Polluters Breathe Easy
Just when you thought it was safe to breathe, the President releases plans for cutting the EPA — and his energy bill clears the way for polluters (“It’ll Only Get Worse,” by Sam Boykin, Nov. 19). Not only would the Bush Energy Bill, which is going through Congress right now, open up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ed. note: this part of the bill was deleted by Congress) but it would also lead to restarting nuclear reactors on American soil.
This Administration is fleecing taxpayers enough by paying billions to oil companies in tax cuts. Now Congress is deciding whether our environment will be trashed for generations to come. Think of the future and our children, not a quick fix energy policy for the President’s pals.
— Lief Fitzpatrick, Charlotte
Naysayer Says Nay
In “Truths About Transit” (by David Walters, November 12), Walters accuses the naysayers of trying to hide the truth, the first of which he lists as the loss of property values due to a transit system. As one who just finished a city council race denouncing the transit plan, I know that I never made that accusation. I also never heard anyone else make that argument, nor did I hear anyone in the McCrory crowd give raising property values as an argument in favor of the transit plan.
If Mr. Walters had actually listened to the “naysayers,” whether candidates such as myself, or his fellow Loafer, Tara Servatius, he would have discovered that our concerns cover quite a range of implications. For example, Servatius has brought up the evidence of deceptions in the past from the company preparing the city’s transit plan. Is she just “wrong”? I saw her evidence; where is his? What about the tripling (so far) of the price tag?
My own concern is the coercion involved. Even if every dream of the transit supporters comes true, what will we have lost by moving people, canceling their transportation independence, and undermining the dreams they have for their families, all at the point of a government gun? Such an Orwellian scheme shakes my understanding of America to its core. How much freedom must we lose before Mr. Walters thinks it’s enough?
— Rev. Christopher Cole
Ganesh Redux
I am writing in response to the editor’s reply to the letter “Don’t Dis Ganesh” (Oct. 22) I did not see this as a matter of free speech and it seems to me neither did the writers of the letter “Don’t Dis Ganesh.”
Your reply seems like a knee-jerk reaction on your part to bring in “Freedom of Speech” and gratuitous to use the word “Western” in describing such freedom.
Freedom of speech is primarily a political matter relating to a government forbidding or dictating the contents of one’s speech through force. I don’t think the Hindu community or any of its members have any such leverage over you or CL. Perhaps you are unaware that India, where most Hindus come from, is a country that upholds the values of democracy and free speech that you so carelessly ascribe to the West. According to your argument, any Christian, Moslem or Jew whose religions also originated in the East is incapable of upholding freedom of speech.
Politics and geography aside, there are such things as good taste, accuracy and context. While I was not offended by the depiction of Ganesh, it was done in poor taste, inaccurate and completely out of context. To clarify, while Ganesh is the God that Hindus pray to before starting any endeavor of import, it is the Goddess Saraswati that is the divinity of arts, science and knowledge.
Secularizing Ganesh may be humorous to you, but most Hindus would not see the joke. How about depicting Jesus, Mary or some other saint of Christianity in this light? That should certainly stir up enough controversy to increase your circulation. And, if you don’t feel “free” enough to do that, at least get it right the next time — use Saraswati instead of Ganesh — or would the concept of a Goddess shock your Western sensibilities too much?
— Shekar Mantha, Charlotte
Editor’s Reply: Mr. Mantha has jumped to some inaccurate and unfortunate conclusions. There was no narrow-minded insinuation in my reply, and certainly no argument, that only Western societies honor the concept of free speech; I am very much aware of India’s democratic principles and enjoyed the lively differences of opinions in that country’s newspapers (livelier than can be found in US mainstream papers, in fact) during my stay there a decade ago. My reply was meant to emphasize that CL is a secular newspaper that reserves the right to use religious imagery of all kinds as visual elements in our publication, as is common practice among innumerable media outlets in this day and age. Mr. Mantha may not know that this year we published a cover story entitled “The Spiritual Jacuzzi,” which featured an illustration of a hot tub in which sat Kali, Buddha, and a rabbi, while Jesus’ feet and sandals could be seen walking across the water of the tub. Most readers appreciated the humor of the visually striking cover illustration, but some folks were irritated by it, so there you go. As Mr. Mantha mentions, this issue is as much a matter of taste as of beliefs; our tastes are simply different.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2003.
