June 1, 2004

Denver skyline an ugly architectural jumble

Back when I was a boy - quite a long time ago now - Denver was a city noted all over the nation for several fine examples of both public and private buildings. Perhaps the most attractive and distinctive among them was the City and County Building, an inspiring and dignified counterpoint to the gold- domed state Capitol opposite.

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Then, a few years ago, in a spasm of "cultural enhancement," someone came along and dumped a towering pile of ugly gray guano on the southern edge of Civic Center. Next, a short while ago, someone else dropped his child's pencil box, and threw up a cheap reproduction of the results of that accident in front of the old pile of bird droppings.

And now the area will be topped off with a huge mass of scrap metal, perhaps commemorating the numerous junk yards formerly located down by the tracks ("Art for art's sake/Computer-aided architecture paints framework, making DAM addition a sculpture in its own right," April 10).

Taken together with the famous old "cash register," the hideous blue neon Qwest "night light," the elongated something-or-others fronting the indescribably ugly hodgepodge of old shoe and cracker boxes, and odds and ends of leftover LEGO toy experiments, sprawled along downtown Speer Boulevard - I guess it all adds up to what they call "progress." Though "progress" to what point, or what end, continues to escape me completely.

My generation had the heritage of seeing beauty in terms of balance, harmony and proportion. I cannot even begin to fathom what the present generation sees in all the examples of dissonance, distortion, stress and tension that abound today. But, of course, they do have at least one means for resolving any problems: Just tear it down every few years - as with Currigan Hall, for example - get out the LEGO toys and silly putty, and slap up another mess in its place.

Colin J. Guthrie
Aurora

New drug plan a big rip-off for the elderly

The winners in the new Medicare prescription drug plan are the big drug companies and the private insurance industry. These two industries are assured billions of dollars, thanks to the big bucks they give to politicians.

The new Medicare legislation - no matter how much it is hyped - does nothing to lower the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs. The drug plan does not include bulk purchasing, even though it works. The Veterans Health Administration has been bulk purchasing for years and last year saved 52 percent on 12 drugs that are used mostly by seniors.

The new drug plan also prohibits American consumers from purchasing cheaper drugs from Canada and is one more step toward the privatization of Medicare. Can Social Security privatization be far behind?

In 1999 and 2000 nearly 2 ½ million elderly people were dropped by their HMOs. This new drug plan will reward the private HMOs for cherrypicking only the healthiest seniors, leaving the poorest and sickest in Medicare so the program will wither on the vine.

Finally the new drug plan does not provide adequate relief to middle-class seniors, leaving a gap in assistance for people paying drug costs between $2,250 and $5,100 per year. If your drug costs fall within this range you pay the premium plus the cost of the drugs you use. What a rip-off!

The new Medicare drug plan shows us the ugly side of big money and politics. The Big Drug and Big Insurance companies give their campaign contributions and the political puppets dance for them. Seniors and people with disabilities here in Colorado are left holding the bag.

Dennis Roe
Colorado Progressive Coalition
Denver

Stricter cash controls for Cubans heartless

Can we see the true pattern of U.S. policies in Latin America and in the "developing world"? ("Cuban protest a doozy," May 15.) The estimated 1 million Cubans who marched in protest of the Bush government's imposition of stricter controls over money being sent by family members to loved ones on the island, did so because they recognize the dire consequences these heartless measures will create for the innocent citizens of this sovereign state.

What are Cubans guilty of that the U.S. insists on persecuting them? (Why not, we should ask, the Vietnamese or the Chinese?) What is Fidel Castro accused of?

His crime is seeking independence from the decades-long selfish policies of the United States. Because our economy thrives on the distribution of wealth to our shores and away from the developing world, extracting it from those states that allow our incursions into their economies (i.e., globalization, another name for imperialism), the U.S. State Department has to paint charismatic and courageous leaders who "tell it like it is" (Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, etc.) as authoritarians and (oh, that scary word) "socialists."

U.S. citizens need to get informed and oppose these harmful incursions into our neighbors' affairs.

Tom Acker
Grand Junction

Stronger review procedure needed

No amount of money can replace a lost child, so the Childs family deserves every penny and more. The settlement is supposed to act as a deterrent by punishing the city for hiring and training bad cops and letting them loose on the street with loaded weapons and itchy trigger-fingers. Unfortunately but necessarily, the bad cops don't pay for their crimes under the current system: The public - the taxpayers - foot the bill for the dangerous acts of city employees ("Childs family, city reach deal," May 26).

Sadly, the current militarized command-and-control system allowed officer James Turney to shoot Paul Childs only a few months after he and another recidivist killer-cop had shot and killed another disabled black teen-ager, Gregory Smith. Turney's 10-month suspension is on appeal to the Career Service Authority. Worse, the current system did not prevent the death of Paul Childs and the mayor's weak proposals won't stop the next one.

So to prevent and punish such behavior, we need a stronger civilian review procedure to weed out killer cops before they kill again. It's a small investment in public safety - and a better assurance to the Childs family and everyone else that we will do everything we can to save other kids from a similar fate.

Douglas L. Vaughan Jr.
Denver

Let columnists, politicians handle calls

As a retired police officer and former homicide detective, I think the proper way to handle cases involving guns and knives is to have a list for dispatchers made up of all the names of the Police Reform Commission, City Council members, the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance and definitely Mike Littwin and Bill Johnson.

When a call comes in for robbery in progress, domestic violence, party with a gun or knife, bar brawl, gang fight, etc., the dispatcher could call the first two names on the list and they could handle the call. Maybe Manager of Safety Al LaCabe and Mayor John Hickenlooper could supervise.

That would free up the police to handle more important calls like burglaries, auto theft, traffic, assaults (all of these are after suspects have left the scene so there will be no confrontations).

If the mayor covers one of these calls, it may not be appropriate for him to have his police bodyguards along since they might have to hurt someone to save his life. If they do, it will, of course, take the police several days to second-guess or Monday- morning quarterback those actions.

Lee Williams
Denver

Definition of marriage no accident, whimsy

In her letter of April 28, "Don't sweat the small stuff like gay marriage," Sandra Gutierrez lists the world's travails, from terrorism to hunger to rape to homelessness, and then speculates about the hullabaloo concerning "why two law-abiding citizens of the same sex who want to marry have shaken so many." The specific answer to her deft but vacuous question is that "so many" are not shaken at all. Rather, they are repulsed at the attempted abridgment of a social consciousness developed through the evolution of civilization itself.

It is not by accident that marriage is defined as the union of a man and woman. Neither is it the result of whimsical choice, much less the ignoring of obvious biological reality.

Pretending that vows of love and devotion between two homosexuals does or should constitute marriage denies - or purposely ignores - the accumulated wisdom of the ages.

Bud Markos
Grand Junction

God says it's wrong

I am writing in response to "Times are changing," the May 17 letter by Katie Karpovage.

Karpovage asks the question, "Are people really against gay marriage or are they just scared of a change in our society's norms and values?"

I for one am against gay marriages because I am a Christian and when God says something is wrong, I believe it. Karpovage says, "I think times are changing, and our values as a society must adapt to the times." God says, "I am the Lord, I change not." When we die and stand before God on the judgment day, we will be judged by what God says, not what man thinks or says.

Eileen Niederkorn
Denver

Perfect oxymoron

The letter of May 20 from George Griffin, "Why stay Republican?" is very timely indeed. The entire concept of gay Republicans is a perfect example of an oxymoron.

This conundrum is further complicated by gay men and women who profess adherence to officially homophobic religious denominations such as Roman Catholicism, Russian Orthodoxy and fundamental Protestantism. It is sickening to know that so many law-abiding, taxpaying Americans choose to be brainwashed sheep. Even friends and families of gay citizens should be ashamed of such choices.

Homosexuality is not a choice, but being a subservient member of any anti-gay organization is certainly an option.

Joseph F. Pennock
Victor

A tale of two at 27

John Kerry recently dismissed his Vietnam-era denunciation of fellow soldiers as atrocious war criminals by explaining, "That's one of those stupid things a 27-year-old kid says. . . . I was over the top."

Twenty-seven-year-old Pat Tillman recently spurned fame and fortune to seize the battlefield high ground and save the lives of fellow soldiers trapped in an enemy ambush. Such diverse wartime actions reveal two vastly different characters with nothing in common but their ages.

Dave Dupree
Lakewood

Bush's scare tactics

Have you noticed every Bush campaign ad is about John Kerry? Why doesn't Bush run on what he has done the last four years? Record deficits, unemployment, his personal war with Iraq, high gas prices, and his go-it-alone policy. Can this country really afford another four years of the Bush administration? Let's hope the American public can see through another set of scare tactics by this administration.

Mike Clark
Littleton

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