Letters to the editor
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More funding for public defenders is crucial
The most recent article concerning the public defender's office reported the public defender's budget has been cut by $800,000 ( "Public Defender's Future Is Unclear," Jan. 8). I wonder how anyone can, as director of the public defender's office, run an efficient, effective organization while there are outdated computers, lack of office space and personnel, and an overwhelming number of cases are pouring into the office every day.
If there is poor morale among some of those working for the office, perhaps it is because they look across the table at opposing counsel and see an assistant district attorney who often has better resources and benefits and is paid more money for representing the commonwealth instead of the indigent.
The basis of the discrepancy is that the district attorney's office is funded by the commonwealth and not the county. While the public appears to be more concerned with law and order than criminal defense, one need only look at what happened in Luzerne County ("Kids for Cash") to see that a lack of funding for public defenders can cause tremendous, long-lasting harm.
We all want law and order, but we also want any prosecution of individuals to be fair. The public defenders of this county assure that no one will be condemned without due process of law. The Constitution gives us all the right to a fair trial. The director of the public defender's office faces inadequate funding but is expected to solve problems caused by insufficient resources .
SHARON M. PROFETA
Upper St. Clair
The writer has a private law practice but spent more than nine years as a public defender.
Love of the hunt
Bravo to Seamus McGraw. His piece "Hunting Deer With My Flintlock" (Jan. 8 Forum) was a frank and unapologetic look at a man's love of the hunt. He aptly describes the joy and agony, the beauty and horror of stalking, killing and eating a wild animal.
Mr. McGraw reminds us of one of the great ironies of man: We have a strong urge to kill, but we strive to do it cleanly and with compassion.
WESTON WAGNER
Moon
Inhumane death
I found the Forum article by Seamus McGraw disgusting as he attempts to claim his hunting with a flintlock is a way to help control the exploding deer population in Pennsylvania. If you're using a flintlock, Mr. McGraw, you need to be skilled enough to use a flintlock so that, for the sake of the deer, you can make a clean kill.
Mr. McGraw, you could have accomplished your proclaimed goal by using a standard hunting weapon -- but, no, you had to satisfy a deeper macho need. Having to slit that deer's throat because of your fumbling and inexpertise further suggests your need to fulfill a caveman desire to display superiority over an animal, not a desire to "restore the balance" of the forests.
I do believe in hunting because of overpopulation of deer, but hitting a deer with a car would be more humane and honorable than what Mr. McGraw did.
MELANIE BLASER
Scott
Love of the kill
Seamus McGraw, I believe you do not hate to kill ( "Hunting Deer With My Flintlock," Jan. 8 Forum). You have offered a treatise on the satisfaction of hunting with a weapon that offers small chance of a quick kill. You looked into the eyes of a sentient creature and rather than treasuring that moment, you tore that wild being apart with the "thunder of 90 grains" of ignited black powder. You followed the trail of that bleeding doe and, holding her fading warmth, you ended her life with the blade of a knife as her small clan (fawns and yearlings) fled in terror.
Did you thank the "Great Spirit" when you slaughtered that doe? Did you pay tribute to the Pennsylvania Game Commission for manipulating the state's buck-to-doe ratio to produce an unnaturally high fawn "crop"? Did you praise those who trap and poison the natural predators of the whitetails?
I am tired of the excuses hunters use to dismiss their massacres. They proclaim they are promoting a conservation ethic. They declare they are responding to a primal urge.
In truth, Mr. McGraw, I think you do not hate to kill. You seem to love it.
KATHLEEN BAUER
Bristol, Ind.
Father Cox's party
Following up on Len Barcousky's fascinating story on the Rev. James Cox leading an "army" of unemployed men to Washington, D.C. ( "Eyewitness: 1932," Jan. 8), I note that Father Jim went on to become the only Catholic priest ever to run for president, doing so as the candidate of the "Jobless Party" founded in the wake of the march on Washington that Mr. Barcousky described.
At the time, unemployment reached 30 percent at the worst (compared with 10 percent during the recent recession), and there was no unemployment insurance. No FDIC either, so when the nearly 9,000 banks failed, the depositors' money went with them. Market values fell nearly 90 percent, not 30 percent as they did in the recent recession, and there was no Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security, either.
Father Cox' s platform addressed all these issues much more intelligently than we have to date.
He withdrew from the race just six weeks before the election, throwing his considerable support behind the candidacy of eventual winner FDR.
He later served as mentor to (eventually) Msgr. Charles Owen Rice, still remembered as "America's Labor Priest" and co-founder of the Catholic Radical Alliance. Its motto: The relationship between Catholicism and capitalism (as then practiced) is one of fundamental opposition.
Both men were deeply inspired by Pope Leo XIII's classic encyclical "Rerum Novarum: On the Condition of the Working Class."
Available online, it still rings true today and makes fascinating and thought-provoking reading as our nation grapples with issues related to the working class, safety nets and business regulation
MIKE FORNEAR
Peters
They are qualified
My rebuttal is to Virginia Monaghan's letter "Find Other Work" (Jan. 8 Issue One). I was less than surprised by the "Obama in 2012" at the end of her letter because the first sentence she wrote, stating that none of the Republican candidates is qualified to be president, shows her true colors. Allow me to present reasons why several of the candidates are qualified to be our president.
Rick Santorum: four years in the House of Representatives, 12 years in the U.S. Senate, eight years serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and enacted welfare reform; Mr. Santorum holds a bachelor's degree in political science, a master's degree in business administration and a doctorate in law.
Newt Gingrich: 20 years in the House of Representatives including four years as speaker of the House, aided in enacting welfare reform and passed a capital gains tax cut.
Mitt Romney: four years as governor of Massachusetts, earned juris doctor/master of business administration joint degrees from Harvard; CEO of Bain & Company, leading it out of financial crisis.
I could go on, but already these candidates exceed the qualifications that Barack Obama brought to the White House (fulfilled less than four years in the U.S. Senate), and one thing Ms. Monaghan's candidate does not share with the Republican candidates is a love of country. He is seeking the ruin of the United States, and I for one do not wish to grant him an additional four years to complete the task.
CAROL CZAPIK
Castle Shannon
Gadgets should be tools to enhance social interaction, not replace it
Text messaging, email and Internet social networking are so new to humanity that we haven't yet designed a curriculum to teach intelligent ways of utilizing them. Perhaps this is because they are so new that we simply don't understand them fully yet.
But imagine a basic high school class called "management of Internet social networks and modern communication technologies." In school they teach us to type, navigate search engines and use basic office software, and yet there is no guidance in proper social use of modern communication tools. The result? A world full of people with their eyes glued to smart phones and tablet computers -- afraid to look up and interact with fellow humans.
We are quickly becoming a people overdosed on what might be called "gadget obsession" and under-dosed in old-fashioned public manners. Still, one can't blame technology itself for this. Computers and cell phones are merely aids for communication, designed as a supplement to human social interaction, not as a replacement.
As we begin 2012, one thing is for certain: These things are here to stay. I for one am making it my New Year's resolution to put the phone on mute in restaurants, have an actual face-to-face meeting instead of a conference call, refuse to check my email when out with friends and pull the ear buds out and say hello to the bus driver.
With a little common sense, social awareness and basic courtesy, all of us can avoid becoming socially awkward gadget geeks. After all, no text message will ever be as intriguing as a genuine smile from a stranger.
BLAKE RAGGHIANTI
Green Tree
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First Published January 15, 2012 12:00 am
