Emil Franzi hopes he’s
wrong (Inside Track: Pathology and porn at the local library,
February 28, 2007). I can assure him that he is.
I’m
surprised that Franzi, who likes to ridicule what he calls “the
nanny state” (Inside Track, January 31) is so enthusiastic over
its latest incarnation. One Internet filtering tool that I
actually used when my children were young is even called “Net
Nanny.”
If
Internet filters successfully blocked “porn” and only “porn,” I
would have no problem requiring them for computers in libraries.
As a mother who used the filters at home with her growing
children, and as an Internet professional with a Master’s degree
in Technical Communication management, I know that the filters
don’t work. They both under-filter (allowing access to
objectionable sites) and over-filter (blocking access to
perfectly legitimate sites). Because of that, they offer a false
sense of security that children are not going to be exposed to
objectionable material. As Councilmember Kunish remarked on
November 15, “Libraries have never been a safe place for
unsupervised children.” And the filters don’t make them safe.
Franzi wrote, “A
reasonable initial response questions the use of blocking
software because it blocks other things.” I agree that’s a
reasonable concern, and it’s one of mine. Franzi writes of a
friend, whose “unit re-union was unreachable on a
Tucson library computer” because “they
were blocking patrons from online gaming.” Hmm. So the filters
are not just set up to block “porn,” but apparently, they are,
indeed, set up to block other things as well.
Franzi wrote, “The inconvenience seems relatively minor and
hardly a constitutional question…Asking librarians to lift the
block for purposes OTHER than porn doesn’t seem any harder than
asking for a book not easily accessed.” But it will be harder if
Vice Mayor Dankwerth’s suggestion is passed by the Council. She
wants the town’s librarians to check a list of known sex
offenders every time someone asks for unfiltered Internet
access. What that means is that your friend, my fellow Air Force
veteran, would have to prove that he is not a sex offender in
order to find out about his military reunion. If Mr. Franzi
doesn’t think that’s wrong, then we disagree. He and I are lucky
that we have unique names, but perhaps his friend isn’t so
lucky, and might have to go through the humiliation of trying to
explain that he isn’t the person on the list of sex offenders.
Franzi fears that “Library porn may be an issue in the 2008
election for both the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the
Oro Valley
council.” That will be true only if he continues to make it one.
I can understand how that is easier than actually picking up the
phone to speak with me, reading my news release, or even
checking out my Web site (www.votelatas.com).
If Mr. Franzi took the time to do any of those things, he would
understand that I am not “tied to” this issue at all. If his
intent is to keep citizens from ever speaking out on their
personal and professional experiences with something under
consideration by the Town Council, shame on him. That’s how we
end up with politicians like the one he calls a “cliché laden
airhead.” But if his intent was to try to create some
controversial buzz around an otherwise non-controversial
candidate, then I can appreciate his efforts.
Franzi writes, “Salette, get off it.” I have. I did not speak at
the meeting when the filters became mandatory for adults. I
learned months ago that it's just too difficult for most people
to understand why the filters don't work, why they don't make
unsupervised children any safer in the library, or why an
80-year-old woman researching breast cancer shouldn't have to
have her name checked against a list of known sex offenders in
order to use the computer. That’s why all I asked for in
November was to have more citizen input, such as our own library
board.
Right now, it’s more important for me to listen to residents who
believe that the Town Council is giving away our town’s unique
character to outsiders who want to make
Oro Valley
into a miniature
Phoenix full of chain stores and
restaurants, and pay for rampant growth with a utility tax.
Emil, please realize that the Internet filters are a wedge
issue, and I hope that you are not falling into that pathology
of the right: continuing to bring up wedge issues so that we
don’t have to discuss the issues that are really important.
I
know that unique, sustainable shops, restaurants, and historic
sites will make
Oro
Valley a destination and increase
the town’s income without raising taxes. My campaign priorities
are to listen and respond to community needs, protect our
quality of life, and comprehensively plan for the future.
Salette Latas
Oro
Valley
February 13, 2007
Thanks, Jack. Got lots of comments on my blunder. Kinda tells
you who listens.
EF
Emil
I agree with you about Law & Order: biased and just full of
themselves. In reference to their 357 Glock comment:, well
there are three Glock models, #31 & #32 & #33 that use the
357 Sigg. I tried one a couple of weeks ago, along with a
10mm Glock. I carry as my c & c weapons a S & W 357 as well
as a Colt Python, and I wanted to try the larger caliber
Glocks. I'm not partial to a pistol, but I thought I'd give
them a go. They were very accurate, but I decided to stay
with my wheel guns. The 10 mm was very powerful. Anyway, as
always love your show.
Jack Friedman
February 8, 2007
This is an amazing, uplifting story. Thought you might enjoy
reading it.
G.
Glenn Goldstein
August 1942. Piotrkow, Poland.
The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the
men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been
herded into a square. Word had gotten around that we were being
moved. My father had only recently died from typhus, which had
run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was
that our family would be separated.
"Whatever you do," Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to me ,
"don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen".
I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I
might be deemed valuable as a worker. An SS man approached me,
boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and
down, then asked my age.
"Sixteen," I said. He directed me to the left, where my three
brothers and other healthy young men already stood.
My mother was motioned to the right with the other women,
children, sick and elderly people. I whispered to Isidore,
"Why?" He didn't answer. I ran
to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her.
"No," she said sternly. "Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with
your brothers." She had never spoken so harshly before. But I
understood: She was
protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this once, she
pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.
My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany.
We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks
later and were led
into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms
and identification numbers.
"Don't call me Herman anymore." I said to my brothers. "Call me
94983."
I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead
into a hand-cranked elevator. I, too, felt dead. Hardened, I had
become a number. Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben,
one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin. One morning I thought
I heard my mother's voice. Son, she said
softly but clearly, I am sending you an angel. Then I woke up.
Just a dream. A beautiful dream. But in this place there could
be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.
A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, around
the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the guards could
not easily see. I was
alone. On the other side of the fence, I spotted some! one: a
young girl with light, almost luminous curls. She was
half-hidden behind a birch tree. I
glanced around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her
softly in German.
"Do you have something eat?" She didn't understand. I inched
closer to the fence and repeated question in Polish. She stepped
forward. I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet,
but the girl looked unafraid. In her eyes, I saw life. She
pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over the
fence. I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I
heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow."
I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every
day. She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk
of bread or, better yet, an apple. We didn't dare speak or
linger. To be caught would mean death for us both. I didn't know
anything about her just a kind farm girl except that she
understood Polish. What was her name? Why was she risking her
life for me? Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the
other side of the fence gave me some, as nourishing in its way
as the bread and apples.
Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed into a
coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia.
"Don't return," I told the girl that day. "We're leaving."
I turned toward the barracks and didn't look back, didn't even
say good-bye to the girl whose name I'd never learned, the girl
with the apples.
We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was winding
down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate seemed
sealed. On May 10, 1945,
I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 AM.
In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare myself. So many times
death seemed ready to claim me, but somehow I'd survived. Now,
it was over. I thought of my parents. At least, I thought we
will be reunited.
At 8 A.M. there was a commotion. I heard shouts, and saw people
running every which way through camp. I caught up with my
brothers. Russian troops had entered the camp! The gates swung
open. Everyone was running, so I did too.
Amazingly, all of my brothers had survived; I'm not sure how.
But I knew that the girl with the apples had been the key to my
survival. In a place where
evil seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life,
had given me hope in a place where there was none. My mother had
promised to send me an angel, and the angel had come.
Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored by a
Jewish charity, put up in a hostel with other boys who had
survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics. Then I came
to America, where my brother Sam had already moved.
I served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War, and returned
to New York City after two years. By August 1957 I'd opened my
own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in.
One day, my friend Sid who I knew from England called me. "I've
got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date."
A blind date? Nah, that wasn't for me. But Sid kept pestering
me, and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up
his date and her friend Roma. I had to admit, for a blind date
this wasn't so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She
was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling brown curls
and green, almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.
The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to talk
to, easy to be with. Turned out she was wary of blind dates too!
We were both just doing our friends a favor. We took a stroll on
the boardwalk, enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had
dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember having a better time.
We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the back seat.
As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that
much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject,
"Where were you," she asked softly, "during the war?"
"The camps," I said, the terrible memories still vivid, the
irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never
forget.
She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far
from Berlin," she told me. "My father knew a priest and he got
us Aryan papers."
I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant
companion. And yet here we were, both survivors, in a new
world.
"There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a
boy there and I would throw him apples every day."
What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy.
"What did he look like?" I asked.
He was tall. Skinny. Hungry. I must have seen him every day for
six months."
My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be.
"Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving
Schlieben?" Roma looked at me in amazement.
"Yes," That was me!"
I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I
couldn't believe it. My angel.
"I'm not letting you go." I said to Roma. And in the back of the
car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I didn't want to
wait.
"You're crazy!" she said. But she invited me to meet her parents
for Shabbat dinner the following week. There was so much I
looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important
things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many
months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence
and given me hope. Now that I'd found her again, I could never
let her go. That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After
nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three
grandchildren I have never let her go.
Herman Rosenblat
Miami Beach, Florida
This is a true story and you can find out more by googling
Herman Rosenblat as he was bar mitzvahed at age 75
January 30, 2007
Hi Emil,
Here's the letter you asked me to send:
Emil Franzi's column ("Why 'consensus' is a dangerous concept,"
Jan. 24) mistreats consensus as if it is inherently dangerous,
which it is not, and then asserts that there are no consensuses
in the reputable scientific community about evolution and global
warming, which there are.
Consensus is categorically neither "dangerous" nor safe, good
nor evil. Before Copernicus, there was consensus that the sun
revolved around the Earth, which was incorrect. Now, there is
consensus, based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, that
the Earth revolves around the sun, which is correct. Still, it
appears that Mr. Franzi would prefer to have a few geocentric
loonies around to voice their inane opinions just so
occasionally evil "consensus" could receive a sharp kick in the
shins.
Pursuing this vein, Mr. Franzi tries to deny the consensuses
among the reputable scientific community in the subjects of
evolution and global warming. Excepting a few from the
right-wing religious fringe, and some pseudo-science bought and
paid for by the oil and gas industry, there is consensus that
life on earth evolved over eons and human activities are raising
Earth's temperatures at a rate that, if not soon addressed, will
prove disastrous during present lifetimes.
When a theory has been verified over and over by the
accumulation of mountains of evidence, dogma is replaced by
consensus. And that is a "dangerous concept" only to those whose
ideological, dogmatic politics are not reality-based.
Grant Winston
January 26, 2007
I don't know much about this guy, but
the Daley connection on Obama is interesting. EF
To: Editorial Dept.
Re: Submission for publication (Permission granted to publish.)
Contact for verification purposes: 847-274-8814
BIG MONEY, CORRUPT POLITICIANS AND BARACK OBAMA
By John Cox (298 words)
The current trend of moving up the 2008 Primary Election dates perpetuates the influence of big money and corrupt politicians. This is best illustrated in my home state of Illinois, which is trying to move its Primary to ‘game the system’ and help the Democrat ‘media celebrity’ Barack Obama. Senator Obama recently endorsed Mayor Daley in his reelection for mayor of the City of Chicago, overlooking the fact that the mayor has had many members of his administration convicted of corruption in the past several years. This endorsement of an ‘ethically challenged administration’ certainly contradicts Senator Obama’s image as a ‘political reformer’.
Daley has been under fire the past several years for a succession of his top aides getting caught in corruption scandals. The mayor, who controls one of the biggest and most corrupt big city political machines in the nation, is using his muscle to help Obama. And Senator Obama continues to look the other way, hypocritically endorsing a mayor who has such ethical lapses.
The addition of other large states with expensive media markets early in the primary season only adds to the perception that the presidential election process is now in the hands of big money political elites, some with a history of corrupt administrations, who are trying to game the system to benefit the candidates they control who have the most money and name recognition.
The end result is one more huge step backward for our democracy and one huge step forward for the power-hungry elites who want to control the process and dictate who will be the next president, ‘The best president money can buy.’
This is a sad development for those Americans who desire positive change and statesmanship along with an end to the reign of the corrupt career politicians in Washington.
--John H. Cox
ABOUT JOHN COX…
John H. Cox, 51, is the first announced Republican candidate for president in 2008. He has active campaign organizations in 33 states and county coordinators in 70 percent of counties in early primary and caucus states Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is a CPA, real estate broker, attorney and investment advisor. He is the former president of the Cook County (IL) Republican Party. John Cox lives in Chicago, IL with his wife and four daughters. For more information, visit www.cox2008.com
John H. Cox
Chicago, Illinois
Republican Candidate for President of the United States
January 19, 2007
Every time I have had a job, my trade deficits with various and
sundry merchants has increased. Everytime I have been
unemployed, my trade deficits have decreased. Once, when I was
flat broke, I actually had a trade surplus. That is what
happens when you sell/pawn belongings just to make ends meet.
And one other thing: A "foreign debt" is when you owe money in
somebody else's currency and is a problem only when your
currency has trouble buying enough of their currency to make
payments. The nationality of the creditor is unimportant.
William Hanley
Some pictures from my last trip. One of the pictures was of "Cummings
the Bomb Dog". He came along with us on one of the Chinooks to Warhorse
at Bukaba. He didn't like the sound of the rotors though. There's a look
at some of our "accommodations" in theater and a reenlistment ceremony
we performed today for two of my NCOs at Camp Slayer.
~Jonathan Paton
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
If this e-mail is marked FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY it may be exempt from
mandatory disclosure under FOIA. DoD 5400.7R, "DoD Freedom of
Information Act Program", DoD Directive 5230.9, "Clearance of DoD
Information for Public Release", and DoD Instruction 5230.29, "Security
and Policy Review of DoD Information for Public Release" apply.
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