Letters to the Editor

Readers write: Letters to the editor, December 8, 2016

What is wrong with Demboski?

Even if Amy Demboski doesn't believe that her words unfairly smeared and mis-characterized Greg and Maleika Jones, you would think that simple human compassion would have led her to acknowledge their anxiety and fear for their family's safety. What is wrong with that woman?

— Glenn Wright
Anchorage

Demboski should resign

Assemblywoman Amy Demboski should resign from her seat immediately. Her racist actions are despicable. She is a disgrace to our community.

— Glenn Olson
Anchorage

Fake news distracts from issue, attacks the presenter

I am always amazed on how the media pick and chose those stories concerning a particular minority.

Most recently was a black Muslim man and his family. They are now in fear based on what a politician allegedly said. (ADN online publication 12/7: "After a Facebook post by an elected official, an Alaska Muslim finds he has to explain his faith.")

Islamophobia? Perhaps or just plain fearmongering.

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What about militiaphobia? Actually fearmongering on the media's part. How dare people believe they have a right to defend themselves. At least according to the all powerful so-called nonfake news. The media continues to parrot what organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center claim. Any proof needed?

No, their word is gospel.

And so it goes. And where was the media when I was fired from my job because I helped establish militias? Where was the media when I was threatened because of the distortion of the truth? Where was the media when the SPLC claimed I was a racist? Nowhere to be found but prepared to repeat the lies on who and what I am.

There is a great deal of fake news in our environment. Usually distracting from the issues presented and attacking the presenter.

As for the fear of Muslims, hogwash. I learned years ago to judge the content of the character of the individual rather than the group they are part of.

And I remember what civil rights leader Charles E. Cobb Jr. said. He expressed it clearly in his book "This Nonviolent Stuff Will Get You Killed, How Guns Made the Civil Rights movement possible."

I would encourage Jones to purchase a gun and prepare to protect his family. That is what I have done. Of course when he does there will be those who claim he is stockpiling guns. The good news is he and I will come together to defend each other to protect us from the real threat of those who want to enslave us.

— Ray Southwell
Nikiski

Trump EPA nominee would ‘make America polluted again’

The trainwreck of the incoming Trump administration just got real. Trump's nomination for administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — his first important environmental appointment — is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. If confirmed, this disastrous appointment promises to "make America polluted again."

Pruitt has made a career out of opposing environmental protection in general, and the EPA specifically. He is currently suing the EPA to overturn the U.S. Clean Power Plan — a plan that may be our last chance to control carbon emissions and stabilize climate. And he joined other Republican attorneys general in opposition to the Exxon climate fraud investigation. Pruitt is antithetical to everything the EPA stands for and does. And that is precisely why Trump nominated him.

If confirmed, Pruitt would effectively dismantle the nation's most important environment agency, precisely when we need it most. We may as well lock the doors and turn out the lights at EPA, and let the polluters run the show again nationally. Many of the hard-won federal environmental protections over the past four decades would be at risk.

Even former President Richard Nixon, who created the EPA in 1970, will squirm in his grave over this appointment.

We can hope that Congress will not confirm this horrific appointment. After all, they have children, and should value clean water, clean air, climate stability and protection from toxic chemicals, shouldn't they? Let's hope Alaska's senators will do the right thing and oppose Pruitt's confirmation.

— Rick Steiner
Anchorage

Religious texts promote bias

Misogyny: hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls.
Women have endured it forever. Example; New Testament, I Timothy, II, 11 & 12:

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection." "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp the authority over the man, but to be in silence."

Example; The Koran; Surah II, 282;

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"… And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men not be at hand, then a man and two women, as such as ye approves as witnesses, so that if one erreth, (through forgetfulness) the other will remember."

I know the above is cherry-picking, but all the major religious texts are riddled with similar examples that carry on and promote the same ignorant bias toward women.

Come on, boys, isn't it time to acknowledge our mothers, sisters and daughters are just as smart or half the time smarter than we are? These religious books written by men are at least a thousand years past due for a major re-write. And this time "Ye Shall Have an equal number of men and women on the editorial board."

— D. Kevin Dunham
Seward

The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter under 200 words for consideration, email letters@alaskadispatch.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.

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