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Letters to the Editor Security needs to be improved at public buildings They think it can't happen from their own people, but now they know different. In New York they thought it was safe not to check their own people. They were dead wrong to continue this practice. It could happen here. City hall has two entrances and exits, but no guards or metal detectors at them. Why? Also the courthouse is a joke. The lawyers and judges are never checked, why? Any person can become disgruntled, anywhere, and anytime! Why not check fellow workers as well as other citizens. I don't feel any safer letting others in unchecked. Also police officers should not be allowed in the courthouse with their weapons when testifying. With more weapons around there is a chance for greater injuries. A police officer's weapon can become a criminal's weapon instantly and become a hazard for everyone. It's the job of the officers of the court to keep order. The police bringing guns into the courthouse only makes any situation more volatile. So why can some people walk around the metal detectors and others get searched? No government buildings should play favorites where people's safety is a concern. No one is that privileged to carry a weapon into a government building intent on taking the life of another human being. Something needs to be done to make things safer for everyone! TANYA M. STENDZIS Dartmouth Reader takes offense at SouthCoast The editorial on July 13 on not erasing "city history" by changing the Normandin school name was interesting and hypocritical given the persistent bombardment New Bedfordites and Greater New Bedford residents have endured from The Standard-Times these past several years. Your unrelenting efforts, whether as more knowledgeable yet insensitive carpetbaggers or as would-be astute marketers, are aimed at expanding your historic circulation area while re-educating and burying us with "SouthCoast." It is as nauseating to many of us who actually grew up here or have lived most of our lives here as naming everything in Iraq which did not move "Saddam" or the U.S. federal debt and the vegetable ketchup after former President Reagan. Aren't you proud to be New Bedford and Greater New Bedford's newspaper? J. MARK TREADUP New Bedford Support local talent at Whaling Blues Festival I read with interest the article in this week's Coastin' concerning the Whaling Blues Festival. It must have been an oversight, but The Standard-Times missed a great chance to promote local talent. There will be four local blues bands performing at this year's festival as well as the great acts mentioned in the article: Shipyard Wreck, The McCarthy Brothers Band, The Mullet Blues Band and Jameson T. Please attend this great festival and support local talent! EUGENE MCCARTHY New Bedford Supreme Court changes moral fabric of nation Many seems to think that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of constitutional interpretation, a very dangerous idea and one that would place us under the tyranny of an oligarchy. How wise Jefferson was! Yet even Jefferson could not have foreseen what the Supreme Court has done to the Constitution since 1962. In 1962 the Supreme Court ruled prayer out of the public schools. In 1963 the court ruled the Bible out of public schools. In 1973 the court found in the Constitution the basis for opening the doors to the slaughter of more than 43 million innocent unborn children. Subsequent federal courts have ruled the Ten Commandments could not be posted in schools and that statues of Jesus were illegal in public parks. Now the court has declared a constitutional right to consensual sodomy and, by the language in its decision, has opened the door to homosexual marriages, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest. The framers of our Constitution never intended anything like this to take place. Yet many seem to be helpless to do anything about it. Why? Because we are under the tyranny of a non-elected oligarchy. Five un-elected men and women who serve for life can change the moral fabric of the nation and take away the protection that our elected legislators have wisely put in place. EDWIN ALDARONDO New Bedford Inmate marriageis a ludicrous proposal Oh great! Will the inmates now be requesting a wedding cake and a honeymoon suite of cells, if inmate weddings are allowed? What will they think of next to dupe the taxpayers? Shame on any judge who legally authorizes wedding ceremonies for anyone who is incarcerated. In case you've forgotten, to incarcerate means to "shut up" or "confine." Will we now have to deal with the birth of an inmate's first-born child and hold the jails responsible for the raising of that child during the inmate's incarceration? Many prisoners are living better in jail than if they lived in the real world on their own. Jail is not designed to emulate the liberties of the real world, nor is to be a "Club Med Honeymoon"! Good for Sheriff Hodgson for rejecting such a ludicrous proposal for our jails! FLORA COURY AZAR Dartmouth Let's protect our right to keep and bear arms Two letters appearing on July 22 dealt with gun control. The Second Amendment does indeed refer to a well-regulated militia, but that was written in a time when nearly every able bodied man was expected to belong to the militia to protect himself and his family from attacks by enemies, whoever they might have been. That need is still here as we see armed violence all around us here in New Bedford. The second letter points out that even known criminals who are arrested with illegal guns are very often not actually required to serve the mandatory time in prison for that offense, often due to plea bargaining, well connected lawyers and such. We know there are many criminals out there with ample access to illegal guns. We should also be aware that both Britain and Australia in recent years passed legislation eliminating the right to bear arms for most of their people. The predictable result in both countries was a rapid and substantial increase in gun-related crimes as, of course, the criminals don't care, but the honest citizens turned in their guns and lost their only protection. The criminals' uncertainty of whether or not a target household owns guns is one of the few protections we have against random house invasion, theft and murder. ROBERT O. BOARDMAN New Bedford This story appeared on Page A6 of The Standard-Times on July 26, 2003.
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