Coverage should focus on the greater tragedy

I have read with a mixture of shock and dismay the stories in the PG over the past week about the killing of Kenzie Marie Houk. Eleven-year-old Jordan Anthony Brown is charged in her shooting death ("Boy, 11, Charged in Slaying of Father's Girlfriend," Feb. 22). It is an unexplainable tragedy that an 11-year-old could take such actions.

However, I am very disturbed that the nature of your coverage has focused overwhelmingly on determining the right forum to try Jordan Brown or the means of punishment for someone of his age. What about the greater tragedy? Where is the coverage that focuses on the two young children who have been left behind without a mother to raise them?

While the case does perhaps provide an appropriate occasion to consider Pennsylvania's juvenile justice system, articles that emphasize concern for this defendant are somewhat misguided. If ever there was a case that proved the merits of treating a juvenile as an adult, this is it.

STEPHEN PEEPELS
Squirrel Hill

Society's role

A society that says it is legal to buy a child a child's model shotgun deserves to be tried for murder ("Boy, 11, Charged in Slaying of Father's Girlfriend," Feb. 22). To say that it is a constitutional right to give a weapon to a child, who is not of voting age, doesn't make sense.

Yes, guns and hunting may be family entertainment for some and good business for the gun manufacturers. A child who has grown up in a hunting family would have formed an idea of what is a live animal versus what is a dead animal. It doesn't take much imagination to change the animal that was hunted to a human being. There are many tragedies involved in this sad story.

CHARLOTTA KLEIN ROSS
Highland Park

No benefit for us

Ridgemont residents face decreasing house values if the City Vista at Parkway development is approved ("Ridgemont Condo Rezoning Delayed," Jan. 28).

There are certain circumstances that decrease property values for owners. One major factor is noise damage.

If City Vista at Parkway is approved, the project will take over our small neighborhood and leave Ridgemont residents with no benefits! Who benefits? SouthStar Development Partners. While a Florida-based developer celebrates profits, we Pittsburgh residents in Ridgemont shall see a huge decrease in our main investment, our home, our future. Our once quiet, family-oriented, safe neighborhood will be changed forever from noise damage from 418 units and tenants' automobiles making 2,174 daily weekday trips in our neighborhood (2,174 is documented from SouthStar's traffic report).

According to US Roadways Engineering Research, factors that determine the reduction in property values are caused by noise. Environmental noise caused by traffic can reduce property values tremendously! This includes impact by residential noise damage.

With 1,000 additional cars in our Ridgemont neighborhood, and additional noise from the 418 units, I will personally have myself and Ridgemont residents submit a bill to SouthStar if this development is approved to cover the cost of damages for decreased home values.

KIMBERLY BOTTICELLO
Ridgemont

Threatened lifestyle

When I revisit history, I analyze patterns that humans have made in reference to the treatment of mankind. The biggest pattern that I perceive to be recurring is how living beings' true "quality of life" is threatened by pure greed.

My correlation to this pattern is my "small-town America" neighborhood, Ridgemont, facing extinction due to, in my opinion, "greed" of a Florida-based developer. Our quaint neighborhood was aesthically chiseled in the 1940s after World War II, creating single-family houses built on the dream that we are united as neighbors.

Now, our dream is facing a nightmare, our heritage will be encroached upon, like the experiences the Indians faced from our past. We will no longer be able to "claim" our land as our investment for our families' future if SouthStar developers are allowed to build seven-story high-rises, 418 units, in our small-town America neighborhood.

Many neighbors have voiced their concerns that this invasion will violate many city of Pittsburgh zoning codes under "901.03 Purpose and Intent." These zoning codes are designed to protect neighbors' "quality of life."

If this development is allowed to proceed, then I will internalize mankind's history, the despair the Indians went through when they were told they were taking a journey to a "new future." That trail misled the innocent to a "trail of tears" that ended with a false sense of kindness that was driven by pure greed.

BETH HANIS
Ridgemont

Facts are facts

The Rev. David D. Wilson ("Church Division," Feb. 19 letters) is mistaken if he believes the Oct. 4 Pittsburgh vote to realign with the Anglican province of the Southern Cone in South America created a wholly new Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. This vote in no way makes redundant an existing diocese that remains solidly affiliated with the Episcopal Church headquartered in New York.

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is very much alive and, with prayerful, spirit-guided attention, will thrive and grow. While disagreement on theology, discipline and practice is always painful, it is hardly new. Anyone with a passing familiarity of the evolution of Protestantism since the Reformation knows this.

But facts are facts, and the Rev. Wilson is not entitled to his own facts. Denominational canons are clear that church property is held in common by the national church. That means, ladies and gentlemen, that the marbles belong to all Episcopalians. By all means, if you want to leave the playground because you don't like the rules of the game, you are free to do so. But you can't take the marbles with you.

MICHELE D. BAUM
Upper St. Clair

Financial terrorists should be brought to justice

One of the goals of the 9/11 terrorists was to destroy our financial system, and we have gone to great lengths to try to track them down, and rightly so. Yet for all the tragedy and devastation that came out of the 9/11 attacks, it was a mere blip on the radar of the financial markets.

Now let's take a look at the real terrorist -- the "financial terrorist," the company executives and Wall Street elite who feel everything is theirs for the taking and everyone else be damned. What the terrorists could not do with planes used as flying bombs these people have done through pure greed. They have brought the world's financial markets to their knees.

I say let's use the Patriot Act on them, round them up, send them to Gitmo and let them rot there for a few years. Maybe that will cause the next generation of "financial leaders" to pause and think about more than how they can manipulate their company's books for personal gain.

RON LOWREY
Carrick

Go after them

If President Obama wants to bring this country together, he should prosecute and hold accountable those who tore this country apart.

HOWARD MADENBERG
Jefferson Hills

Destructive forces

Capitalism has been destroyed by the capitalist. They wanted their profits so badly that they killed America's reputation and their own. They ruined the world's economy, with no care for anyone except themselves. They control the government by their political contributions and the promise of job growth and economic prosperity in exchange for low taxes and incentives.

To our rescue comes the politicians throwing money to those who caused the disaster, so they can fix it. We are doomed until we the people realize that until we take control of the government there will be only more disasters.

BARRY LIGHT
Squirrel Hill

Basic principles

With the economy spiraling downward at a rapid pace I have learned two valuable lessons.

The low-life self-serving group of bottom feeders that we currently have leading this country -- whom we call politicians -- are incapable of passing a stimulus bill without a huge amount of unnecessary pork attached. Then they wonder why the public has no confidence in what has happened and things get worse.

Lesson two: They currently have brain freeze and are unable to do the right thing, like represent what is best for America and the taxpaying citizens of this great country. We need to help them by throwing this group out of office immediately, even if it means impeachment. Though I am not an economist, I do understand some basic principles:

1) Throwing good money after bad money is a risky, irresponsible action.

2) Giving money to those who have showed they can fail over and over again without accountability in place is just plain stupid.

3) Spending more money than you are taking in will only lead to eventual failure. This has never worked and never will.

Also, I will thank you in advance for leaving my grandchildren with so much future government debt that their survival will be a miracle.

JOHN W. NEWHOUSE
Shaler

Restore the GOP

Some are describing the Republican Party as the party of "no." This is unfair and not quite accurate. The conservative base with spokesmen such as Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the sideshow carnival barkers have done nothing but ruin the GOP.

The main goal of the conservatives is to achieve power for the sake of just gaining power. If that's the case, why not start a national Conservative Party and run a slate of candidates? Let the hucksters with the microphones come out from behind their curtains and accept responsibility for their words. Stop ruining the Republican Party.

In most elections, you can vote for the Communist Party, the Libertarian Party, the Socialist Party and various others. Why not a Conservative Party? Maybe the answer is that conservatives are just a small number of people with the loudest voices. True Republicans would like to have their party return to their core values of family and fiscal responsibility. The conservative movement is out of step with America.

Therefore, I ask my fellow Republicans the following: Do we want to be the party of "no" or will we become the party of "no longer."

JOE BRANCATO
Whitehall