Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 303, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 1, 2014 Page: 12 of 36
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12A
Sunday, June 1, 2014
OPINION
Denton Record-Chronicle
Denton Record-Chronicle
Published by Denton Publishing Co.,
a subsidiary of A.H. Belo Corporation
Founded from weekly newspapers,
the Denton Chronicle, established in 1882,
and the Denton Record, established in 1897.
Published daily as the Denton
Record-Chronicle since Aug. 3,1903.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Bill Patterson
Publisher and CEO
Dawn Cobb
Managing Editor
Dianna Hunt
City Editor
Les Cockrell
Region Editor
Mark Finley
News Editor
PAST PUBLISHERS
William C. “Will” Edwards
1903-1927
Robert J. “Bob” Edwards
1927-1945
Riley Cross
1945-1970
Vivian Cross
1970-1986
Fred Patterson
1986-1999
Editorials published in the Denton Record-Chronicle
are determined by the editorial board.
Questions and suggestions should be directed to the:
Denton Record-Chronicle
314 E. Hickory St., Denton, TX 76201
Phone: 940-387-3811
Fax: 940-566-6888
E-mail: drc@dentonrc.com
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Editorial
Time to tackle
needed projects
« m me support the work done by the Citizens Bond
mJa# Advisory Committee in ranking Denton’s public
W W works projects and believe the timing is right to
put such an issue before voters.
The committee has identified projects totaling nearly
$100 million for a possible November bond election, a
six-year spending package that — should it go before
voters as proposed — would likely require a 3 cent tax
hike.
But as committee co-chairman Randy Robinson said
Tuesday, it’s been nine years since the city went to voters
with a capital improvement program.
“We really should have one of these programs every
five to six years, but we really couldn’t afford the debt
until we started seeing some growth in [property] values,”
Robinson said.
We agree with Robinson that rising property values
signal an opportune time to tackle long-needed projects.
The lion’s share of the committee’s recommendations will
provide for streets, public safety and drainage improve-
ments, and we believe that committee members have
their priorities in order.
When the City Council appointed the 51-member com-
mittee, it asked that the group keep street reconstruction
as a top priority — the city is in the middle of $20.4 mil-
lion in street projects authorized by voters last year — and
put two fire stations and a north-side drainage project on
the list. But the council elected not to put any other re-
strictions on the committee.
The proposed projects include $24 million in street
reconstruction, another $15.6 million for the expansion of
Bonnie Brae Street, and $13.6 million to rebuild fire sta-
tions No. 3 and No. 4.
Denton’s continued growth in population and tax base
are already putting a strain on services including police
and fire, and we believe it’s imperative for the city to ad-
dress such needs.
The citizens committee approved a preliminary recom-
mendation for the City Council, which is expected to take
up the matter during a workshop discussion Tuesday
afternoon, prior to its regular meeting.
The recommendation also included sample language
for the ballot, with four propositions in all. The first prop-
osition would allocate $61.7 million to streets; the second,
$16.6 million to police and fire facilities; the third, $8.5
million to drainage and flood control projects; and the
fourth, $11.4 million for improvements to the city’s park
system.
About 12 percent of the recommended spending went
to park improvements, including $2.4 million for a wave
pool and concession stand at Water Works Park The
parks foundation agreed earlier this year to fund the re-
placement of Eureka Park playground, about $1 million,
in order to keep that project out of the bond package.
We were disappointed that a downtown parking ga-
rage didn’t make the final cut of proposals, but we have
no complaint about proposed park improvements. Parks
provide a higher quality of life for residents and add value
to the community.
Robinson said he wasn’t sure how a 3 cent increase
would be received by voters, or the City Council.
“Nobody likes to pay more taxes — I don’t like to pay
more taxes,” Robinson said.
But for a little extra money — about the price of treat-
ing the family to a night at the movies, Robinson said —
Denton can have better streets, better drainage and better
public safety facilities.
We believe those improvements are well worth fund-
ing and urge the City Council to give the bond proposal a
favorable review.
The Citizens Bond Advisory Committee has done its
work, and we believe that Denton voters will see the value
of their recommendations.
This day in history: June 1
Today is Sunday, June \ stations, effective July \ 1914.
the 152nd day of 2014. There In 1533, Anne Boleyn, the
are 213 days left in the year. second wife of King Henry VIII,
On June 1,1914, U.S. Secre- was crowned as Queen Consort
tary of the Navy Josephus Dan- of England,
iels issued General Order 99 In 1792, Kentucky became
banning alcoholic beverages the 15th state of the union,
from Navy vessels, yards and — The Associated Press
I CAtfT
READ THE
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Movies not the cause
f all the things that have been said in
■ ■ the nonstop chatter since an obvi-
ously deranged young man killed six
college students here in Southern California
recently, by far the dumbest comes from
Washington, D.C., where The Washington
Post’s film critic actually said that these mass
murders were tied to white men in Holly-
wood promoting “escapist fantasies” that
“revolve around vigilantism and sexual
wish-fulfillment.”
Wrote Ann Homa-
day, who hopefully
knows more about
film than about crime,
“As Rodger bemoaned
his life of ‘loneliness,
rejection and unful-
filled desire’ and arro-
gantly announced that
he would now prove
his own status as ‘the
true alpha male,’ he
unwittingly expressed
the toxic double helix of insecurity and enti-
tlement that comprises Hollywood’s DNA.”
There’s more: “For generations, mass en-
tertainment has been overwhelmingly con-
trolled by white men, whose escapist fanta-
sies so often revolve around vigilantism and
sexual wish-fulfillment (often, if not always,
featuring a steady through-line of casual mi-
sogyny).”
And more: “How many students watch
outsized fiat-boy fantasies like Neighbors
and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of
college life that should be full of‘sex and fun
and pleasure’? How many men, raised on a
steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in
which the shlubby arrested adolescent al-
ways gets the girl, find that those happy end-
ings constantly elude them and conclude,
‘It’s not fair’?”
So Apatow, a happily married man and
the father ofbeautiful daughters, is responsi-
ble for a seriously ill young man’s murdering
six students because that young man — un-
like Seth Rogen or a character in an Apatow
movie — didn’t get the girl?
This is nuts. Just nuts. How many of us
didn’t get the girl or guy we wanted, didn’t
get the job we wanted, had our hearts bro-
ken any number of ways? We don’t kill. This
is not what people do after watching escapist
movies and getting dumped by real people.
If it were, our college campuses would be
wastelands.
Maybe Homaday is auditioning for a job
as a loudmouth screamer who wants to
blame Hollywood for everything. Maybe
she’s out to become the new Ann Coulter of
culture: wrong, tasteless and offensive, but
plenty of airtime. No doubt she’ll succeed. If
I had more readers, I’d probably be giving
her a boost.
It would be funny (OK, entertaining, be-
cause that is what this discussion is really
about: ratings and attention. Maybe Homa-
day will get her own show if she’s crazy
enough.) if this were not a life-and-death
problem.
Elliot Rodger was a dangerous and sick
young man. He should not have been buying
guns and living on his own. His parents
knew he was troubled, but clearly they didn’t
know just how seriously ill he was — or they
didn’t know what to do about it.
He had therapists who didn’t know just
how imminent a danger he posed. He was a
college student, but they apparently didn’t
know or do anything. He had parents who
thought they were doing enough and
weren’t. I have no doubt that they (not Seth
or Judd) will blame themselves forever, Ms.
Homaday.
And now six kids — it could have been
any of our kids — are dead.
Could we please focus on the killer and
not the movies? Could we please try to figure
out how to keep sick and dangerous kids
who have easy access to guns from killing
our children?
I’m happy to rant and rave till the cows
come home about discrimination against
women in almost every aspect of life — from
Hollywood to the op-ed pages of even The
Washington Post (which has improved
somewhat, in gender terms, since I self-im-
molated trying to make it an issue). I’m glad
to see women with a voice in the op-ed pag-
es. I realize that women, as Homaday clearly
proved, can be every bit as uninformed and
offensive as men, but equality doesn’t always
mean excellence.
We need to help the parents of deeply dis-
turbed kids get help for their children, we
need to help campuses step up to mental
health issues, and we need to deal with the
sale of guns to young people who should not
be allowed to buy them. That’s a big list.
Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen really don’t
belong on it.
SUSANESTRICH’S column is distrib-
uted by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Susan
Estrich
Letters to the editor
Hateful language
To the young Middle Eastern family leav-
ing South Lakes Park on May 27,1 am so sor-
ry that you were subjected to the verbal
taunting by a small group of thugs. It took
me a little bit of time to process what I was
hearing, and I am so sorry that I did not walk
back to the parking lot to address those
young men.
On my walk around the park, I thought
of little else other than your family and came
to the conclusion that I would seek out those
who were so abusive once I got back to the
parking lot. Unfortunately, they had already
left.
To the young men who showed so little
respect and tolerance for this young family
— you made an assumption based on the
clothing of this family. I refer you to the Bill
of Rights.
Had you been paying attention in your
American history classes, perhaps you
would remember the First Amendment. It
reads, “Congress shall make no law respect-
ing an establishment of religion, or prohib-
iting the free exercise thereof or abridging
SUBMISSIONS
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Authorship must be verified before publication.
The Record-Chronicle reserves the right to edit
letters for length. Letters should be typed or
legibly handwritten and be 250 or fewer words.
We prefer e-mail submissions.
Send to: drc@dentonrc.com.
Otherwise, fax to 940-566-6888, or mail to:
Letters to the editor
P.0. Box 369
Denton, TX 76202
the freedom of speech, or of the press or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances.”
What you were doing was nothing short
of hate speech, bullying and harassment.
My prayers are with the young family
who had to endure such hateful and vile lan-
guage and with the young men who showed
so little respect and tolerance for others.
Carol Rogers,
Denton
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your commentary and your actions.
Light shed
on Ukraine
and Jews
DESSA, Ukraine — In early April,
■ ■ swastikas and “Death to the Jews”
were painted on walls surrounding
the Jewish cemetery in this legendary city on
the Black Sea. The graffiti was signed “Right
Sector,” the name of an ultranationalist
movement that took part in the February re-
volt that ousted the pro-Russian President
Viktor Yanukovych.
The Kremlin claims that Ukraine’s rebels
— who want the country to turn toward Eu-
rope rather than Russia — are riddled with
anti-Semites and neo-
fascists. The desecra-
tion in Odessa seems to
fit those charges. But
what I heard from Av-
ram Wolff, Odessa’s
chief rabbi — and from
Jews from all over
Ukraine — contradicts
Moscow’s propaganda
machine.
Wolff told me that a
top Right Sector leader
quickly came to his office and denied the
group’s involvement. “I asked him to prove it
by painting over the graffiti,” the rabbi told
me in his book-lined office. Soon the militia-
man, wearing his fatigues with a neofascist
shoulder patch, was standing shoulder to
shoulder with the bearded Chabad-Luba-
vitcher rabbi erasing the swastikas.
Odessa, whose huge Jewish population
was decimated during World War II, is still
home to 40,000 Jews and three synagogues;
Wolff runs an active congregation, including
schools, orphanages and a university, and a
newsletter distributed to 15,000 families. “To
say there is no anti-semitism in Ukraine is
not accurate, because there is anti-semitism
everywhere,” says Wolff. “Jews had no real
problems, maybe the occasional incident,
before the current conflict.”
He believes that pro-Russian provoca-
teurs, like the ones he thinks scrawled the
graffiti, seek to frighten Jews into asking
Russia for help, thus confirming the Krem-
lin’s charges.
The Russian message resonates in some
circles because of the role Right Sector, and
Ukraine’s far-right nationalist party Svobo-
da, played in the Euromaidan revolt and the
handful of posts they got in the current inter-
im government.
But Russia grossly exaggerates the role of
both groups, according to Josef Zissels, the
chairman of the Association of Jewish Orga-
nizations and Communities in Ukraine. “Ev-
ery society has right-wing people,” he says.
“The question is, what is their strength in so-
ciety, and what is the mainstream?”
The recent Ukrainian presidential elec-
tion gave a clear answer: The Right Sector
candidate, Dmitry Yarosh, won 1 percent of
the vote; Oleh Tyahnybok of Svoboda re-
ceived L3 percent. Neither did as well as Jew-
ish businessman Vadim Rabinovich, with 2
percent. Compare that with French and Brit-
ish votes for ultranationalist parties in the re-
cent European Parliament elections, respec-
tively 25 percent and 27 percent.
Moreover, Ukrainians of Jewish descent
hold critical government posts, including
Volodymyr Groysman, 37, a vice prime min-
ister who is designing the critical plan to de-
volve more power to the regions. When I
asked him about Russian claims of anti-sem-
itism in the government, he gave a disgusted
look and shot back: “That’s a perfect example
of black is white and white is black.”
I heard the same complaints about Rus-
sian propaganda from Jewish activists in the
Euromaidan revolution, who noted that an-
ti-semitism in Russia is much more blatant
than in Ukraine. Jewish journalist Andrei
Mysh of Donetsk told me the only anti-semi-
tism that disturbed him was the rhetoric of
local pro-Russian separatists and the lan-
guage on Russian TV.
Of course, much of the reason why Rus-
sian claims find receptive ears lies with histo-
ry. My grandparents, who fled Ukraine when
it was ruled by the tsars, told me stories of
pogroms. Ukraine’s nationalist hero Stepan
Bandera allied with the Nazis in the struggle
to win independence from the Soviet Union.
This was after dictator Josef Stalin had delib-
erately starved millions of Ukrainian peas-
ants to death in the 1930s.
Some Ukrainian nationalists and police
took part in anti-Jewish pogroms during
World War II.
But that was then. Today’s Ukraine is a
very different place.
It’s a place where Ihor Shchupak heads a
Department of Holocaust studies at the Jew-
ish Museum and a huge Jewish community
center in Dnipropetrovsk, and lectures to
university and high school teachers all over
Ukraine.
It’s a place where preconceptions about
anti-semitism confront a reality that is oh-
so-different. On a Saturday night in the love-
ly City Park in Odessa, filled with open-air
cafes around a bandstand, a singer was belt-
ing out “Hava Nagila,” while elderly Jewish
(and non-Jewish) ladies danced to the mu-
sic. It could have been Brooklyn. When it
comes to Jewish life in Ukraine, things are
not what you expect.
TRUDY RUBIN is a columnist and
board member for the Philadelphia In-
quirer.
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Cobb, Dawn. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 110, No. 303, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 1, 2014, newspaper, June 1, 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124652/m1/12/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .