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The following letter to the editor by me, Brian Leekley, was printed in the Monday, October 30, 2006, issue of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, which is distributed in the Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington area.
There are two competing concepts of marriage. In the concept leftover from the days of patriarchy, marriage is the ceremony in which her father gives away the bride to the groom and she thereby becomes her husband's property and subordinate, expected to serve, obey and please him and to bear his heirs to carry on his name. The concept of same sex marriage is incompatible with patriarchal marriage.
The global movement of recent centuries for women's, and society's, liberation from patriarchy brought a concept of marriage as a free choice by two adult persons on the basis of equal decision-making power, shared property, shared responsibilities, mutually respected autonomy, and mutual, committed love. Such a marriage, like patriarchal marriage, usually produces -- and is enhanced and brought joy by -- offspring, but reproduction is not its defining raison d'etre. Marriage as the free choice of committed love by equals is compatible with the concept of same sex marriage.
The Procrustean and mean-spirited proposed state constitution amendment HJR2 on the November 7 ballot would impose on all marrying Idaho residents a marriage definition modeled on patriarchal marriage. HJR2 attacks freedom of religion for those churches which accept and bless same sex marriages, and it denies, nay forbids, equal protection of the law for all regardless of inborn sexual orientation.
Vote NO on HJR2.
Brian Leekley
Moscow, Idaho
Monday, October 30, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Whither Goes Our Sewage
I never heard back from the staff of James Bay Beacon and do not know if that newspaper printed the letter to the editor reproduced below.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Dear editor of James Bay Beacon,
On vacation last month I visited Victoria, BC, and saw a copy of the July – August 2006 James Bay Beacon.
I read with interest the page 7 article "Whither Goes Our Sewage" by Doreen M. Gee. According to her article, "Every day, over 120 million litres of liquid waste is spewed into the ocean at both the Clover and Macauley Point outfalls. This effluent, containing many tons of fecal matter, is not treated or disinfected. .... A prevailing view ... is that the strong currents ... effectively dilute and disperse the effluent from the outfalls." The article discusses this and opposing opinions on the need for treating sewage before it is dumped in the ocean.
Coincidentally, a Los Angeles relative recently emailed me about the special report "Altered Oceans" that appeared in five parts in the Los Angeles Times on consecutive days starting July 31. The online multimedia version of the report has a link at www.latimes.com.
The report summarizes the evidence that contemporary civilization is messing up the oceans. Part 1, "A Primeval Tide of Toxins," says that toxic bacteria and toxic algae have taken over large areas of ocean, in ever more
frequent and widespread "dead zones" and plagues, killing coral, seaweed, mollusks, fish, and sea mammals
and seriously affecting human health and livelihoods.
One of a number of factors that together are causing this "rise of slime" evolution in reverse is the massive worldwide dumping into the oceans of what are nutrients to bacteria and algae, including factory emissions,
farm and lawn fertilizers, and human sewage.
So dumping even treated sewage in the ocean is not a good idea. Time for new, better ideas.
Brian Leekley
Moscow, Idaho
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Dear editor of James Bay Beacon,
On vacation last month I visited Victoria, BC, and saw a copy of the July – August 2006 James Bay Beacon.
I read with interest the page 7 article "Whither Goes Our Sewage" by Doreen M. Gee. According to her article, "Every day, over 120 million litres of liquid waste is spewed into the ocean at both the Clover and Macauley Point outfalls. This effluent, containing many tons of fecal matter, is not treated or disinfected. .... A prevailing view ... is that the strong currents ... effectively dilute and disperse the effluent from the outfalls." The article discusses this and opposing opinions on the need for treating sewage before it is dumped in the ocean.
Coincidentally, a Los Angeles relative recently emailed me about the special report "Altered Oceans" that appeared in five parts in the Los Angeles Times on consecutive days starting July 31. The online multimedia version of the report has a link at www.latimes.com.
The report summarizes the evidence that contemporary civilization is messing up the oceans. Part 1, "A Primeval Tide of Toxins," says that toxic bacteria and toxic algae have taken over large areas of ocean, in ever more
frequent and widespread "dead zones" and plagues, killing coral, seaweed, mollusks, fish, and sea mammals
and seriously affecting human health and livelihoods.
One of a number of factors that together are causing this "rise of slime" evolution in reverse is the massive worldwide dumping into the oceans of what are nutrients to bacteria and algae, including factory emissions,
farm and lawn fertilizers, and human sewage.
So dumping even treated sewage in the ocean is not a good idea. Time for new, better ideas.
Brian Leekley
Moscow, Idaho
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Burn with Brando
Marlon Brando died July 2, 2004. Not long afterward, this letter to the editor by me appeared in a local newspaper, the Marquette, Michigan, Mining Journal. The letter uses a recap of the movie Burn starring Brando to imply that the US ruling class has ulterior motives for wanting to bring their style of democracy to Iraq.
The great American actor Marlon Brando died recently. I have been a Brando fan since I was a teenager in the 1950s. Over the decades I have enjoyed such movies as VIVA ZAPATA, MISSOURI BREAKS, DON JUAN DE MARCOS, and many others. Of all Brando films, my favorite was released in 1969 with the title QUEIMADA, except titled in Canada THE MERCENARY and titled BURN in the US, where it was released in 1970. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, the Italian movie maker who also directed THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, about the guerrilla movement in Algiers in the 1950s against the French occupation.
The story in BURN takes place on a fictional Caribbean island back in the days when Portugal controlled it and had brought slaves from Africa to work the sugar cane plantations. Brando plays William Walker, a British agent pretending to be a tradesman. Walker chooses a young man among the slaves who is a natural, charismatic leader and around him organizes a band of revolutionaries that starts, and eventually wins, an insurrection that frees the island from the Portuguese.
Then the film shows that Walker is a reactionary who cares not about freedom and democracy for the island's liberated, ex-slave plantation workers but rather about power and profit for the British empire. Backed by the empire's economic power, he cuts a deal with local Creole businessmen that they will govern the country and manage the plantations for British owners, while the African-Caribbean ex-slaves will still be poor and powerless plantation workers -- except now without even the job security of life-long slavery. His job done, Walker goes on to other assignments, other islands.
A few years later the comprador island government is so corrupt that the plantation workers revolt. Walker is sent back to the island to advise the government on anti-guerrilla strategy. With such brutal methods as burning whole villages and forests, the government crushes the rebellion.
But the resistance lives on. At the end Walker is shot dead on a city street by a young black man, one of a new generation of freedom fighters.
Meanwhile the USA is bringing democracy to Iraq.
Brian Leekley
Marquette, Michigan
The great American actor Marlon Brando died recently. I have been a Brando fan since I was a teenager in the 1950s. Over the decades I have enjoyed such movies as VIVA ZAPATA, MISSOURI BREAKS, DON JUAN DE MARCOS, and many others. Of all Brando films, my favorite was released in 1969 with the title QUEIMADA, except titled in Canada THE MERCENARY and titled BURN in the US, where it was released in 1970. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, the Italian movie maker who also directed THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, about the guerrilla movement in Algiers in the 1950s against the French occupation.
The story in BURN takes place on a fictional Caribbean island back in the days when Portugal controlled it and had brought slaves from Africa to work the sugar cane plantations. Brando plays William Walker, a British agent pretending to be a tradesman. Walker chooses a young man among the slaves who is a natural, charismatic leader and around him organizes a band of revolutionaries that starts, and eventually wins, an insurrection that frees the island from the Portuguese.
Then the film shows that Walker is a reactionary who cares not about freedom and democracy for the island's liberated, ex-slave plantation workers but rather about power and profit for the British empire. Backed by the empire's economic power, he cuts a deal with local Creole businessmen that they will govern the country and manage the plantations for British owners, while the African-Caribbean ex-slaves will still be poor and powerless plantation workers -- except now without even the job security of life-long slavery. His job done, Walker goes on to other assignments, other islands.
A few years later the comprador island government is so corrupt that the plantation workers revolt. Walker is sent back to the island to advise the government on anti-guerrilla strategy. With such brutal methods as burning whole villages and forests, the government crushes the rebellion.
But the resistance lives on. At the end Walker is shot dead on a city street by a young black man, one of a new generation of freedom fighters.
Meanwhile the USA is bringing democracy to Iraq.
Brian Leekley
Marquette, Michigan
Uniting Americans in Democratic Process
This Letter To The Editor appeared on or about Christmas Day 2004 in the Marquette, Michigan, Mining Journal.
I agree with your editorial of Thursday, 11-4-2004. You said that the country should unite after the divisive Bush versus Kerry campaign and that President Bush, who got a bare majority of votes, should have the humility and good sense to "govern from the center."
In a democracy, unity does not mean agreeing 100% with every act and word of the President or of anyone else. I think rather it means finding broad areas of agreement, then debating the details of each goal and path, to achieve, if not ideal decisions and giant leaps forward, at least workable compromises. The nature of a democratic republic is that one's opponent on one issue in the morning may be one's ally on another issue in the afternoon, with all united in the democratic process.
I have adamantly opposed the Bush administration on numerous grounds, but I do agree with Bush that democracies in the countries of the Near and Middle East would be better than dictatorships or theocracies. If I agree with Bush about anything, it is likely that many others across the political spectrum agree with him on that point, too.
The details are debatable. Is invading and occupying another country, self-servingly manipulating its economy, dominating its process of regime change, and building numerous military bases there an effective way to help that country progress from dictatorship to democracy? Or counterproductive, creating an insurgents versus foreign invaders and quislings war? And what about the contradiction between those who seek real, unfettered democracy and those, like President Bush and his ilk, who want to impose a strings-attached democracy in Iraq, skewed for the profitable advantage of American corporations and financiers?
Two neighbors might disagree on whether the American occupation is the solution or the problem in Iraq but might agree, for example, about the need for affordable baseline health insurance for all Americans. My hopeful daydream is that Americans coast to coast will gather together regularly in small groups at the neighborhood level, to exchange views about a variety of issues and to look for common ground, or middle ground, or better understanding of differences. Such Freirean small groups would be a leavening bottom-up influence on politicians and public institutions, leading to new constellations of political alliances and, hopefully, improved and more democratic government.
Brian Leekley
Marquette, Michigan
I agree with your editorial of Thursday, 11-4-2004. You said that the country should unite after the divisive Bush versus Kerry campaign and that President Bush, who got a bare majority of votes, should have the humility and good sense to "govern from the center."
In a democracy, unity does not mean agreeing 100% with every act and word of the President or of anyone else. I think rather it means finding broad areas of agreement, then debating the details of each goal and path, to achieve, if not ideal decisions and giant leaps forward, at least workable compromises. The nature of a democratic republic is that one's opponent on one issue in the morning may be one's ally on another issue in the afternoon, with all united in the democratic process.
I have adamantly opposed the Bush administration on numerous grounds, but I do agree with Bush that democracies in the countries of the Near and Middle East would be better than dictatorships or theocracies. If I agree with Bush about anything, it is likely that many others across the political spectrum agree with him on that point, too.
The details are debatable. Is invading and occupying another country, self-servingly manipulating its economy, dominating its process of regime change, and building numerous military bases there an effective way to help that country progress from dictatorship to democracy? Or counterproductive, creating an insurgents versus foreign invaders and quislings war? And what about the contradiction between those who seek real, unfettered democracy and those, like President Bush and his ilk, who want to impose a strings-attached democracy in Iraq, skewed for the profitable advantage of American corporations and financiers?
Two neighbors might disagree on whether the American occupation is the solution or the problem in Iraq but might agree, for example, about the need for affordable baseline health insurance for all Americans. My hopeful daydream is that Americans coast to coast will gather together regularly in small groups at the neighborhood level, to exchange views about a variety of issues and to look for common ground, or middle ground, or better understanding of differences. Such Freirean small groups would be a leavening bottom-up influence on politicians and public institutions, leading to new constellations of political alliances and, hopefully, improved and more democratic government.
Brian Leekley
Marquette, Michigan
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