Letters to Scribbyworld
Down with DA Capeless
07/07/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
While searching the Internet on information about DA David Capeless, I found your site. It's nice to know there are other intelligent people out there who feel Mr. Capeless is a tyrant, ruining Berkshire County.
Mr. Capeless is fighting another losing battle, that of putting Mr. Bernard Baran back in prison. Mr. Baran posted bail and was released from prison last week, pending a new trial. It disgusts me that Mr. Capeless is going to attempt to prosecute this man again for a crime he did not commit — for a crime that NEVER even took place some 20 plus years ago. Mr. Baran deserves his freedom and exoneration. Any person who reads the transcripts of his 1984 trial will see that he was put away without any evidence whatsoever and by sheer homophobia.
baranorg is a great place to begin.
Thank you for shedding some light on the heartless, blood-sucking scum Mr. Capeless truly is. He wouldn't know justice if it bit him on the nose.
Regards,
Kathleen Lubeck
First offense deserves second chance
07/07/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
Kyle Sawin had a second chance. Unfortunately for him, his family and the community, he threw it away. Kyle must take responsibility for his actions.
But that does NOT mean that Kyle should have gone to jail for his first offense. No one should spend two years in jail for a first offense of selling a few grams of marijuana. Not Kyle and not anyone else. It was too harsh then and it's too harsh now.
Kyle's second arrest does not prove David Capeless was right to press
School Zone charges that send first offenders to jail. Just because Kyle threw away his own second chance does not mean it should be denied to everyone else.
In our society, all kinds of first offenders get a second chance.
Even drunk drivers — who put people's lives in danger — get a chance to redeem themselves the first time they are arrested. We don't lock them up for two years.
Concerned Citizens for Appropriate Justice has always advocated appropriate punishment — not zero punishment. Those teenagers with no criminal records accused of small scale marijuana sales should be held responsible. Appropriate punishment for a first offense means treatment, counseling and community service — not giving up on them the first time they do something wrong and throwing them in jail. Give them a second chance that is theirs to use wisely. We must all work together to guide them down the right path.
Peter Greer
Great Barrington, Mass.
The writer is a founding member of the Concerned Citizens for Appropriate Justice.
How to stop the Capeless crusade
from damaging more youthful victims
04/26/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
My name is Jack Cole. I am the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). I am also a retired detective lieutenant — 26 years with the New Jersey State Police and 14 in their Narcotics Bureau, mostly undercover. I bear witness to the abject failure of the U.S. war on drugs and to the horrors these prohibitionist policies have produced.
I want to thank you for the article about Mitchell Lawrence. It is one of the best explanations of how the excesses used by officials conducting the war on drugs ruin lives of generations of our children.
Before the trial took place I had sent an opinion piece and several letters to the editor to the Berkshire paper, calling for some justice in the case but DA Capeless refused to relent.
I thought you might like to hear about LEAP and our goals. I am attaching my bio and the text of the talk I have given over 400 times around the world in the last two and a half years. I would also recommend that you view the 12-minute LEAP promo at
http://www.leap.cc
. After looking them over please feel free to contact me at any of the below locations with questions or comments. If you think we are on the right track you can join us in this struggle.
Let me tell you a little more about the progress we have made. LEAP is an international nonprofit educational organization created to give voice to all the current and former members of law enforcement who believe the US war on drugs has failed and who wish to support alternative policies that will lower the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction, by ultimately ending drug prohibition.
In three years LEAP increased from the five founding police officers to a membership of over 4,500, across the United States and in 54 other countries, which is fitting since U.S. drug policy has ramifications that affect the entire world. All LEAP speakers are former drug-warriors—police, parole, probation and corrections officers, judges, and prosecutors. We even have state prison wardens, FBI and DEA agents that help make up our bureau of more than a hundred speakers, living in 38 of the United States and in 8 other countries.
The question exists: how do drug-policy reform groups get voters together to listen to a presentation? We took that question and reversed it. Voters already meet everyday. They meet in civic and community organizations. They attend PTA and school board meetings. They join in discussions based on their political alliances. So, instead of getting them to come to us, we went to the voters. This idea is a proven and effective way to sway public opinion.
LEAP presents to civic, professional, educational, and religious organizations, as well as at public forums but we target civic groups: Chambers of Commerce, Rotaries, Lions and Kiwanis clubs, etc. The people in these organizations are conservative folks who mostly agree with the drug-warriors that we must continue the war on drugs at any cost. They are also very solid members of their communities; people who belong to civic organizations because they want the best for their locales. Every one of them will be voting in every election. Many are policy-makers and if they are not, they are the people who can pull the coattails of policy-makers and say, “We have someone you must hear talk about drug policy.” We believe the vast majority of these audience members agrees with the goals of LEAP by the end of our presentation.
Even more amazing is that we are now attending national and international law-enforcement conventions where we keep track of all those we speak with at our educational exhibit booth. After we talk with them on a one-on-one basis, we find that only 6 percent want to continue the war on drugs, 14 percent are undecided, and an astounding 80 percent agree with LEAP that we must end drug prohibition. The most interesting thing about those who agreed with us is that before LEAP came along only a small number of that 80 percent realized anyone else in law enforcement felt the same. Officers are so frightened of being labeled “soft on drugs” that are afraid to tell each other their real feelings about the war on drugs.
This also holds true for policymakers. In August 2005 five LEAP speakers staffed an educational booth at the National Conference for State Legislators in Seattle, Washington. We spoke with 450 of the 5,000 attendees on a one-on-one basis and 86 percent of them agreed that we should legalize drugs — only 4 percent wanted to continue the war and the other 10 percent were undecided. This means if we can show these legislators that they won’t loose one more vote than they will gain be backing drug policy reform, they will end drug prohibition. They way to do that is to show them LEAP has a huge membership. By 2008 we want to be able to say we have 10,000 members of law enforcement calling for an end to drug prohibition and a MILLION private citizens who agree this is the correct policy.
Please join us and ask your associates to join also. It costs nothing unless you wish to make a donation and each member and each supporter we can count adds to our ability to obtain funding. To join us go to
http://www.leap.cc/members/index.htm and fill out the application.
We are looking forward to working with you to end the agonies created by the war on drugs and to renew and deepen respect for the honorable profession of policing that has been severely weakened by the role police have been required to play in enforcing drug prohibition laws. Together we can make a better and safer society by serving it in a more efficient and ethical manner.
Jack Cole
Medford, Massachusetts
04/26/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
I went into your web site and picked up the Capeless story immediately. Thanks.
Thinking about the injustice of putting some of these kids behind bars for two years is frustrating and rough to understand. As you pointed out, there are about eight of those young men who just do not deserve two years of prison in one county, when most of the DA's in Massachusetts and around the country would treat such first offenders with a misdemeanor.
It is definitely a story that can have national interest. The exposure of Mr. Capeless's tactics could build a political base for the future. He cannot see the reasoning of more sensitive people using common sense as the basis of their judgment. Something is very wrong in all of this.
Your analysis makes sense, is good reading, and allows people to clearly see the injustice and waste from this tragedy.
Sig Front
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
04/26/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
Thanks for writing about DA Capeless' cruel jihad against harmless kids. I live in the general region (north of Albany), and am interested in drug law reform, so I have been following the story.
The biggest disappointment in all of this is the failure of a lot more good citizens and opinion leaders in Great Barrington and the region to speak out against this flagrant abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
Since you live in the area and read the Berkshire Eagle (as I do via
http://www.mapinc.org
where drug stories are involved), you were probably as
flabbergasted as I to see flaming-bleeding-heart-Bush-hating-liberal and big mouth pundit Alan Chartok write an OPED in The Berkshire Eagle PRAISING Capeless and saying these kids got what was coming to them, broke the law, blah blah blah.
I e-mailed Chartok at his WAMC e-mail and he got really hot under the collar about it and insisted we talk on the telephone, etc., whereupon he spewed a lot of stuff about how these kids hanging around in the movie theatre parking lot scared his wife when they went to the movies, used obscenities ... la de da. I got absolutely nowhere with his idea that if kids went to prison for two years for loitering or whatever it was not totally disproportional and a violation of civil rights (entrapment).
Liberals. Feh. I stopped contributing to WAMC, that's for sure.
Regards,
Jack Lebowitz
04/26/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
Yes, Capeless is a jackass — everybody KNOWS the way to stop kids from smoking pot is to smoke it yourself, and then your kids will consider is soooooo uncool, they wouldn't consider it. Works for me.
Diane Gordon
Lenox, Massachusetts
GE's deadly toxic legacy
02/20/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
Re: your American Dream Turned Toxic. I trust your finale was rhetorical: "Who's going to go to bat for the children at Allendale School? And who will have the chutzpah to challenge local, state and federal officialdom which prefers to bury objections to the landfills?"
I happened to have penned the Housatonic River Initiative's 1999 legal challenge to the EPA/GE Consent Decree, and we steadfastly argued against the Hill 78 and Building 71 landfills. HRI has spent 14 years challenging the EPA, the DEP and DPH and we have successfully forced GE to spend more than $430 million on the Pittsfield/Housatonic River clean-up. Every step of the way we were opposed by the Berkshire Eagle and the local powers-that-be.
Glad to have you aboard.
Sincerely,
Mickey Friedman
HRI
Great Barrington, Mass.
HRI
02/20/06
Dear Scribby,
Today, in a letter to The Berkshire Eagle, we responded to the EPA op-ed piece stating their position that they are always right. Hill 78/71 is the worst thing that could ever happen next to a school. What were they thinking?
Money rules even if the children are in the way.
In representing the contaminated neighbors for many years I have
spent many nights coming back to Lee on the edge of tears as to how many families I have met with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, bladder cancer, brain cancer, developmental disorders, immune disorders, reproductive problems, and list can go on and on. It is very sad to this day that HRI has not been able to get the health authorities to act on this "anecdotal" information.
As the GE workers said in some of the interviews Mickey Friedman and I did of GE workers: "They're just waiting for us to die."
That is why many communities are fighting back with lawsuits. It's the only chance for them to find justice.
Tim Gray
Executive Director, HRI
Lee, Mass.
02/20/06
Yo Scribmeister,
Yes, Hill 78 aka :"Mount Doyle" is an abomination. Do ya'll still think Tim Gray at the Housatonic River Initiative is an "ecoterrorist?" I did some of my nursing student clinicals at Allendale school and stared with amazement at the piles of toxic waste. I wonder what part of endocrine dysfunction don't certain people understand?
Diane Gordon
Lenox, Mass.
Death at The Eagle
02/20/06
Dear SW:
My frustration lately has been with The Berkshire Eagle's obit page (B2), a glossy, completely inappropriate redesign. A column on the left about 6 inches inches wide by 12 inches long with a huge Page 2 under which is a boxed trite photo of a winter scene with a quote superimposed over it from someone named Honest Henry who is recommended for being "72 years old and living up here for 17 years." (Is that a pitch for the older reader retired up here from a large city?). Then there are bits of fun stuff to do in the Berkshires. The obituaries initially had no charming descriptive words for the deceased - just their age. Now there is a very terse two word description. I actually tore that page out and send it (cost 39 cents) to the editor Tim Farkas. Latest I sent had the Honest Henry quote "Sexual preference? More!" and my yellow post-it which said. "Would you like this tasteless quote next to your parent's obituary?" I know it's a waste of 39 cents.
Nancy Nirenberg
Stockbridge, Mass.
GE commemorative wall of workers' names
02/10/06
Dear Scribbyworld:
That was an excellent idea in your last Bibblings column to have a commemorative wall at the old GE plant in Pittsfield, before they tear it all down, listing the names of all the GE workers.
But not only the names. Pictures too. Not only of the people but of the products and processes. It would make a very cool mural on Building 100.
David Pill
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Who was that body?
02/10/06
Dear Sworld:
Regarding the Phantasmagoria column, I got a real gander of the eggplant when you read that story at Belissimo Dolce, the coffeehouse across from Starving Artists Detective Agency. That thing had a mind of its own. It toppled off its perch and lolled around on the floor as if it were going to go for a little roll.
Now, as for that body in the car, the puzzling scene witnessed and sketched by the painter Annie Laurie in Mystery Corner, all I can say is don't underestimate the people around here. I've seen a lot of passengers going around and you'd swear they were dead. Drivers, too, actually.
But in this case, there is no doubt from the guy's look that this woman was dead, alright. He was probably driving down East Street to dump the body. Drag Silver Lake over by the old GE site. Ten to one he pulled in behind Kentucky Friend Chicken and unloaded the cargo.
Darlene White
Detective In Training
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
02/10/06
Hey, Scribby:
Annie here. What an accurate accounting of that very unusual evening where I told you about the body in the car. So the mystery continues. Let's find the dead woman. Perhaps she is parked in a garage until spring? Take care.
Annie Laurie
Art on North Street
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
New Web format and content
02/10/06
Hey, Scribby:
I like it - pithy, insightful, sardonic humor and real stuff. Mazel Tov! Best to your bride.
Here's my contribution to Mystery Corner. How did I ever get to be so lucky? That's still a mystery to me.
Paul Graubard
Lenox, Massachusetts
Proletariat anthem
02/10/06
Editor's note: The following letter was forwarded to Scribbyworld by Jacuzzi (visit her site at http://www.bimbopolitics.com
), who had received it from my college roommate, David Pearle.
Dear Scribbyworld:
Great to see Scribbyworld up and running again, enjoyed his latest. I guess I qualify as the Berkshire swells he refers to. Don't remember him being such a staunch member of the proletariat at Amherst. Course also don't remember him being Jewish, having a movie star-looking wife, and a growing family.
We can't make it up for Rabbi Scribner's Hadassah talk, but hate to miss it. If there are any written notes, transcripts, etc., please forward. If revolutionary cells are forming, count me in - I'll bring the wine and cheese.
David Pearle
Washington, D.C.
Lenox, Massachusetts
David: The text of the Hadassah talk, “The Inside Scoop on Berkshire Journalism,” is posted on the Media Watch section of Scribbyworld. Look forward to having dinner with you next time you're in the Berkshires. And let's try Spice. For the wine and cheese, on me. Scribby<
