Letters
Current crticism valid
*To the editor: *
Kudos for Rob Holbert. Thanks for the excellent commentary on The Press-Register’s fauxternative Current (Media Frenzy, 5/30/07). It sounds like the good ship Current has sailed without a captain at the helm.
Unfortunately, at the Current, tawdry sex stories and sophomoric swear words rule the day, while high quality investigative reporting is out the window. It seems “alternative” newspapers and the religious right make for strange bedfellows at The Press-Register.
Jessica Benjamin
Former Mobile Resident
Diligence is due
*To the editor: *
The recent news about so many Chinese product recalls reminds us that many items available for purchase may not be safe for our use or consumption.
As consumers, we trust that because something is in a store for sale that it is safe for us. Unfortunately, this is not always true. While many laws exist to protect us, defective and dangerous products do sometimes make it to market, which is where civil justice attorneys come into play.
Without civil justice attorneys fighting for people’s access to the courts, regulatory laws would be much more lax, making the products we use and consume more dangerous. This could mean unsafe foods, children burning to death because of flammable pajamas and homes and automobiles that are deathtraps. Without civil justice attorneys, people wouldn’t be able to take the parties responsible for these injuries or deaths to court.
Most Americans believe in justice for those injured due to defective or dangerous products. To circumvent justice, corporations began trying to limit people’s access to the courts so corporate profits would not be affected by meritorious lawsuits. They called it tort reform.
Phony front groups with names like “Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse” are funded and used by CEOs to peddle the message that corporations shouldn’t be held accountable for defective and dangerous products. Why? Because meritorious lawsuits that punish CEOs for their gross negligence hurt the corporate bottom line.
The idea that profits should be put ahead of people’s safety and wellbeing is the corporate world’s mantra. Grossly negligent corporations fear meritorious lawsuits and so push a false idea that all lawsuits are bad and tort reform is the answer. Tort reform will close the doors of the courtroom – the real reform that’s needed is through the doors of the corporate boardroom.
Tracey Dotson
Birmingham
The extremes of criticism: “Put away the flags . . . “
A nation just might reach the extremes of emotional criticism when one of its historians requests that the people not wave their flag on Independence Day. Try asking that in Egypt or Mexico and you’ll be chased out of the country. Or worse.
But try asking that in the United States and there just be a few subscribers. Such a request was recently made by noted historian Howard Zinn. Zinn wrote an editorial titled “Put away the flags,” which initially ran in 2006, but was reprinted in various newspapers for July 3rd of this year. The historian advocates in the column that we shelve our sin-soaked flag and instead “assert our allegiance to humanity.”
I don’t know how many Americans took Mr. Zinn up on his offer. But it is absolutely amazing that on one of the only days of the year that we Americans can celebrate what really brings us together we still have to hear such grumbling and discontentment.
Zinn is known for his general disgust with this thing called the American experiment. His “People’s History of the United States” is a page-by-page account of literally all of America’s shortcomings, everything from the sins of Columbus to the failures of Bill Clinton. But he rarely, if ever, applies wisdom or context to any situation: he simply plows through three to four centuries and picks away. The approach that Zinn takes could be applied to the past of any human being or the past of any nation with the same result.
What drives Zinn to make such a request isn’t necessarily liberal or even anti-conservative, but rather steeped in a discontentment that makes villain-seeking its mission. It is quite literally the extremes of criticism. He takes direct advantage of our emotional and information-heavy age where bad news seems to appeal to our human nature. A country with the size and complications of the United States is immediate prey to this kind of thinking. We spend 10 minutes with CNN, and it’s off to the races.
It is foolish to think that this country and its government have always made the wisest decisions. But can we flip this coin and look at the other side of reason? Is it not equally foolish to think that we never get it right? As for myself, I spent part of Independence Day thinking about the brave and brilliant Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, who was one of the few Founding fathers to vigorously oppose slavery, fought in the Revolutionary War and played an extraordinary role in founding this country.
I also thought about our 1993 humanitarian intervention into Somalia, and instead of focusing on the 19 American servicemen that died, I simply thought about the noble intentions of this country. Later I thought about the $600 million we gave to the victims of the horrific typhoon in Indonesia, and then I randomly thought about the money we give to both Palestine and Israel.
There are no perfect human beings and there are no perfect governments. Turkey has its long-suppressed Armenian massacre, Mexico has the bloody 1968 Summer Olympics, and China has something called Tiananmen Square. The list could go on and on. I would implore all Americans to look at other countries and ask themselves: are the historians of those countries asking their citizens not to wave their flags?
Civilizations do not fall all at once, somebody once said. And if we allow people to pick through three or four hundred years at only bad human gone astray, then we are in trouble. And when this kind of thinking climaxes to the actual consideration of not displaying our national flag, then we are certainly in trouble.
No, those historians in those other countries are not asking their citizens to do what Zinn is asking us. Those historians are probably proud of their nation and its heritage.
Can we learn from them? Can we try and put away our emotional criticism and see some of the good in this country? For the next July 4th, as we wave our flag nice and high, it might be good to remember this.
The integrity of Independence Day for many years to come depends on it.
John Glass
New York, NY
Good job Dixie darlin’
*To the editor: *
Re: Ashley Toland’s “Dixie Bride” story:
Love your story and love your humor. I live in Montgomery, AL and it isn’t fun having the opposite stance about that flag with these folks. Nice work.
Jeff Haun
Montgomery
Anniversary congrats from afar
*To the editors: *
Congratulations on five years in publication. Lagniappe is a tremendous asset and contributes mightily to the journalistic and arts culture in Mobile. The news and commentary continues to service the public’s essential right and need to know about what’s going on in the community, and in some cases, what’s not going on.
As a long-time resident of Mobile, Lagniappe was must reading for me. I looked forward to and anticipated each new issue. Now living and working Macon, Ga., the Lagniappe continues to be must reading and I look forward to each new on-line edition.
Congratulations and here’s to many more years.
Shane McBryde
Cumulus Broadcasting
Program Director
WMAC 940 AM
Macon, GA
Food critique raises ire
Mr. Phillips:
You must be drinking you’re(sic) own piss, as you have no palate. They may not have the best service, but it is a brewpub. You go there to drink beer and have cuisine that you don’t have to think about. Correct me if I am wrong, but why would you open a brewpub and then have white table cloth food and service. That’s not why people go to brewpubs.
As far as the brewpubs fare is concerned (considering their direct competition), it is easily tops downtown. They actually make most of their food on premises. Which is more than those others guys can say.
Again I think you are confused and should go back to the dental hygenist(sic) or the floral assistant job you had before.
I now have to question your credentials for being allowed to spew your “suzy home maker” approach to food in any publication.
Thanks
Concerned and Aware Reader
Ben Skelley
*Only a lawyer… *
*To the editor: *
Only personal injury trial lawyers could summon the wrongheaded, unmitigated gall to call the infamous Washington DC “pants suit” proof our out-of-whack civil justice system works, as has Alabama trial lawyer President Bob Prince.
Background: After three years’unemployment, Washington lawyer Roy Pearson was appointed an administrative law judge and treated himself to a $1,000 suit. He took it to local dry cleaners for $10.50 in alterations. Proprietors Soo and Jin Chung couldn’t immediately find the pants, and when they did, Pearson said they weren’t his.
He refused their offer of new pants because the sign in their store said “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and he wasn’t satisfied. So he sued. For two years Pearson, acting as his own attorney, pursued the Chungs through the courts, exhausting their savings. He turned down a $12,000 settlement offer. He wanted $67 million.
A judge has dismissed the suit, galvanizing Prince to say the system worked “to weed out frivolous lawsuits.” Tell it to the Chungs. Their defense cost: $100,000. For two years they suffered mental anguish approaching torture because a greedy lawyer set his hooks into them.
Now, the clueless Prince says, everything is hunky-dory. It isn’t. It’s a train wreck. The Chungs are still in tort hell. Even if Pearson is ordered to pay Chung attorney fees, can he, will he? This is Prince’s “proof positive?” Please.
Should lawyers be allowed to sue anytime they want over anything; what of thresh-holds? What if you were the Chungs?
Prince’s outfit recently changed its name to the Association for Justice. What a laugh! You can call a shark a kittenfish, but I still wouldn’t let my son swim with one.
Skip Tucker
Board of Directors
Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse
Montgomery
*Fairhope mafia? *
*To the editor: *
Long time residents know: if you mess with Fairhope’s entrenched political machine, you’ll likely be harassed or punished in some way(legal or not) by the good old boys!
Recent comments made in the “Jubilee” section could land the columnist (Gleszer) on the enemies list or he could have some kind of “accident” (legs broken?).
James Watkins
Fairhope
Clue about public defender
*To the editor: *
As the wife of a man represented by Mr. Yazdi, I have a theory as to why he’s so popular….
Check his record of cases won. See how many of those indigent cases turned out in a successful defense. The state appoints him because he is a guaranteed win for them & the prosecution. My husband has been incarcerated for the last 8 years thanks to the “representation” we were provided by this poor excuse for an attorney.
We made appointments that weren’t kept because he didn’t & as far as I know still doesn’t have an office where you can actually meet with him. Then, had the audacity to use the missed appointments against my husband who was his own client. My desire is to one day be wealthy enough to be a spectator in the courtroom & stand up for any & every defendant he is appointed to & provide them the financial means to have a real attorney represent them.
If I achieve my desire he will never get “paid” for destroying another family. Every person indigent or not is required by law to be represented by someone with the same credentials as the prosecuting attorney. Thank God we didn’t pay him!!!! We would have been even more disappointed than we are now.
But, even after all we’ve been through in eight years, I stood by my husband. He’s coming home!!! I only hope & pray that families will reconsider allowing Mr. Yazdi to represent their loved one. Sell doughnuts or dinner plates, have a car wash ANYTHING to raise the money for good legal representation.
Thanks For Letting Me Share!!!
C. Wiggins
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