Letters, 2/14: Keep caucuses' momentum

 28 comment(s)  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

Saturday night my husband and I were part of a historic event:  the first-ever Nebraska Democratic presidential caucus.  Our meeting place was Lincoln High School — fitting because we’re proud 1972 graduates. When we had trouble finding a parking place, the adrenaline started pumping. This was going to be big. And it was. The crowds were huge, the rooms hot, and we were all more than a little confused as to how this whole thing was going to work.

At first I noticed how different we were. Baby boomers standing next to high school students rubbing shoulders with senior citizens bumping into clumps of college kids. Men, women, children holding parents’ hands and riding atop dad’s shoulders. We were dressed in T-shirts and suits, jeans and shorts, festooned with buttons and stickers, carrying banners of hope. We were multi-colored, a blending of brilliant cultures and sexual orientations. We were all there, representing America as it truly is today. 

And we were excited. Chanting began down the hall, and its momentum moved from group to group. We were pumped. 

After dividing into our precinct groups, we began to talk about the process, the candidates, learning a little bit about one another, sharing opinions, thoughts and concerns. We soon discovered we were all bound by one powerful theme:  hope and change. What began in confusion soon turned into a well-oiled machine.

My sincere thanks to the Nebraska Democratic Party for putting this incredible event together. You are to be commended for making history and inviting us to be part of it. And I challenge each of us to stay involved.

If you want change, you must be a part of the drive to force change. If you want to be heard, you must turn up the volume. If we keep the momentum of Saturday night going, there’s no stopping us.

Cathy Wilken, Lincoln

What of cruelty to victims?

Regarding “Court: Electric chair cruel” (LJS, Feb. 9), it seems to me that the electric chair is  cruel and unusual punishment for those opposed to the death penalty. What about the cruel and unusual punishment of the victims at the hands of these killers? What would you call that?

My 11-year-old niece was murdered in 1981 in Louisiana. She was raped, mutilated and finished off with a concrete block. Now, would you consider that cruel and unusual punishment for her?

The two killers were caught, went to trial twice and found guilty each time. The main killer was executed in 1987. The other received life without parole. They didn’t horse around like they do in Nebraska.

What about lethal injection, hanging, gas? No, Sen. Ernie Chambers wouldn’t go for those, either.

Our prisons are full. We pay taxes to keep these monsters in prison. They get food, clothing, medical care and everything else.

Ernie Chambers can be a smart man but has no common sense or feelings for the murder victims or survivors.

Virginia M. Woodrum, Lincoln

What if it were your child?

It makes me sick to my stomach that the courts keep siding with convicted murderers, adding to the pain of the victims’ families. It’s good to know the Supreme Court of Nebraska thinks it would be cruel and unusual to use the chair on Raymond Mata Jr., someone who murdered and dismembered a helpless 3-year-old boy. That decision will surely give faith to law-abiding citizens of Nebraska in the courts.

I wonder if those on the Supreme Court would feel the same if it was their own son or daughter victimized by Mata. Or if their own mom or dad was the one tortured to death by Michael Ryan? Or if their own brother and sister were drowned, and strangled, respectively, by Arthur Gales?

Maybe the solution is to pass an amendment defining what cruel and unusual is. That way we can take these decisions out of the hands of the Nebraska Supreme Court. I, for one, can’t think of a method of execution that would be cruel or unusual for these low-lifes.

Terry Messersmith, Lincoln Age of Car reaching an end

Thank you, Francis Moul, for giving us a real “Vision” of what Lincoln can be! (“An environmentally healthy Lincoln,” Local View, Feb. 2).

The Age of The Car is nearing its end — we’re running out of oil, friends! We’ve reached the peak of oil production, and we will have to find alternatives.

We can do it the hard way, without planning or visions, and with lots of waste and war and dead ends, or we can plan a better way. Moul has provided us with a better way — a truly healthy, sustainable, people-friendly vision of what Lincoln can be.

Biking? Yes, it is a viable alternative to driving — over a thousand of us in Lincoln commute by bike already! Even at age 67, I bike to work 80 percent of the time in Lincoln and ride the bus and walk the rest. I rarely drive to work. I’ve done it for years. Yes, I own a car — but I lived here without a car for years, too.

We’ll have to adapt — would you pay $10 a gallon for gas? $20? What if you couldn’t get gas at all? (Too young to remember 1973, when we couldn’t get gas?)

Bob Boyce, Lincoln

Pitts dishonest on racism

In his Feb. 5 column, Leonard Pitts Jr. continues to claim that “conservatives” have somehow ignored or betrayed racial issues. He is flatly wrong — Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, Charlton Heston marched with Martin Luther King, and more Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Pitts ignores or distorts all of this in order to imply racism among conservatives and stir up hatred. His level of dishonesty on this issue would get him fired from most professions.

Dave G. Fitzpatrick, Lincoln