03/09/03

Alabama overdue for real changes:

One of the lead stories in your Monday paper quotes the speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives saying he has been in the Legislature for 24 years and we still have the same problems in Alabama.

I agree with him it is time for a change. The voters should change all the yo-yos in the Legislature and vote some people in who won't still be looking at the same problems 24 years from now.

David Holden

North Shelby County

Not all protests are comparable:

In the editorial "Creating a racket," The News attempted to equate anti-choice protesters "engaged in acts of civil disobedience" with civil rights activists "who disrupted business at whites-only lunch counters."

First, civil rights activists who sat in at lunch counters at such places as Newberry's in Birmingham did not disrupt business there. It was the refusal to serve them that disrupted business. If the soda jerks had served them, there would have been no disruption. Indeed, these demonstrators were trying to expand the client base of the establishment.

Not so the anti-choice protesters who block driveways and doorways at women's health clinics, who are trying to close down the business, not open it to more clients. There is no similarity indeed, there is a stark and absolute contrast.

Sadly, this editorial reminds me of old Birmingham News editorials which tried to equate the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the Ku Klux Klan. SCLC, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s organization, was nonviolent and trying to build an America for everyone, while the KKK was a violent terrorist organization trying to destroy all that America means.

Nevertheless, The News equated the two. History changes, but The News keeps doing the same old things. It's deja vu all over again.

The Rev. Jack Zylman

Southside

Killers should be totally isolated:

Attorney General Bill Pryor's and Bryan Stevenson's opinions about the death penalty well represented each viewpoint of the death penalty issue in the Feb. 23 news.

To find a middle ground on the issue, while keeping in mind the victim's and convicted's family and friends, it appears that life without parole is the most viable option. Yet, what kind of "life" does the convicted deserve?

A human life consists of the physical, emotional and spiritual. Since the convicted is accused of eliminating the first two of the victim, why not minimize the physical and emotional aspects of the convicted by putting them in isolation with only enough food and medical care to keep them alive? There will be very little exercise and fresh air and absolutely no television or visits from relatives in other words, no emotional contact with the outside world with the exception of visits by their legal counsel.

This alternative will allow those wrongfully convicted to hopefully be exonerated and those rightfully convicted to spend the rest of their lives in an emotional and spiritual hell.

Is not death by crucifixion, stoning, burning at the stake, beheading, torture, hanging, firing squad, electrocution, gas chamber and lethal injection a quick and cost-effective means by a society to punish the guilty for their crime?

Tom Rogers

Tuscaloosa

Doctors face little lawsuit risk:

A doctor recently wrote that there is a "great need for liability tort reform" in Alabama. Either he has been brainwashed by his liability carrier or is simply ignorant of the status of medical malpractice litigation in Alabama.

Malpractice suits against doctors make up a tiny percentage of all civil filings. Many are dismissed due to Alabama's rigorous procedural requirements in malpractice cases. Other cases are thrown out because doctors will not testify against other doctors in Alabama.

For that small number of cases which get to trial, the jury instructions are so biased in the doctor's favor that only a drunken doctor wielding a bat against a patient's head will be at risk for a unfavorable verdict.

Also, since Mutual Assurance, the primary insurance carrier for Alabama doctors, rarely, if ever, settles a malpractice case, handling these cases is often cost-prohibitive.

I know of only two verdicts against a doctor for malpractice in Alabama in the past three years. Statistically, an Alabama doctor has a better chance of being struck by lightning than losing a malpractice case.

Most Alabama doctors are competent, professional and responsive to their patients. However, many are uninformed about their negligible risk of civil exposure and mistakenly blame malpractice lawsuits for the steep premiums.

If they want to know about "skyrocketing premiums," perhaps they should drive to Mountain Brook and view the palatial estate of Mutual Assurance's CEO.

G. Whit Drake, J.D.

Liberty Park

Devil in details with Iraqi war:

Clearly, Saddam Hussein is evil and must be contained; nevertheless, there are several reasons I'm having a very hard time supporting President Bush's proposed war on Iraq.

I have not seen compelling evidence that 12 years of successful containment of Saddam have ended in failure; I am instinctively opposed to firing the first shots; I would hate to see our country initiate a war without strong international support, such as Bush's own father was able to garner in 1991; I am disturbed at the arrogance of the current President Bush as evidenced by his terrible lack of effective international diplomacy; and finally, I have not heard the administration attempt any explanation of the inevitable consequences of our initiating this war, including possible negative consequences such as the chances that terrorist attacks on U.S. soil might actually increase, North Korea's range of possible responses, how long our army of occupation would be in Iraq, how much it might cost and how it is that Bush has gotten this sudden interest in nation building, which he pointedly disavowed during his presidential campaign just three years ago.

For all these reasons and more, it doesn't feel right to me, nor to about 80 percent of the rest of the world's citizens. The notion that these views somehow represent a lack of support for our troops is offensive and untrue.

One thing we can all do is pray fervently for a peaceful settlement.

Rufus Kinney

Jacksonville

Pacifists free at warriors' expense:

Anti-Bush protesters who project their pacifist demands cause one to surmise that their frantic, hand-wringing diatribe possibly reflects the approach to terrorism one might expect from that of an Al Gore presidency, God forbid.

For those, history would suggest that they might just take a deep breath, relax and feel secure in the statement from John Stuart Mill: "The world consists largely of weak men made and kept free by better men than themselves."

Armond "Si" Simmons

Pell City