Letters

Homer holds his liquor a little better

Regarding Jamie Huston's comment in last week's Mercury [Letters, "A Vote for John Kerry is a Vote for Homer Simpson"]:

Sticking with your fun but misguided analogy, if a vote for John Kerry is a

vote for Homer Simpson, then a vote for George Bush is a vote for Barney Gumble.

--Michael Bacich

Alamo more textured than critic suggests

Dear Anthony Allison,

How saddened I feel that your resolute conviction against the current Iraq conflict would lead you to color your review of The Alamo with such propagandist writing ["Remember What?" April 8]. This film is not "egregiously one-sided." If anything, it attempts to show the human qualities of the men and women on all three sides of the conflict: the Mexican army, led by Santa Anna, who fought to get their land back; the Mexican rebels who resisted Santa Anna's rule; and the Texans who wanted to have their own nation.

Having very little recollection of the Alamo other than its significance in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, I was touched by the portrayal of the Mexicans in this film, including Jim Bowie's beautiful, beloved wife; her devoted sister; the young boy who fought bravely in Santa Anna's army; Santa Anna's intelligent, compassionate executive officer; and the trustworthy, loyal messenger who had to be ordered to leave the resistance to send for help. With the exception of Santa Anna's villainous role, the Mexicans were portrayed as sensitive human beings, and usually with far fewer flaws than the white Texans. Even Santa Anna was allowed to present his purpose for battling in a powerful way, one which lent credibility to his colorful role.

I understand that you hate this war and everything that it stands for. I understand that you cannot wait to see this administration voted out of office. In many ways, I look forward to that myself. But to use a review of a movie (one that does many things right) as another excuse to platform your views does a disservice to those who want an educated opinion of a film, not another tirade that essentially says the same thing the Mercury says in every issue using different formats. Please, apply less politics and more appreciation to your reviews. Not every work of entertainment will warp viewers' minds into blindly following their government, even when shallow parallels can be conjured up.

--Misty Conway

Did U.N. starve kids, pay terrorists in Iraq?

Just as Iraq is being readied for U.N. stewardship in Baghdad on June 30, a mammoth scandal is breaking that threatens to expose the rampant corruption and criminal activity in the U.N.'s administration of Iraq's oil-for-food program between 1996 and 2003.

It is bad enough that the gigantic fraud involved in the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program robbed Iraqi and Kurdish children of life-saving food and medicine and lined the pockets of U.N. kleptocrats. But there may be much more to concern us as well. According to some of the documents that have surfaced, large sums of money from the program went to the Baathist Party militants and the terrorists who have been murdering and wounding U.S. soldiers in Iraq. In fact, with billions of dollars still unaccounted for, those funds may continue to supply attacks on American troops for a long time to come. Kofi Annan and his underlings at the U.N. den of corruption on New York's East River must be held accountable, but no internal U.N. audit or investigation will ever expose this global cesspool of graft and terror.

Only a no-holds-barred investigation by the U.S. Congress will get to the bottom of this. Can we demand anything less?

--Charles A. Delzotti

Drug war is treason, restraint of trade

Kudos for publishing Kirk Muse's on-target assessment of "drug war cheerleaders" [Letters, "Drug Czar Anti-Pot, Pro-Bureaucracy," April 15].

I would like to add that the U.S. Constitution defines treason as waging war on Americans, or providing aid and comfort to our enemies. Also, the antitrust law known as the Sherman Act clearly deems illegal any price fixing, bid rigging or collusion between persons or corporations that inflate prices of inferior products, cheat the customer, restrain trade or commerce, or any attempt "to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations."

Yet news media, law enforcers and politicians alike consistently omit such relevant and material facts even as they turn a blind eye to and even promote foods, food supplements, drugs, deadly and defective drug delivery devices and alcohol products that are irrefutably associated with more than 1 million American deaths each year.

According to Title 21, Chapter 22, Section 1712, on Sept. 30, 2003, the chapter and the amendments in U.S. Code that funded John Walters' agency were repealed, including the provisions in Section 1713 that authorized the secretary of state, attorney general, secretary of agriculture, secretary of defense, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to collude with multibillion-dollar conglomerate chemical manufacturers and private military contractors to develop and spray herbicides to "eliminate illicit narcotics crops," specifically coca, cannabis and opium poppy in the United States and foreign countries.

The very fact that coca, poppies and marijuana farming proliferates in ever greater proportions across regional boundaries and international borders should be enough evidence that such policies are at least ill advised, and likely involve criminal collusion with companies whose products would otherwise have to compete in a fair and open market.

--Jose Melendez,

Contributing author,

Cannabis News,

DeLand, Fla.