Correction: In the Aug. 1 news story “Ban on booze,” The Rib House was incorrectly cited as the restaurant that had applied for late hours and been denied by city council. Council member Ken Wilson said only that a barbecue restaurant on the Hill had applied and been denied.
Keep it up
Thanks for BW’s continuing excellent investigative journalism! Your coverage of the hazards at the Valmont Dike, the Teahouse site and Monsanto’s chemical poisoning has been great.
Ditto your cultural coverage (the Family Learning Center, the Folks Festival).
You’ve enriched our political life. Keep up the good work!
George A. Johnson/Boulder
Cruel and inhuman
The role of the for-profit prison industry in maintaining the flood of deportations and broken families is despicable. Rather reminiscent of the greedy “independent contractors” in the Iraq War and the swarms who surround Washington. Humans have migrated across continents and over land bridges for thousands of years. Locking them up, breaking families, preying on the vulnerable isn’t new either. It’s just still cruel and inhuman.
Thanks to Dave Anderson, “A baby step out of the shadows,” for his excellent commentary [Aug. 15]. So much that is so wrong is being done in our name, and it’s too easy for us not to know about it. That isn’t new either.
Please join us on the first Monday of every month at 6 p.m. at the corner of Peoria and 30th. Bring a sign, a candle, a bell, your voice, your presence and stand together against this sad injustice.
Rev. Barbara Eaton Molfese/Lafayette
Snowden, revisited
[Paul] Danish’s article on Edward Snowden [“What should we do with Edward Snowden?” Danish Plan, Aug. 8] illustrates why rhetoric is a serious threat to the people and ideals of our nation.
Danish begins by wanting to kill Snowden on the Washington mall and allow his flesh to be eaten by buzzards so everyone can enjoy and/or be afraid. His humor fails because hate groups like the KKK, Taliban and many others produce people who take such ideas seriously.
Next Danish writes, “Some leftist and libertarian apologists for Snowden argue that these national security concerns are grotesquely overblown … and that the path to true national security is to stop provoking other nations, peoples or religions.” Since he wrote “Some leftist[s] …” he probably feels justified putting words into people’s mouths.
Danish continues, “Leftists and libertarians may be loath to admit it, but …There are actually people out there who want to kill Americans and destroy the United States …” and implies leftists are ignorant for trying to see certain people as something other than our enemy.
Leftists understand some want to kill us, but believe in the discipline and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. Walking the streets of Boulder and elsewhere, some Americans said they want kill me because I’m black, but I’m not declaring war against America or groups that believe such nonsense.
Then, Danish praises Snowden for “exposing the existence of a dagger pointed at the heart of American liberty.” He points out, “the United States government has transformed itself into a surveillance state, which … will transmogrify into a totalitarian state.” And he concludes, “Snowden deserves to be recognized as a hero. Posthumously, of course.”
Leftists often pursue Danish’s key to totalitarian prevention: “explicitly agree to live dangerously in the interest of living free.” But Danish uses nanny statistics, neurotic language and fear to alienate millions and glorify totalitarianism’s greatest tool — state-run murder.
I think Snowden should face jail and/or other amends for the damage he’s caused. That way in the future, people are more likely to act heroically.
Not posthumously, of course.
Curtis Griffin/Boulder
This is impossible. I tend to approve of much of what Paul Danish said Aug. 8 about Edward Snowden. It points up how difficult it may be to choose whether to be secure or free.
My guess is we’re going to find out, and will be called upon to make that choice. Again.
Gregory Iwan/Longmont
