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Letters to Artvoice

THE WAR IN LEBANON

Though the Hezbollah attack on the IDF post inside of Israel’s border and the subsequent capture of two Israel soldiers were violations of international law, so too was the 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon that followed Israeli’s massive bombing of Lebanon more than 20 years ago. Hezbollah emerged out of the deadly smoke and carnage of a devastated country which continues to mourn the deaths of thousands of civilians, victims of the 1982 bombing of Lebanon. Many Lebanese—Christian and Muslim—view Hezbollah as a resistance force, as does the European Union.

There is an injustice here, an absurdity that we choose to overlook: While Israel is making much of the fact that Hezbollah is using implements of war made in Iran, it does not acknowledge the fact that almost all the deadly missiles used to kill civilians in Lebanon were made in Seattle, Duluth and Miami. And so, to the Lebanese, America is Israel’s partner in the devastation of their country.

A question regarding George Bush’s refusal to intercede in order to discourage further bloodshed: Will the savage bombing of Lebanese villages facilitate the return of two Israeli soldiers? Secondly, has Mr. Bush’s unprovoked bombing of Iraq killed, forever, all forms of diplomacy in the Middle East, so that violence has become the only approach to solving problems there, military and political? Moreover, if Hezbollah is just another terrorist organization, as Bush claims it to be, hasn’t he—by encouraging the relentless Israeli bombing in Lebanon—silenced all Arab criticism of that guerrilla movement and in doing so, further compromised the lives of Americans, Israelis and Arabs in the region?

Norm Tederous

Williamsville

SWING AND A MISS

I have been following the entire spectacle that the Rich Baseball Group has been inflicting on the good baseball fans in the city of Wichita, so I have to tell you that I find your column on the subject a little bit disappointing (“Play Ball,” Artvoice v5n28).

Bob Rich’s imminent departure from Wichita is nothing more than a greedy owner taking off at a drop of a hat because the next city can offer a sweetheart deal, a taxpayer-financed ballpark and luxury suites up to one’s eyeballs. It is greed, pure and simple, and a good baseball market has to suffer because of it.

Do you think for one moment that baseball fans in Wichita just got up one day and stopped supporting their team? Rich Baseball is run by incompetent morons…they have taken a proud franchise and run it into the ground. The owners used to attend games, show up in the community and be hands-on managers. No one has seen the Riches in Wichita for years.

And is it really any different here in Buffalo? Who ever sees Bob and Mindy in the corridors or in the owner’s box at Dunn Tire Park? Can one really say that this organization is run better now under John Dandes and Mike Buczkowski than in the old days when Mike Billoni ran the show under the banner “Every Game Is an Event”? John Dandes is one of the coldest, most arrogant sports executives ever to grace this town, and that is saying a lot considering we’ve had to deal with the likes of Bill Polian and John Muckler in years past. “Bucz” isn’t any better.

I love baseball and was a Bisons half-season ticket holder until two years ago. I gave up on the Bisons for a number of reasons, partly because the ballpark is filthy, the concessions are dreadful and the music and video clips look like they were drawn up by a 10-year-old. I tried to voice my concerns to Bisons management but wasn’t even given the courtesy of a call back. Obviously I am not alone in my thinking…those oceans of empty seats night after night speak volumes.

I enjoy your baseball and hockey columns and read them faithfully. Last fall your writers put together one of their best columns ever when they took the Bisons to task for their shoddy product. So far this season, their articles have turned to mush, and calling Bob Rich’s commitment to Buffalo baseball “beyond reproach” is laughable. Don’t think for a second that the Riches, Dandes and the rest of the gang wouldn’t try to extort this city for a better deal if they could get one, or leave for another city in a New York minute if someone elsewhere showed them the Benjamins.

Tell your guys to spend less time in line at the Bisons’ media buffet and more time doing proper investigative journalism on the team they cover. Nothing will change at Dunn Tire Park if sportswriters like yours don’t keep the pressure on.

Anson Bender

Batavia

DEFINING HYPOCRITE

Take a look at Erie County Legislature Chairperson Lynn Marinelli’s Web site (www.erie.gov/legislature/district11/index.asp) and you can see:

Major 2006 Legislative Action Agenda items: Erie County Charter Reforms. Major Legislative Record: Initiated the Charter Review Commission to bring about reforms and fiscal stability.

Creating a commision to make recommendations to revise the county charter and then voting against putting any of their recommendations on the ballot for voters to decide is a good example of what the word “hypocrite” means.

Why would you refuse to let voters decide on the recommendations of a commision you helped create in response to the recent budget meltdown and tax increases?

There are only two logical choices:

1. Legislators believe voters are too ignorant to decide at the ballot box how the county charter should be revised.

2. Democratic legislators do not want to give voters a chance to pass the proposed revisions.

I am guessing the real answer is patronage. When it looks like you may take control of the executive branch (patronage hires) in the next election, you vote against the very commission you helped create. The friends and family plan will likely go on long after Joel Giambra.

I am not sure if we can impeach and remove Chairperson Marinelli for this blatant dishonesty, but as voters it is our duty to eliminate these hypocrites from public office and perhaps their replacements will get the message.

Aaron Walker

Snyder

NOT SO SUBTLE, MR. SUPPLES

I am writing in response to the interview done with Mark Supples, owner or Jimmy Mac’s and Mothers (“The Odds Against,” Artvoice v5n29).

I found that Mr. Supples’ view of the residents of Niagara Falls, Buffalo and the patrons of the Niagara Casino were racist, hateful and ignorant. He, being a restaurant owner in the city of Buffalo, lets me know that I, being of African American and Native American nationality, would not be welcomed in his establishments. Everyone has their own opinions of the casino coming to Buffalo and has every right to agree or disagree with it being built here. However, to berate and name-call people who may not be “middle class” is just wrong. As a person who frequently loves to dine at a variety of restaurants within Western New York, I would not ever patronize his restaurants again and will urge my friends and family to do the same.

Mr. Supples is continuing the cycle of hatred and ignorance within this city. How sad that in 2006 we are still dealing with this.

Valerie Brown

Buffalo

Saving the Forest

“The Forest for the Trees,” (“Letters to AV,” Artvoice v5n29) written by Julie Broyles, is nothing more than a delusional rant and personal attack. Her letter was motivated by a long-held vendetta against Friends of the Ancient Forest and me. Several years ago, just five months after we invited her to join us, we expelled her from our group for just this kind of divisive and hot-winded rhetoric.

Her words are neither productive nor effective in the effort to obtain protection for the Zoar Valley ecosystem. Obviously, Miss Broyles needs more than just to start her own group (Zoar Valley Nature Society), which she has done since being removed from ours. It seems she feels the need to divide the environmental community and to take the focus off of what’s truly important, which is to save and protect our last great wild places.

In her rant, she says, “It’s okay to praise the DEC when they take positive steps.” Miss Broyles can praise the DEC all she wants, but for 40-plus years, the DEC has lacked vision and put forth little effort to create protected natural areas in Western New York. The DEC has yet to honor the legacy of Mr. Darling, who donated most of Zoar Valley to the people of New York State, refusing to protect all of Zoar. The DEC has already logged over 400 acres of Zoar Valley and plans more logging on the uplands in the current plan for Zoar, 1,404 of its 2,927 acres.

It’s evident that Miss Broyles has a hard time keeping her facts straight. She mentions that Peter Koch “may have experienced the meeting (the July 11 public meeting held by the DEC in Cheektowaga) as some sort of revival tent gathering where the uninformed were enlightened at the church of Albert Brown.” What she was obviously unaware of, though she was there, was that I did not even attend that meeting. I did attend the July 13 meeting in Gowanda, the same day Mr. Koch’s Artvoice article (“Not So Fast,” Artvoice v5n28) came out, and watched as citizen after citizen and many environmental organizations stood up and spoke out strongly for complete protection of Zoar, which we also did wholeheartedly. Even in her own hometown of Gowanda, Miss Broyles remained silent and did not stand up or speak out for Zoar. The only one Mr. Koch portrayed as a flip-flopper was Miss Broyles and her organization. The other environmental groups came to their own conclusions through intelligent questioning and reasoning.

Miss Broyles insinuates that FAF ignores the work of other environmental groups; that statement is the only real “hogwash” (to use her term) being thrown around. In the very picture that accompanies Mr. Koch’s article, standing on the logs with us is Don Shelters, the conservation officer of Zoar Valley Paddling Club and a member of the Cattaraugus Creek Watershed Task Force. We have both conducted surveys for the Western New York Old Growth Survey Team. Prior to Mr. Koch’s article, our secretary Roger Tredo and I met with Art Klein of Sierra Club and Brian Smith of Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment to discuss the DEC’s current plan for Zoar Valley. In addition, we have worked with the Nature Conservancy, Adirondack Mountain Club and many other local environmental organizations for the protection of Zoar, and are also members of the Zoar Valley Coalition that Bruce Kershner formed and chairs.

Throughout her diatribe, she uses words such as “chorus,” “church” and “guru” to describe my character and my supposed influence within the environmental community. She goes on to say that she believes I am doing this so that I may one day say, “No, I saved Zoar Valley.” This is a purely juvenile attitude.

As president of FAF, I am proud of the work that our group has accomplished in concert with many other environmental organizations. We have worked with the Allegheny Defense Project on logging in the Allegheny Forest, on the Erie County Forestry Plan to stop the massacre of the Erie County Forest lands and on the Pine Lodge issue in Evans. We are currently working to stop logging by the DEC in the East Otto State Forest, which has obvious relevance to the Zoar Valley uplands that are only a few miles downstream.

The only thing Miss Broyles seems committed to is attacking the work of FAF and my character. If she would have instead spent a little time reading the plan before speaking to the Buffalo News and praising the DEC, she would be a much more effective environmentalist.

Albert Brown

President, Friends of the Ancient Forest

Buffalo