| Show yi LOil til IwA Standard-Examine- ? I Rii ! - - - ' - '" ’ l‘iiu Friday May 7 1999 Opinion r Letters & r' w olumns our Readers To MAIL POBox FAX at LinI am a fourth-gradcoln Elementary I don’t want to go to school and get shot It’s scary to know that there might be someone out there who would do that to a school The kids who got out of Columbine High School were grateful but some were less fortunate person want to make it harder for residents of the state to buy and possess firearms in general All the laws in the world are not going to stop the criminal element from getting or even possessing them It is like the old saying my grandfather told me -If there is a will there is a way” and the law only applies to them if they get caught I ask you as a person in the state - do we need more gun control laws or harsher penalties for Allen Miller Riverdale Legacy Parkway would leave wrong legacy cost and hassle of We disagree with the opinion expressed on April 23 by Assistant Managing Editor Andy mass transit Howell that such as light rail and commuter rail will never be the main solution to traffic congestion along the Wasatch Front” As Davis County residents and taxpayers we also disagree with his implication that opposition to the Legacy Highway or “Parkway” as it is now being called is only from “uncompromising environmentalists composed mostly of Salt Lake inner-cit- y parking We feel strongly that not one more tax dollar should be spent on the development of the “Legacy Parkway” option until mass transit options have been thoroughly evaluated (or and put to the test of critical public review An number of cars traveling on an number of highways is not the only choice! ever-increasi- We will close by venting a little The name “Legacy Parkway” is so disingenuous as to be nauseous The only legacy the “Legacy Parkway” would leave would be more urban sprawl more pollution more billboards and the loss of important farmland and wildlife habitat This is not the legacy we want to leave to our residents” Most Utah residents seem to have little or no experience with mass-trans- it systems but they can be the answer to traffic congestion We lived or have recently spent time in Boston Chicago San Francisco and Washington DC Their transit systems are economical convenient efficient and compared to automobiles a lot safer They also alleviate the children and grandchildren There has to be a better way Al and Mary Herring Layton ents of the victims that the shooting boys were only exercising one I think it would be appropriate for Charlton Heston and some of the National Rifle Association's good old boys to speak at the funerals of the Columbine High School students of their constitutional rights par- - Ogden when they took the guns to school and shot those kids Joe Winters Reader cites causes of problems in our society Every one thinks the tragedy of the “Trench Coat Mafia” is sim- ply awful Well a solution to avoiding further shames like this is very simple Young people should have to do daily chores and be made to go to work This way there would not be idle time for them to get into mischief and we might avoid another “Trench Coat” someThey become times immoral and lack common charity And they will support any liar of a president who will promise them pie in the sky self-servi- A people like this do not de- serve to be free and given enough time they will not be free They will be subservient to powerful and corrupt leaders It is that way already! The majority of our people support President Clinton in spite of the fact that he is an evil and immoral man of most t this to accomplish today parents would be next to impossible Many of our people and our electorate nowadays are too lazy to vote They are enamored with worldly goods to the point where both the mother and the father feel they must have expensive ars and expensive houses With the mind-se- This president has involved us in a brutal war without a plan for our victory And with such inept leadership we are likely to lose many of our young men needlessly due to stupid lack of a good war plan to keep our loss of men to a minimum Together they are making too much money and too much money corrupts a lot of people Eugene C Rollins Ogden LETTER TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES STANDARD-EXAMINE- B Letters must include your first and last name address and a so we can verify daytime telephone number No exceptions the letter's authenticity 2 All letters published must bear the author's first and last name the editorial except under extreme circumstances as determined by board 3 Letters may not exceed 300 words 4 We reserve the right to reject letters which are defamatory or inconsistent with good editorial standards 5 No more than one tetter from any individual win be published during a month individual 6 Letters of appreciation win be published based on is allowed names c4 business No mention merit as space allows 7 No event announcements will be accepted as tetters to the editor 8 Consumer complaints will not be published 1 JNF so tv —? 949 f9 SO COW Cprrfto tom -- )fc uOS jutyour rr sonxoucY (jNtCTZHteP C49J4UY tvs Don’t watch too much TV -that’s where a lot of people get their ideas from It doesn’t matter what race we are we are all the same Make the community we live in a safe place Thanks for reading how I feel Shardae Jones safe Ogden Sony goths the rest of us hurt too I tried to be and sympathetic to the gothic subculture after reading the April 23 letter “Media distorts picture of those who make up gothic subculture" I attempted an admittedly suby perusperficial ing some of the 699 Web sites that resulted from a search on “gothic” I couldn’t read them all - my own sense of a fragile mortality coupled with the constraints imposed upon me in raising a family and making a living tend to place limits on the amount of time I can take in order to gain an appreciation of the gothic contemplation of suicide and its resulting bottomless black abyss of death But try as I might I just couldn’t get past all the angst and the condescending attitude toward others that appear as the common thread running through this subculture They would have us believe its adherents are not only more intelligent than we are No kidding open-minde- d but also inestimably more bur- dened by and sensitive to life’s barbarity than we could ever be I’m sorry goths but you aren’t the only ones brutalized by this incredibly cruel world In fact it appears to me that you make your fair share of contributions to it And sorry goths but you have no comer on the market of life’s reversals that leave a person discouraged or depressed Sorry goths but you aren’t the only ones who want to distance yourselves from the work of that hermaphroditic musical Marilyn Manson lightweight And sorry goths but your preplanned expressions of angst do not constitute “art” For genuine artistic angst check out a Mahler symphony However in the wake of Littleton there is one thing you appear to have that the groups you castigate on your Web sites don’t: One whale of a public relations problem Deri Sanderson Brigham City Individuals can prevent further tragedies In the last week we have heard the cry for more legislation to further control our lives even Tofrom the Standard-Examinday we have the most strict gun laws we have ever had since I have been interested in the subject Of course we don’t have a method of controlling every exchange between individuals - as part of being a citizen of a “free country” let’s hope the government doesn’t tell us how to do everything in life We all need to step up and take responsibility for what is going on around us in society It’s very easy to blame the tool used in causing a tragedy but the tool isn’t the cause of the problem By paying attention to people around us and lending a hand we can avoid further tragedies Last week some concerned students averted a potentially serious situation by taking another student's threats seriously They spread the word and action was taken to stop a terrible mistake In the latest tragedies that occurred information was available early but no one bothered to take action The latest local action didn’t involve a gun - just a bomb What legislation would the media like us to put in place for that? Guess what it’s already illegal to build bombs and blow stuff up! We have rights and freedoms in this country that should never be compromised We cannot legislate a method of branding those in our society who are not up to the media’s (Standard-Examiner’standard By the way who says the media set the standard? How can we single out what makes a person ineligible to have the same rights as everyone else in the country? s) The “Our View” editorial stat- ed on April 28 “Lives are at stake” Try driving on the highway - how many do we lose out there every day? We need to be responsible for ourselves and the society we are shaping Try stopping at that next crosswalk you come to if someone is w aiting to cross - next time it may be you who is crossing Dave Lindsey Ogden Acceptance key to decreasing violence As the years go by the vio- lence in our world increases From the shooting in the LDS Library to the shooting at Columbine High School to the happenings currently going on in Kosovo - I feel the reason for this increase is the feeling of not being accepted We cannot fully blame the parents for these acts of violence - we need to blame ourselves Just because we are a different color religion or economic status doesn’t mean we are better It only means we are lucky at that moment in history As a world we need to focus on how to lift others up instead of lifting ourselves I think w e as a nation need to put our past behind us and put forth an effort to accept what’s coming in front of us Sarah Shurtliff Clinton Schools should be safe places It seems as though each and every day we are hearing about tragedies involving guns Innocent people are losing their fives family and friends are losing their loved ones The shooting at Columbine High School has brought me much frustration and gnef This unexpected shooting has caused me to worry about safety in schools iroreueve r--e rm 6ACH 9PB on’ Children should be able to feel safe at their own school and parents shouldn’t have to worry about their children’s safety With my decision to become an elementary school teacher I hope to teach children in their youth to become aware of the dangers of using guns Chesnrv Tobler West Bountiful ae MADELEINE ALBRIGHT Knife edge of power such Albright’s heritage that it could blind her San Francisco Examiner Have you heard of Marie Jana Korbelova? The woman is a mystery Precious few Americans know her She may not even know herself She only recently discovered that her Jewish grandparents were murdered by the Nazis How do you solve a problem like Marie Jana? Here are some clues: She’s tough Admires guts Prepared to use force to have her way She fancies herself quite the internationalist Speaks English French Czech Polish and Russian with varying degrees of competency She is even ready to broadcast in SerboCroatian if the occasion arises The woman has audacity Bom in Prague 62 years ago she and her family were driven from their home first by Hitler and then by Stalin Understandably she despises dictators She emigrated with her parents to the United States in 1948 and became a naturalized citizen Korbelova married when she was 22 Lived in Washington DC Three kids Alas her husband divorced her for a younger slimmer model She kept the house in Georgetown as a settlement as well as her married name Korbelova rang so foreign She has never used it since in She found politics Became a diehard Democrat She hooked her star to Bill Clinton He named her United Nations ambassador and then Of course Marie Jana Korbelova is our very own Madeleine Albright America's Lady Thatcher Our secretary of state The principal architect of our bellicose policy in the Balkans Korbelova and not AlbrighL is the key to understanding her mind-se- t Mane Jana Korbelova: From Prague descendant of central European diplomats carries much baggage The United States participates in this European conflict in order to avoid the ethnic and political strife that caused the First World War and that played a part in the Second And yet Clinton has named Xj y&K on full-sca- le Met-temi- versity of Vermont TPose V'Tv’) — WOpPRUy 'Stem mas C2C&&&Z KtmU-- OF -- fc 7 MOVE iCD We r jfr(f!CUXP Te&fVTHAT SkfA66tX& JO-- I COPY ch By Bruce Tinsley s cdC&i fcrz as secretary of State an individual who brings to foreign policy all the prejudices of the defunct n and disastrous can One easily Empire imagine an arrogant ancestor of Korbelova saying in the imperial court in Vienna some 90 years ago “We can quickly impose our will on the cowardly inferior Serbs” That mistake destroyed the empire Of course it is probable that NATO under the leadership of the United States if it is willing invato undertake a sion of Yugoslavia will one day march victoriously into a bombed-ou- t Belgrade Just as the Nazis did Only someone like Korbelova blinded by generations of anti-Ser- b prejudice would believe that to be the end of the conflict The results of such a NATO campaign are sure to be vast destruction and the deaths of hundreds of civilians and thousands of conscript soldiers So w hat if the w ar drags on as long as the unresolved conflict in Israel? So what if survivors seeking vengeance resort to guerrilla warfare and terrorism? War hawk Marie Jana Korbelova has fortitude and stamina As she once challenged Gen Colin Powell “What’s the point in having the superb military you always talk about if you’re not prepared to use it?” Korbelova Albright is balanced precariously on the knife edge of power Either she wins a great military victory or she is shot down inflames Make no mistake about it if things go wTong she will be the scapegoat But Korbelova is a shrewd survivor and like her spiritual ancestor Prince who served both Napoleon and his adversaries the Austrians she is flexible On March 24 when the bombing began she said “I don’t foresee that this will be a lengthy operation” Some two weeks later when Milosevic refused to buckle she said “We never thought we'd accomplish this quickly We’re in for the long haul" WTiat the helL If she is discredited she can always change her name back to Korbelova Who would ever know her? Alex A Vardamis a retired colonel served as military attache in Athens and taught at the UniAustro-Hungaria- ByALEXAVARDAMIS Mallard Fillmore Ute on ou rue emjNO mw school am going to try to make place school a better place and make BY GARRY TRUDEAU 904 people comfortable to go to I Doonesbury e thought school was a er Maybe NRA could explain to victims’ parents They could explain to the er I SATURDAY: A weekly round-u- p of editorial cartoons from papers around the nation Lettersstandardnet As a resident of the state of Utah for 32 years I have seen the gun laws change not for the good of the honest person but for We can make all the laws we Opinion pages 84402-095- 1 (801)625-450- 8 Frightened student wants school to be safe those who break the law? One way to stop the overcrowding of our prisons is to make only one appeal if found guilty not 16 years of prolonged life More strict background checks are needed for firearms If taxes need to be revised to cover the cost so be it The laws are only there to keep the honest people honest -the criminals just don’t care I have personally seen what happens when criminals are trying to keep from getting caught as I have been an emergency medical technician for 13 years 951 Ogden UT Please keep letters to 300 words or less and Include your name address and daytime phone tor verification Letters must be signed and may be edited and condensed 1 5A Coming up in the: r Standard-Examine- Harsher penalties not more Iaw3 advocated the - r'TfrlryHL- |
