when parents can no longer provide for the mental, physical, or moral care of their child. They sign papers giving up all rights to the state and the state then takes over and places the child in the proper setting. The state can also place the child for adoption if it deems that this would be in the best interest of the child. These states do not seek to criminalize the parent for doing the right thing for her child.
Florida sorely needs such a law. Most states finally realized that it was better to allow a parent to place a newborn baby at a hospital, fire station or police station instead of into a dumpster. Perhaps the Cheryl Holley case will result in a law permitting the giving up of an older child to the state when the circumstances warrant.
Richard Driscoll, Clearwater
A beneficial move
I would like to congratulate Cheryl Holley for her decision to seek help for her son. She might be saving him from life in prison if he should continue his current behavior.
Couldn't this action be called early childhood intervention?
Ruth Sullivan, Largo
Offer a positive view
We are always hearing about adoptions that go bad. Where are the articles on the successful adoptions? With all the problems we are hearing about the foster care system, it's a shame someone isn't writing about the good things that come out of the foster system. Many children are adopted each year and their lives turn around for the better. Let's hear more positive stories.
Brandi Morton, Largo
Proposed baseball stadium
A plan not well thought-out
With everything that has been said or written on this, there are two very important subjects that still need to be examined. Aside from the existing issues dealing with insufficient parking, an open stadium design and the apparent secrecy involving the subject, there is a need for a comprehensive explanation about what is wrong with the current stadium facility.
Additionally, thought also has to be given to the impact the redevelopment of the current stadium site will have upon the community as well as the city's and county's ability to deliver the needed services. One of the news articles noted there could be as many as 900 dwellings plus retail/office facilities. Seemingly that would have a significant impact upon the community, community meaning not just the old Gas Plant area, but the entire county.
By the way, the article in Thursday's Times notes a time line for how the new stadium plan was perhaps developed. However, it did not go far enough back on the calendar for when the new stadium plan actually may have first been a topic of conversation for the team owners and City Hall. In June 2004, baseball commissioner Bud Selig visited St. Petersburg and noted there was a need for a new stadium. At that time not too much consideration was given to his observation, but now as events have unfolded it has taken on a new meaning as a part of the big picture. This proposed project has not been well thought-out or managed.
Roger Wilson, Seminole
Congress, sports and drugs
A pointless waste of time
I am stunned and shocked at the fiasco that took place this week! Our Congress spent several, in my opinion, wasteful hours grilling people about the use, as much as 10 years ago, of steroids and other performance enhancers. Who really gives a damn!
We are engaged in an ugly, ill-conceived war. We are up to our ears in debt. Immigration/border control/seaport vulnerability still have not been given serious enough thought. The problems of health care, and our energy policies have not yet been properly addressed, yet alone resolved. But this Congress has the gall to hold hearings on sports figures who may or may not have used illegal substances. Give me a break!
It is, indeed, time for change. And not only at the top, but in the ranks of our lawmakers who have really earned the title, "Do-nothing Congress".
Orfeo Trombetta, Seminole
New limits approved for gag grouperFeb. 1, story
Long-lining is the problem
I am writing about the National Marine Fisheries Service's move toward closing grouper fishing to recreational fishermen for three months and placing a quota of 1.2-million pounds for commercial catches. This is an idiotic and short-sighted idea.
The problem with the depleted grouper stocks lies directly with the method of commercial harvesting of grouper. Long-lining, pure and simple, is responsible for the decline in grouper stocks. This method places a line several miles long, baited with several thousand hooks that lie along the bottom, overnight. This is a very efficient method of catching grouper, but it is killing the undersized fish. Any and all species of fish that become hooked are killed. It does not matter if the fish is of legal size or not - it will be dead when the line is retrieved. So all the undersized grouper are killed as a byproduct of this method of fishing. It is just easier to fish this way - kind of a "no-brainer" way.
All of the fish that are not legal size cannot be kept, so they just use them for bait when they put out these lines the next night, or they simply are thrown back into the water, dead. How does this help replenish the already depleted stock?
That is the reason the stocks are becoming "overfished" and now face seasonal closure and quotas. It is not because of recreational fishermen or from party-boat fishing. There already is a bag limit in place, and it has been in place for years. A recreational fisherman, as well as those on a party boat, catch grouper with a fishing pole with a single baited hook. The fish is brought aboard alive and if the fish is not legal size, it is returned to the water alive and, in almost all cases, able to continue to grow for the future.
Save the grouper by stopping the long-lining method of harvesting.
Rusty Ercius, St. Pete Beach
Fake and Fabulous Feb. 2, Homes story
Ersatz environment
Just what we need in our increasingly fake, virtual-reality world: artificial outdoor landscaping for the homeowner. Fake outdoor greenery used to be considered tacky, but now it's being portrayed as trendy? And by a "Master Gardener"? Is this one of the signs of the apocalypse?
Maybe the people who buy these products can get a couple of robotic kids and some faux pets to round out the family scene. And they shouldn't forget to purchase some fake birds, acrylic butterflies, a few plastic squirrels and plenty of artificial flowers to "inhabit" their back yards.
The last thing our fragile environment needs is more harmful chemicals leaching into the soil and air. Live plants and trees improve air quality and add oxygen, something we still need to breathe. Living plants provide homes and food for real live creatures. Artificial products always emit harmful chemicals after a time. These fakes are just "attractive" pollution.
Nancy M. Frioud, Tarpon Springs
A juvenile jab Feb. 12, letter
Bad behavior abounds
I wonder if the letter writer thinks that Rush Limbaugh's mocking of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease is more or less tasteful than the back end of an elephant?
As for schoolyard behavior, the conservatives booing John McCain shows an immature attitude and an inability to have a rational discussion of the issues. All the bad behavior isn't either left or right!
Lynda Johnson, Homosassa
Be alert to TV switch
Americans are only a calendar year away from a fundamental change in television, and too many TV viewers in our community are unprepared for it. On Feb. 17, 2009, federal law mandates that all full-power television stations (including public stations such as WEDU-Ch. 3) stop broadcasting in the analog format and broadcast only in digital.
That means that all TV sets not equipped with digital tuners will no longer be able to receive over-the-air programs through antennas. It is the final step in the digital transition (DTV), and attention must be paid.
Some national surveys tell us that a majority of citizens need more information to prepare for the switchover. There is more concern than clarity at this moment on the readiness of viewers and consumers for this change.
In the upcoming weeks and months, information and recommendations about DTV will come from many directions - from the private sector, from the federal government, and from a range of broadcast entities and interest groups.
PBS and WEDU will serve as impartial and trusted sources of useful information that helps viewers manage this transition without commercial influence or objective.
Why? In part, because universal access - the ability to serve our country's TV viewership in its entirety - is an important tenet of our mission. At this moment, PBS programming is available to 99 percent of America's TV households including those in Tampa Bay. We want that to be the case after February 2009, and PBS will work in communities around the nation to help viewers navigate this critical transition.
So please be on the lookout for helpful DTV information which will be available on the air as well as on our Web site (http://www.wedu.org) in the months to come. We will also reach out to the community by offering help in the form of public speakers on this important issue.
Don't wait until the last moment to find out if you need to act. There is assistance available now.
We hope to see you in the new digital world.
Dick Lobo, president and CEO, WEDU, Tampa
Out of the shadow Feb. 13
Unfounded claims
Your story on Valerie Plame Wilson uncritically reported her claim of "treason" by the Bush administration. But this was determined to be no crime at all. And the inadvertent leaker to Robert Novak turned out to be Richard Armitage, described in a Sept. 1, 2006, Washington Post editorial as "a political rival of the White House." The editorial goes on to say: "It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House - that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson - is untrue."
As for the veracity the claims of Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, also mentioned in your article, that same Post editorial went on to say that "it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming - falsely, as it turned out - that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger. ... He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously."
Gary P. Posner, Tampa