Jewish stereotyping
I have appreciated the BDN’s efforts to promote equality, diversity and inclusion. That’s why the photo titled “Jewish Ritual” on page A3 in the Sept. 28 edition is deeply disappointing: It reinforces a troubling stereotype of Jews as secretly bizarre and other-than-mainstream people.
Jews in Maine are nurses, auto mechanics, educators, veterinarians, soup kitchen volunteers, architects and businesspeople. We are in public service, the military and town government, just like everybody else.
To prepare for Yom Kippur (the Day Of Atonement), the observant among us contemplate our lives in the previous year, ask forgiveness and resolve to be better people in the year ahead. No chicken-swinging involved.
Marjory Russakoff
Southwest Harbor
Future of First Amendment
I recently came across Matthew Gagnon’s Sept. 21 BDN column, “The future of freedom of speech.” I found it interesting that Gagnon blamed political correctness as the reason college campuses are drifting toward speech codes and regulations on speech.
I am a student at the University of Maine in Orono, and I must point out that rather than placing the blame solely on political correctness, some should be placed on the fact that a majority of college students do not fully comprehend what the First Amendment encompasses or their rights regarding free speech. Along with that, hate speech is a particularly tricky topic to address.
Although it is protected by the First Amendment, many questions arise when it is introduced in conversation. Two major questions include “what is hate speech?” and, as author Samuel Walker suggested, “how can it be tolerated if hurts other people?” Many young adults believe that if something offends another person, in regards to race, religion, sexual orientation and so on, it cannot be tolerated. But these same young adults may not be aware that as long as a statement is not targeting an individual, no matter how vile it is, it’s protected by the First Amendment.
I believe that the only way to safeguard the future of the First Amendment is to teach it more extensively. We cannot rely on the government to fix every problem we come across in society; we must work ourselves to preserve the rights that we have.
Keely Gonyea
Hermon
America needs healing
Our country is responding like an abused spouse at the present, and approaching post-traumatic stress disorder in the future. Our country is withdrawing from old friends into isolationism. Our country is hiding behind and longing for former accomplishments in ancient relationships. Our nation is cowering in fear of the next words or shouts from both leadership and the people. Finally, our great nation is concerned more about regaining internal normalcy than external appearances.
Pronouncing our public behavior is the first step toward recovery and healing; our collective denial does not improve our circumstance. We must stop the psychic injury together, not as individual sects or subgroups. Together, we are America — still.
We are bordering on adjusting too frequently to the global humiliation and cringing at press conferences as if that were the truer definition of our historic, national identity. We knew global pride and generational identity as Americans, willing to examine ourselves and side with justice and freedom for everyone. Our national health is on the other side of our communal pains; we must endure those growth pangs like the civil rights struggle to reunite as a people.
We must relearn “to live as brothers and sisters or perish as fools,” to quote the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words. We have grown yesterday. We are surviving today. There is public healing as a country in tomorrow.
James Weathersby
Augusta
Playing the media
In the past, papers reported every word a president said, but the landscape of civil discourse in America has completely changed, and so should reporting. A recent issue of the BDN, like many issues for the past two years, featured headlines by Gov. Paul LePage and President Donald Trump, although neither actually “did” anything.
I understand that outrage sells papers, but it’s a disservice to dutifully record every foolish word they say, while we have real-life concerns: distressed communities, local trade and business problems, and health care struggles. LePage and Trump are playing the newspapers and social media like dupes. LePage even admitted this publicly. More than free advertisement, it’s a powerful weapon to distract critics and to fire up their base.
Precisely when another Republican effort to repeal Obamacare seemed likely to fail, Trump came out with tweet after tweet about the “sons of bitches” in the NFL protesting the national anthem. Guess which the papers and social media were all talking about?
LePage “threatened” to fire two democratic Maine sheriffs for theoretical refusals to jail immigrants a day before he threatened to sue Bangor for putting up a roadblock to the building of a psychiatric center. Threatening to sue cities from districts he lost, or fire sheriffs from counties he lost, distracts us from what matters.
Please consider confining their ridiculous claims and provocations to one special page buried deep inside the paper or online and keep the front page for actual law. Perhaps we could call this section “The Le-Page.”
John Picone
Bangor
Codfather sentencing
Michael Bonner’s thoughtful reporting on the Carlos Rafael sentencing process created a misimpression for readers not deeply versed in fisheries issues.
Bonner’s Sept. 27 article said that Rafael “acquired” nearly a million pounds of fish from the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust, which is part of the nonprofit Cape Cod Fishermen’s Alliance, over the course of about five years.
In fact, Rafael did not acquire a single pound of fish from the trust, which I direct.
He leased over the course of about five years a total of about a million pounds of fish that fishermen in our community did not use.
That figure includes a lot of quota that no doubt was leased multiple times.
So, for example, if he leased 50,000 pounds of hake one year, at full fair market rates, he likely leased a similar amount again the next year, like paying rent on the same apartment annually. After the indictment of Rafael, the trust ended all leasing activities with him.
In addition, the article included this information in a section called “support for redistribution.” But the above information has nothing to do with the arguments in favor of redistributing Rafael’s fishing assets to the broad fishing community his illegal activities harmed.
Seth Rolbein
Director
Cape Cod Fisheries Trust
Chatham, Massachusetts