Theft of Mid-Street Markers “Immature Crime”
Editor,
To the person or persons who made off with the recently installed mid-street trail markers on the W&OD trail through Falls Church:
We don’t know whether you have some vague, Tea-Partyish political motive (you don’t like trail users?) or are simply drunken fools, like Paul Newman’s Luke in the movie “Cool Hand Luke,” who cut off the heads of parking meters. It hardly matters; it was a silly and immature crime. If you wish to join or rejoin the ranks of adults, you should do the following: own up to it in public; apologize; make redress to
the city as adjudicated; and then join the debate of the body politic if you have something to say. Exercise your citizenship out in the open.
If your courage is not equal to this course of action, you might at least return the purloined items, creeping like the mouse you presently are, under cover of dark, to City Hall, perhaps. Please don’t bother replying with some lame justification, for there is none.
Grow up.
Dave Rockwell
Falls Church
Coe Branch Put Underground Due to Flooding
Editor,
A news brief item in the August 5-11 News-Briefs states that the City may acquire a parcel of land at the rear of 432 Sherrow Avenue to permit the “daylighting” of a stretch of Coe Branch of Tripps Run that is now diverted to underground pipes.
Before this part of Coe Branch was undergrounded many years ago, every significant rainfall caused the water to flood into the backyards of the Lee Crest homes between Rollins Street and Sherrow Avenue. Why would we want to revert to the previous “daylighting” and allow the dirty trash to polluted Coe Branch to intrude again?
Jim Willcock
Falls Church
Rubin Commentary Called ‘Sniveling’ & Needs Rebuttal
Editor,
The relative merits of Jay Rubin’s sniveling August 5th Guest Commentary, “An Israeli’s View of the Situation in the Gaza Strip,” deserve a book-length rebuttal. For example: “Where would they [Jews] go … Germany?” In fact: (i) more Russian Jews now emigrate to Germany than to Israel; (ii) the number of Jews targeted and killed by Germany in the 1930s and 40s, as tallied by Jewish researchers, is closer to four million than to the more familiar six million figure; (iii) by universal standards, Jews per se are a religious sect rather than a race or nationality; (iv) etc. Fortunately, such books have been written and are readily available. See, for example, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (2007) by the distinguished political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and any works by the late historian Alfred Lilienthal.
The cause of Gaza’s present “situation” is more aptly described by another Israel’s view. The country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, spoke both candidly and against interest in 1956 about modern Israel’s origins: “If I was an Arab Leader I never would make terms with Israel. This is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what’s that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?” (qtd. in Mearshimer and Walt 2007, 96).
Mr. Rubin casually notes that the number of Nobel Prizes received by Jews of many nationalities (not by Israeli Jews) exceeds, by a ratio of 21:1, the number won by Arabs. If this measure perfects even a part of Mr. Rubin’s argument, then if follows that Arabs collectively are entitled to assert control over Mr. Rubin’s life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. This paraphrase of Mr. Rubin’s thesis should sound familiar. It is a universal justification for prejudice, discrimination, racism, and genocide.
James A. Montanye
Falls Church
Questions Use of Term “Unduly” in Editorial
Editor,
In your August 4 Editorial you stated that Falls Church City (and by that you must mean we citizens of Falls Church) is “unduly privileged.” For a community newspaper it is a curious use of these words. Unless it is that you actually believe that we citizens are “excessively” privileged — or “inappropriately” privileged — or “unjustifiably” privileged — or “improperly” privileged. These are all definitions of the word “unduly” which can be found in dictionaries available to you.
On a related topic, is it true as you report in this editorial that our elected Representative in the United States Congress is now unwilling to assist the City of Falls Church in the future? If this is not the case, should we not see a vigorous denial from him in your paper? If it is true, shouldn’t he receive zero votes from the citizens of Falls Church in the next election?
Nick Doyle
Falls Church
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