Touching Death
I'll bet you get some flak for running the story about the ashes of a local woman's remains ending up in pottery glaze. No matter. It was a beautiful and well-written story. I applaud anything that urges people to take another look at attitudes toward death, and the American death industry.
Having a 93-year-old friend come to stay, and die, at our home was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. Sitting with his body for hours after he passed, instead of having it whisked away, is something I'll never regret. And it was worth it to go through the (excessive) red tape in order to be able to drive his corpse up to the crematorium in Brattleboro ourselves. The five of us who took that ride together, by touching death intimately, felt very alive.
Bravo to Gabor Lukacs, David Henion, Eric Goldscheider, and to the Advocate, for your courage.
Eveline MacDougall
Greenfield
"Shall Impeach"
The Constitution requires Congress, upon belief of treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors committed by high ranking government officials, to initiate an investigation in the House Judiciary Committee. In the event substantial evidence is found of such crime(s), the Judiciary Committee drafts one or more Articles of Impeachment, naming the official to be charged. These Articles of Impeachment require a simple majority of the House of Representatives and the official is impeached.
The impeachment, or official charges, then go to a trial where the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presides, and 100 U.S. Senators sit as a jury required to return a 2/3 majority verdict. Only upon a conviction at the end of the Senate trial is the official removed from office. It is not appropriate, nor is it rational to base failure to commence this organic process based upon a conjecture of outcome. Grand juries do not fail to convene on this basis, nor should our Congress.
Due to the actions of our executive branch, constitutional checks and balances have been so seriously curtailed that in order to save our liberty, security, and republic, we must launch impeachment investigations at once. It is not that our congressmen know the outcome of such investigations; it is that no one can predict the outcome of such investigations, and any charges that might follow. What is known, in part, is the extent of the damage to human life, the danger to our environment, to our democratic republic, to our rights and liberties, to our world image, and to the value of the U.S. dollar that have occurred as a direct result of executive department manipulations of truth and justice. The Constitution states that to save our republic in such times, we "shall impeach." This is not the language of conjecture, it is written in the imperative! Command our public servant, U.S. Rep. John Olver at (413) 532-5335.
Robert A. Feuer, Speaker, Massachusetts Chapter
North-East Coalition for Impeachment
Stockbridge
