LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Sept. 16
By:
Why was Sept. 11 ignored by schools?
To the editor:
Last Thursday, we as a nation and a community mourned the loss of those lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. We in the Princeton community especially were deeply affected as nearly everyone was touched by the loss of a friend, neighbor or family member. This is why I was simply shocked and surprised to talk to my children at dinner that night to find out that no form of commemoration was done in the high or middle school. Matter of fact, my understanding is that the flags were only lowered at the high school after a number of students went to the office to complain.
The next morning, I sat at my desk reading the local Ocean County papers, listing all the schools and the commemorative activities that were held. These activities were focused on teaching our children about loss, about remembering, about the world we live in and about how we need to move forward together as a community. Even though there were a number of borough gatherings this past week, how did the school board and/or administration miss this opportunity to gather the students for a moment of silence and remembrance?
Jim Knipper
Lafayette Road
Princeton
Bow hunting is brutal, barbarous
To the editor:
Have you ever seen a deer die after being shot by an arrow? Bow hunting is the most brutal and barbarous method of killing deer yet to be employed in Princeton. Where there is bow hunting, there will be wounded deer dying a slow death because over half of all arrow shots do not kill quickly. Do we want to see these magnificent creatures suffer such a pitiful end in our parks and back yards?
A public hearing on an ordinance that would amend Princeton Township’s land-use code to permit bow hunting in certain parks and reservations is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. in the Princeton Township Municipal Building, 400 Witherspoon St.
Why are Princeton officials suddenly in favor of bow hunting? Because this year in what will be Princeton’s fourth year of paid deer slaughter the state Fish and Game Council has made its approval of Princeton’s deer-killing plan conditional on the township creating more opportunities for bow hunting. In exchange for Princeton opening public lands for bow hunting, and eventually shotgun hunting, the Fish and Game Council will grant Princeton permission to continue its attack on deer via high powered rifles, and retractable bolts shot point-blank into their brains.
Princeton’s hatred for the deer is revealed by their dishonesty; last year’s deer-kill reduced the deer population to the Fish and Game Council’s recommended level of 350 animals, yet unbelievably Princeton wants to continue killing this year in an undisguised effort to kill the remaining animals.
Attend the public hearing on Sept. 22 and oppose the ordinance that would permit bow hunting in Princeton’s public parks. Passage of the ordinance would mean that bows and arrows in addition to nets, retractable bolts and rifle bullets will be employed indefinitely in Princeton.
You may also oppose the ordinance by calling the Township Clerk at (609) 924-5704.
Bonnie Tivenan
Morgan Place
Princeton
Take deer plan back to the drawing board
To the editor:
A vaccinated doe in Princeton’s experimental birth-control program was maliciously killed by a bow hunter last week. Princeton currently allows this cruel "sport" on private property for the small minority of New Jersey residents who are hunters. The rest of us are left to suffer emotionally as we watch the endless suffering of the animals.
Township officials praise their deer-management plan of cruelty, with its nets and bolts, bows and arrows and high-powered rifles, and they promise to continue with what they say is their "thoughtful" deer plan of mass slaughter. This "thoughtful" plan has resulted in an increased fertility rate in the surviving deer, a known result of hunting pressure. The lack of competition for food and space has also allowed more deer from neighboring areas to move in. We are seeing more fawns this year than in the past few years.
Over 1,000 Princeton deer have been killed by White Buffalo and hunters in the past three years. But the township hasn’t done anything to prevent car-deer collisions, which are still happening and are a threat to the remaining vaccinated deer in the experimental birth-control program.
The suburban deer question has so many diverse and thus far unexplored aspects that it should be the subject of deliberation by an interdisciplinary group of professional planners and engineers, as well as citizens with diverse viewpoints. The present Township Committee has repeatedly refused to establish such a bona fide committee. It has deliberately denied those Princeton residents who oppose lethal measures any participation in decisions of gravity involving discharge of weapons in our local parks and wildlife preserves, and humane treatment of native wildlife. There is no authentic suburban deer-management committee, only a "kill-is-the-only-answer" committee.
Before opening up Princeton’s public parks to even more bow hunting and wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars more on their useless deer plan the Township Committee should go back to the drawing board, inviting both objective professionals and public participation, to amend the existing plan in a way that will provide safe and effective protection of both the human and deer populations in a suburban setting.
Edith Laznovsky
Mandon Court
South Brunswick
Rocky Hill thankful for police coverage
To the editor:
On Dec. 16, 2002, someone driving a Buick Century ran my husband down in a Rocky Hill crosswalk and left him bleeding in the street. The driver has yet to be apprehended. What happened to Brad was aberrant and criminal but the incident graphically illustrated a community problem that has reached intolerable proportions: the lack of consistent police presence to control traffic and to contribute to public safety.
Your Sept. 12 editorial states that the new interlocal policing arrangement negotiated with South Bound Brook is "asking for trouble." In case you haven’t noticed, the citizenry of Rocky Hill have been in trouble for some time.
If you believe that it is better to maintain the status quo rather than attempt a pilot project which necessitates continued dialogue with the attorney general and county prosecutor’s offices, allow me to offer you a few facts. According to a traffic survey completed in June 2003, approximately 25,000 cars commute through Rocky Hill each day. On average, 85 percent of those commuters exceed the speed limit, 30 percent of them by 10 or more miles per hour. Citizen campaigns as well as municipal traffic-calming efforts have been widely ignored. Rocky Hill, as far as traffic is concerned, has essentially been a lawless zone.
The State Police, based out of Wilburtha and more recently Hamilton, have heretofore been our sole enforcement entity. Those officers are excellent men and women who have made valiant efforts to provide us some police coverage given their realities: the loss of 20 percent of their officers to national service and a location where the response time to Rocky Hill can be more than half an hour. I find it strange that your editorial failed to mention the support that the State Police have given for this pilot program.
The attorney general’s office is incorrect when it states that the agreement between South Bound Brook and Rocky Hill is "devoid of any criteria." In fact, Mayor Nolan has publicly given his promise that the program would be judged not only on the number of traffic tickets issued there were dozens written in the first two days of the program’s operation but on a general assessment of public safety and a follow-up traffic study. It is on these criteria, as well in ongoing assessment of the capacities of the State Police and the South Bound Brook Police Department, that decisions will be made on whether to continue the program following its four-month pilot phase. Your newspaper, usually a balanced and well-researched source of information, is issued from one of the most heavily police-protected and patrolled communities in the state. So please spare us your polemics on the supremacy of "thorny jurisdictional issues" when the very real safety of families is in jeopardy. We are thankful that Rocky Hill now has consistent police presence.
Karen Alexander
Washington Street
Rocky Hill
From cable frying pan into satellite dish fire
To the editor:
T.A. Dolotta is not alone in his frustration with Patriot Media (The Packet, Sept. 9). Recently our hold time was over an hour, and this for a company that I understand has been licensed by Montgomery Township.
Before Mr. Dolotta leaps to a satellite provider, however, he should be forewarned. If his experience is at all similar to ours with a satellite company (Dish Network), all will not be peaches and cream.
Not only can you expect loss of service during inclement weather; a good thunderstorm appears capable of rendering the converter box inoperative long after the weather has cleared.
The satellite company’s first line of service in such cases relies heavily on a telephonic dialog in which the subscriber is asked to go through a series of diagnostic tests on the instructions of the company representative often more than one if a solution is beyond the ken of the representative with whom you are currently speaking. Forty-five minutes into one such session, after a variety of exercises with three different people, we were asked to exchange the downstairs TV receiver for the upstairs receiver and vice versa. While this had a certain amount of attraction in terms of the symmetry of its experimental design, I respectfully declined the invitation since it would have required us to physically transport two devices of not inconsequential mass between two locations while they waited for our report.
I do not know the fate of Mercer County residents but those of us up north across the county line in Montgomery were assigned to the New York market, whether we liked it or not. This means that not only were Philadelphia stations unavailable to us, but a number of sports events were blacked out (a situation that might have been far more lamentable had the major target not been the Amazin’ Mets).
What was not blacked out was a surfeit of advertisements for the satellite company’s own products pay-per-view movies and sporting events.
Recently, after several years of frustration and personal dislike for the programming, we tried to extricate ourselves gracefully. We paid the current bill and canceled the service. We thought we could return to reading and conversing but alas, it is not that easy to escape. We were told we previously had agreed to return the company’s equipment. This posed little problem for the receivers and remotes but, according to the satellite company, it also included a gizmo called an LNBF attached to the satellite dish itself. Apparently seeking to extract its retribution from dissatisfied customers, the company insisted I crawl out with a screwdriver and wrench on a second-story roof, much like the astronauts repairing the Hubbell telescope, to remove these components. (Should one suffer from acrophobia, he or she can always dispatch the spouse.) Having retrieved the device, one could then climb back down with the reclaimed components in hand, package them up and ship them back. Alternatively, we could pay an additional $99 to have their service people pick up what they claim is already theirs. Failure to do either, however, would result in charges for the equipment approaching $550 with "collection activity" then being threatened.
While I look forward to addressing their "collection activity" when I retire from my law practice, unfortunately not every dissatisfied customer has that luxury. What I find truly sad is that after collecting several thousand dollars from us over the years, the company appears unable or unwilling to end a relationship gracefully.
Please understand, Mr. Dolotta, I promote neither cable nor satellite. In my personal opinion they’re both a band of scoundrels. But if, in your frustration, you decide to leave the frying pan, I wish you luck when you reach the fire.
Bruce M. Collins
Route 518
Montgomery
There’s still time for an exit strategy
To the editor:
With one outstretched leg in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq, the U.S. occupation in the Mideast looks like a plump roasting hen to the gathering Islamic "jihadis" or holy warriors. Yet the greater threat to the Iraq occupation is the end of patience of senior Iraqi clerics and the multitudes who follow their advice.
The recklessly ambitious goal of providing Iraq an elected government in America’s tradition is something no significant group of Iraqis wants and it lures an idealistic America into a blind alley. The premises for a secular democracy that the White House demands for Iraq are unacceptable to the leaders most Iraqis recognize: grand ayatollahs for Shiites, sheikhs for Sunnis.
The moderate grand ayatollahs particularly must be turned to so the United States can find time to devise a dignified exit strategy before Iraq unhinges and the American liberation becomes a nightmare. The moderate Iraqi clerics, in particular Grand Ayatollah al Sistani, offer the best hope. To refuse and place hope on U.N. salvation or a change in the angry streets is to hope for a miracle.
Before events the United States cannot control shake the Bush presidency, the president can snatch proximate victory from the jaws of defeat. Immediately announcing a seven-month timetable for military departure with a deadline of April 1, 2004, can salvage the incursion and still honor America’s dead.
The White House must allow an Iraqi constitution drafted acceptable to leaders willing to work with the United States to stabilize Iraq and who most Iraqis trust. To achieve this the U.S. Provisional Authority must allow an immediate increase in the Iraqi Governing Council from 25 members to enough members to dilute voting favorable to moderate senior Iraqi clerics.
Beginning with an off-the-shelf constitution, the newly expanded council would immediately hammer out a hybrid suitable to Iraqi culture and schedule a popular referendum for December 2003. It would pass, and elections held two months later. The last American boot would leave Iraqi soil by the first of April 2004. Whether or not a constitution was drafted, passed, or elections held, the American deadline would hold.
Continuing with the fantasies presented to Americans, the White House risks being run out of Iraq on a rail and its puppet council scattered like rabbits when no longer protected from the liberated hordes.
Staying the original course wastes limited time left for the U.S. occupation to hold on before a combination of jihad, nationalist resistance, cleric impatience and ethnic/religious tensions ignite into mass insurrection directed against U.S. troops and collaborative personnel. U.S. dictate must give way to a power uncontrollable by U.S. might: Iraqi desire for national liberation and self-determination. President Bush must turn on a dime or his glorious folly of conquest won’t be worth a blood-red cent.
Luis de Agustin
Gates Court
West Windsor