LETTERS - Sept. 26

ISSUE | NICKNAMES

Consider the source

While a recent letter writer wrote that the R-word "has no place in the vocabulary of a people whose founding document proclaims that all men are created equal," that same document refers to Native Americans as "merciless Indian Savages," hardly a better moniker ("Far better monikers than a racial slur," Sept. 23). Indeed, the Declaration of Independence is an incredibly inspiring proclamation, but it does have its warts.

|Randy Sommovilla, Philadelphia

No one's whooping

Not only do I not care about your rant against the Redskins' team nickname, but I'm sick of efforts to force politically correct opinions ("Visiting team needs new name," Sept. 21). As for the claim that the effort to change the Washington team's nickname has been "picking up steam," actually, the only thing picking up steam on the issue is anger over the ongoing meddling by the PC police to keep this dead issue alive.

|Joe Bowers, Phoenixville, joseph.h.bowers@comcast.net

ISSUE | $2-A-PACK TAX

Suburbs win again

In regards to the new cigarette tax, I believe Philadelphia has shot itself and its retail partners in the foot. For example, when this tax was first proposed, a friend who, along with her husband, smokes about a carton per week said the additional $160 per month was not going to be enough incentive to quit. She explained that she buys cigarettes at either Target or Walmart during a weekly shopping visit, and said she would drive instead to stores in Jenkintown, not Northeast Philadelphia.

What this means is that she will also buy most if not all of the items, both taxable and nontaxable, that she normally buys in the city in the suburbs, further depleting Philadelphia businesses and the city's tax coffers.

This is going to cost the city dearly, not just in sales-tax revenue, but in lost revenue from jobs (wage taxes) and gross-receipt taxes as well. The only question is what businesses will close first, the big boxes or the mom-and-pop stores? Either one is bad for people living in the city. The city is going to get a short-term fix leading to long-term loss.

|Joe Mazur, Plymouth Meeting

ISSUE | JUDICIAL CORRUPTION

Temptation, taint with campaign fund-raising

The dramatic downfall of Municipal Court Judge Joseph C. Waters Jr. demonstrates once again the insidious effect of having to raise money to gain a seat on the bench. Clearly, Waters abused the system, and his actions undermine the public's trust in the courts.

Courts should be places where all people can go with confidence that they will be heard by qualified, fair, and impartial judges. People should not have to worry that a campaign contribution might encourage the judge to decide against them. But as long as Pennsylvania continues to elect all our judges in expensive, partisan elections, this is exactly what people will think.

Courts and campaign contributions just don't mix. Merit selection of judges decreases the effect of money in judicial selection and ensures judges are chosen on qualifications, not cash in campaign coffers.

|Lynn A. Marks, executive director, Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, Philadelphia, marks@pmconline.org

Enough information to inform voters

If I follow the news correctly, Joseph C. Waters Jr. made calls to fellow judges to help out friends in criminal and civil cases ("How judge sold influence," Sept. 25). State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille said neither of the two judges he suspended, Dawn Segal and Joseph O'Neill, alerted superiors. Under suspension, the two will not hear cases. Segal was not available to take reporters' calls. Is she available to collect that $169,769 annual salary? Thanks, at least, for naming judges not to vote for.

|Tom Borai, Audubon

ISSUE | SPANKING

If it leaves them red and hurting, it's not right

Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts' almost lighthearted approach to a controversial subject was startlingly insensitive ("Can world's best mom also be a child abuser?" Sept. 22). It was disturbing that a person with such impressive literary credits only cited one decade-old study espousing the lack of harm of corporal punishment. Still more disturbing, while Pitts used the term spanking, it appeared to be something even worse that the author defended, endorsed, and remembers in a positive light.

I have never understood why threatening to hit an adult can legally be defined as assault, while actually striking a child multiple times, even with an object capable of inflicting harm, is dismissed as discipline. No child entrusted to our care - future Pulitzer Prize winner or not - should ever be assaulted.

|Mary Ann Resnik, Phoenixville

Spare the rod

On Sunday, Inside the NBA analyst Charles Barkley said that if spanking/whipping were considered wrong, all mothers in the South would be in jail. Just because someone was brought up that way, that doesn't make it right. I hope we all keep spanking to a rare occasion and, as for whipping, absolutely not.

|Bruce Fredrickson, Berlin