Letters to the Editor for Wednesday, March 18, 2009
(EDITOR’S NOTE: These are the letters that appeared in each edition of Stripes on this publication date. Click here to jump ahead to the Pacific edition letters)
Reading Recovery strikes out
While Reading Recovery seems to have gone down swinging, baseball for high schools in Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe has hit a home run.
How many other programs at elementary schools will be tossed out of the game only to see current programs at high schools expanded or new programs steppin’ up to the plate?
Nicole Jewett
Ramstein Air Base, Germany
Ann was just joking
I’d like to respond to "Coulter’s in seventh grade" (letter, March 4), which accused Ann Coulter of lowering the level of political discourse.
I, for one, found her column both very funny and to the point. That she referred to the speaker of the House as mentally retarded doesn’t lower the level of political discourse to "seventh-grader playground put-downs," unless you think that she meant it. Ann was making a joke. By the way, no one thinks John Edwards is gay, either; that also was a joke.
But the fact is, we now have a speaker of the House who not once, but twice, said in a nationally televised interview several months ago that natural gas was not a fossil fuel. So, the point of the joke was, that while she’s probably no less intelligent than the average person on the street, Nancy Pelosi would get creamed on "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" This was the person who the Democrats put in charge of writing the stimulus bill.
Coulter clearly doesn’t care if she is offending liberals. As a matter of fact, I believe she deliberately tries to offend them. Now, if liberal columnists were playing nice on their side of the op-ed page, that would be something worth pointing out. However, I find most liberal pundits to be at least as offensive as Coulter — just not nearly as well-spoken or witty.
If the editors of Stars and Stripes stop running Coulter’s column because it offends some readers, might I suggest they also stop running Arianna Huffington’s column as well? I can’t say that I’ve ever been deeply offended by it, but it certainly has insulted my intelligence on more than one occasion.
Spc. Christopher Butz
Camp Humphreys, South Korea
Promoting religious programs
I agree wholeheartedly with "Chaplaincy programs for all" (letter, March 11).
Very few spiritual support programs are secular-based. The problem is, Christian-oriented spiritual programs exclude, as the letter writer pointed out, a percentage of non-Christian members. Many times the programs are purposely advertised as secular events.
The Military Marriage Seminar retreat targets military audiences and once had training materials posted on the Internet for event organizers that gave guidance to downplay the Christian aspect of the seminar in order to capture a larger audience. Only once attendees had paid the fee and were in attendance was the Christian-based aspect of the program to be gradually revealed. Many Christian organizations’ motivation is to gain a secular audience and then attempt to convert them. For many Christian organizations this is a fundamental principle: to convert nonbelievers and bring them into their fold.
Even "generic" prayers at unit events often use coded language that promotes Christian expressions of faith, sending the message of exclusion to members of other faiths, or the nonchurched. The messages that bother me the most are (1) the arrogance that Christian faiths are right in an absolute sense and all other faiths are condemned and (2) all others need to suck it up, not complain and go with it because we are a Christian-based military. Both are obviously false.
As the most lethal and powerful armed force in the history of our planet, there is no room for the dominance of one specific religious model in our military. Our great Air Force needs to be above religious endorsement. The promotion of religious programs in our military needs to target specific religious audiences and not be promoted indiscriminately to all members.
Master Sgt. Jeffrey L. Thompson
RAF Alconbury, England
Pacific edition
Lariam can do real harm
Many of us Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans who now suffer from the permanent side effects of Lariam toxicity read with great angst "Anti-Malaria drug is limited due to risks" (article, March 6).
[University of Maryland medical professor] Dr. Chris Plowe’s labeling such damage as urban myth is outdated and dismisses the real harm this drug can do. Recent research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research finds Lariam a powerful neurotoxin capable of damaging the brain and central nervous system.
Dr. Plowe’s comments contradict those made by Dr. Robert Edelman, travelers’ health clinic director at the University of Maryland. An article that appeared in The Washington Post in 2000 quotes Edelman as saying: "I don’t like using mefloquine (Lariam) [on patients] if I can avoid it. I’m not happy with the side effects." The article also said Dr. Edelman "estimates as many as one in four of his patients have a reaction — insomnia, dizziness, feeling lightheaded or nauseated, if not something worse." "The problem is, most patients aren’t even aware of these side effects unless you tell them," Dr. Edelman told The Post.
Double-blind research trials find the true rate of neuropsychiatric side effects from Lariam to be 29 percent to 42 percent (British Medical Journal, Patricia Schlagenhauf, 2004).
The term "urban myth" also sends a cavalier message to the medics and corpsmen who receive no training on mefloquine and who hand out this drug to the troops.
The Army surgeon general didn’t order a switch to doxycycline without cause. Discounting the order’s importance disrespects him and the troops.
Cmdr. Bill Manofsky (retired)
China Lake, Calif.
‘Person’ versus ‘fetus’
As a juris doctor (medical law), [I feel] it is apparent that the writer of "Obama’s stance on abortion" (letter, Feb. 25), using the terminology "the unborn children’s rights to life," is unfamiliar with the differentiation between a fetus and a person.
A woman has the constitutional rights in accordance with the 14th Amendment to decide upon an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. The U.S. Supreme Court clearly defined such protection, and its ruling is not subject to state interference. Therefore, it’s legal in all states and, in some, the fetuses may even be terminated through the second trimester.
Furthermore, the court held that the term person was not intended to encompass the "fetus" for constitutional purposes. It had reviewed the history of abortions throughout many centuries. That Norma McCorvey (known as Jane Roe) had a change of mind subsequent to her conversion to Catholicism is irrelevant to the issue at hand. As per se, the court re-emphasized women’s rights in January 2003.
Eddy Collins, J.D.
Mehlingen, Germany
Buying into North Korea’s line
In reference to "Focus foreign policy on places, not faces" (Opinion, Stuart A. Reid, March 11), I cannot believe Reid is actually an assistant editor of the journal Foreign Affairs.
It appears he has bought into the line of North Korea. To state that the United States has 26,000 invasion-ready forces in South Korea is exactly what North Korea wants. The 26,000 U.S. forces in South Korea along with the 33,000 in Japan would not be a very effective invasion force against the 1 million-plus North Korean military.
There is one U.S. heavy combat brigade in South Korea and one U.S. Marine Expeditionary Force in Japan supported by naval and air forces. Without substantial reinforcement, this invasion would not last very long.
Also, Reid has marginalized the South Korean government and military. Again, this is exactly what North Korea wants. Sure, North Korea sees these military forces in South Korea and Japan as a threat — a threat to any military action North Korea may take.
I now must view the scholarly writings in Foreign Affairs with some doubt.
Claude Hunter
Yongsan Garrison, South Korea
