Be firm
Some have written to object to the firm manner in which meetings of the Upper Delaware Council are chaired. , Milford, PA, 11-17-1988
Reasonable people who have attended these sessions regularly have seen and endured a continual disregard for decency and human respect, mostly directed from the floor at local elected officials and public servants.
This unfortunate behavior seems chronically exemplified by Mr. Noel vanSwol of Long Eddy, who appears to display obscene pleasure in the insults he hurls at officials and their family members. He seems to feed on whatever hurt or anger he can generate.
With folks like this attempting to dominate its meetings, the UDC has no choice but to take a firm hand. When public conduct is consistently disorderly, and serves no legimate purpose other than to harass, anoy or intimidate, offenders should be ruled out-of-order; and, if necessary, either ejected or prosecuted.
TOM RUE
Milanville
The Pike County Dispatch
[and other area newspapers about the same time]
Plot pooh-poohed
The recent effort by the Independent Landholders Association to draw attention to the desperate need for repairs to bridges over the Upper Delaware is commendable. , Honesdale, PA, 07-27-1988
However, they are maintained by the states. To charge that the closing of the Kellsms-Stalker bridge is part of a sinister plot hatched by the National Park Service seems comparable, almost, to allegations of a Matz homicide last December.
The underlying premise expressed by ILA members on this and other occasions has been that the Department of the Interior is engaging in a secret strategy of massive land acquisition in order to forge a "National Police State" (NPS), intended eventually subsume all state and local authority; then to be turned over to the United Nations, to operate a single world government.
It is interesting that the paranoid rantings of a small group of LaRouchite delusionaries calling themselves the ILA "board of directors" gain notice locally at all. But if the ILA can get the bridges fixed, the decking on the recently renovated one at Milanville seems losse. It makes more of a racket than in the past when vehicles drive over it.
Perhaps the NPS sabotaged it to punish Damascus for not joining the Upper Delaware Council.
PennDOT, where are you?
TOM RUE
Milanville
The Wayne Independent
[and other area newspapers about the same time]
Racism is condemned
We the undersigned, have a strong desire to live in pease with all our neighbors. , Middletown, NY, 03-12-1988
We condemn racism in all its forms and particularly the recent acts of racial violence in the Hudson Valley area and New York City. We will work actively to end discrimination wherever it exists.
We welcome all people of good will to all the streets of our towns.
We cll on other churches and organizations to join us in theis campaign to remind people that we are all part of the same world and the same species -- humankind.
[ Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship]
JAY C. SHAMUS, Barryville
JAMES and ROSEMARY MURTHA, Honesdale, Pa.
GILBERT H. MENDE, Honesdale, Pa.
TOM RUE, Milanville, Pa.
DEMORAH LAZARUS, Jeffersonville
Times Herald-Record
Keep involved / Reduction of margin
Along the shores of this Delaware River lived my ancestor, Benjamin Rue, a sodier in the American War for Independence, attached to the First Pennsylvania Battalion. Later, when he was a captain in the Navy of Pennsylvania, his boat was sunk by the British on October 11, 1776 in a battle near Valcour Island, Lake Champlain. , Honesdale, PA, 05-02-1988
Others of my forbears also served their consciences, including Quakers in 17th-century Maryland who refused to fight or swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown; women and men on both sies of the American Civil War; Irish immigrants seeking a better life; and Russian Jews fleeing the Bolshevik recvolution for refuge and religious tolerance in Palestine and the United States.
I feel myself called upon to honor this heritage by refusing to bow to the tactics of threats and intimidation by a small group of local hatemongers and liars who flail blindly in the dark at the unknown. It is unfortunate that a recent vote indicates so many upright and honorable people were taken in. ("If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.")
However, in viewing the results of the river referendum, we are pleased to note the reduction of the margin of difference from 4 to 1 (748-231) on a related question two years ago to approximately 2 to 1 (440-244) on the present question. It appears reason is making progress in Damascus.
Being of rebelious stock and character, yet at the same time bound up in a love for freedom and the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part, this citizen intends to continue his personal struggle against error, deceit, hatred and imbalance for as long as life allows.
There is nothing noble or uplifting in their fight against the National Park Service (NPS) here, depsite haughty pretenses of defending property rights. The NPS is simply an arm of the government which many of our ancestors fought to establish, and which we continue to maintain. If local municipalities refuse to participate in the democratic process of conserving the Delaware, federal law requires that the down-river majority be protected -- by eminent domain if necessary.
We owe it to ourselves and our descendants to take part in the process and not forsake the traditional values we place upon honesty, cleanliness, order, and good faith dialogue.
TOM RUE
Milanville
The Wayne Independent
Sullivan County Democrat, Callicoon, NY, 05-03-1988
[and other area newspapers about the same time]
03-24-1998
