Letters to the editor

Expressing restraint

Feel free to speak just as soon as we give you permission

Editor, The Times:

It is good that the Seattle School Board dropped its plans to restrict public testimony at board meetings ["Another smart idea bites the dust," Times editorial, Sept. 23].

The variety of topics chosen by speakers does not extend the length of the meetings at all — the board listens to 20 speakers for three minutes each, regardless of the subject matter. The variety of topics chosen by speakers does not prevent the board from getting real work done; that suggestion is absurd.

It is ludicrous for The Times to suggest that "restricting dialogue at the meetings doesn't squelch public debate" when that is exactly what it does and nothing more.

The community meetings you tout (despite the fact that they have yet to occur) have an agenda set by the Board Executive Committee. The Board Legislative meeting also has an agenda set by the Board Executive Committee.

If the proposal to restrict public testimony is approved, members of the public will only be allowed speak on the topics hand-picked by these three people. That's not democracy.

— Charlie Mas, Seattle

Dirty tracks

I find it terrible that the Pentagon would not let our military and intelligence officers testify regarding the [classified military-intelligence unit] Able Danger program [see "Data on hijacker allegedly destroyed," News, Sept. 16]. Does this mean Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld doesn't trust members of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Or could it be he is trying to cover his own rear end as well as George Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's regarding their lack of concern back then?

It has been four years since the attack of 9/11 and the American public has the right to know what happened.

More and more, the Bush administration looks like the "Tricky Dick" Nixon operation so many of us hated.

— Jim Curtis, Maple Valley

Close but no cargo

Seattle City Councilman Richard McIver, chairman of the finance panel, said he wasn't swayed by strip club dancers' arguments about their possible loss of income due to the new ban on lap dances. "Drug dealing might pay family wages," he said. "That doesn't mean we should legalize drugs." ["Council panel OKs rules for strip clubs," Local News, Sept. 22.]

A huge difference between lap-dancing and drug dealing is that the former is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Seattle likes to think of itself as the home of liberal thought — except when it comes to protecting free speech.

— Laurie Walpole, Seattle

Plainly rapped in paper

I was shocked and saddened [by] "Pac-10 Playboy score: UW, 7; WSU, 6" [Northwest Life, Sept. 23], on the University of Washington students-turned-Playboy models. I was completely disgusted by the photograph included with the article. Although the woman's breasts were blotted out, the relatively thin piece of pink tape left plenty of flesh visible.

I failed to find any redeeming value in the article, which ultimately did nothing more than serve as an advertisement for a pornographic magazine.

Although society has lately taken a lackadaisical stance toward curbing the widespread photo- and videographic displays of flesh that border on pornographic, I am amazed and absolutely disappointed that The Times felt it appropriate to promote this tasteless and base parade of flesh.

In a society that apparently values the empowerment of women, I find it astonishing that so many people, including apparently "empowered" women and, in this case, employees of The Times, continue to glamorize the age-old scenario in which women's bodies are used solely as sex objects for men.

— Kate Otterstrom, Seattle

Too blue, babies

I just wanted to thank The Times for doing its part in validating porn with "Pac-10 Playboy score" in the Northwest Life section (the section the kids will be checking for the comics).

— Bruce Williams, Shoreline

God's in his heaven

I was pleased and relieved to read "Pledge of Allegiance ruled unconstitutional" [News, Sept. 25].

When I started elementary school in 1946, the Pledge was "one nation indivisible," with no mention of a god. Later, when "under God" was added (1954), I felt awkward reciting the Pledge with this new addition. Coming from a basically non-religious household, I thought then, as I do now, that religious families had plenty of time to practice their religion of choice together in the privacy of their own homes.

Neither the state nor the federal government should be allowed to coerce students into affirming God.

— Carl Tuttle, Seattle

All's right with the words

Michael Newdow feels religion should be purged from public life, so he filed suit to remove the phrase "under God" from our Pledge of Allegiance. "Imagine," he asks incredulously, "if teachers had the children say 'we are one nation that denies God exists.' "

The reality of our nation not only permits, but demands, acknowledgement of God as the author of our rights and liberty. Central to our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, is the assertion that our creator endows our inalienable rights upon us. They are not granted by King George or President Bush. They are not voted upon by a majority of citizens.

This is what makes America unique in world history, and why the phrase "under God" must be in the Pledge. Our rights as American citizens cannot be taken away. They are part of our nature, from the weakest of us to the strongest, equally.

It should be a source of great comfort to us all that our nation was founded on the proposition that human rights spring not from the good will of other men or women, but are rather granted by God to us all in our very natures.

— Brian Offer, Issaquah

Spirit of the law if not the lesser

So the U.S. Forest Service has commissioned a well-known artist to carve a totem pole with a raven and frog on it ["Carving a piece of tribal history," Local News, Sept. 23]. These images are considered to be "the creator of the universe" and "a spiritual helper who guides other animal figures" respectively.

This native people's religious totem is to be installed at taxpayers' expense in "the agency's new Hall of Tribal Nations exhibit in Washington, D.C."

I assume that, in order to be fair and balanced, they will also be commissioning a nativity scene or scroll of the Ten Commandments, a menorah, and perhaps a Buddha — location of installations to be determined later.

— David Alexander Young, Bothell