Back Talk 

Currituck's priorities
I see in the Virginian-Pilot that Currituck County officials have been successful in securing a $630,000 federal grant to assist Blackwater USA. "We have been working with Blackwater for some time on this," says Wayne Leary, economic development director for Currituck County. Blackwater USA is the paramilitary training company started with the personal fortune of Erik Prince from Holland, Mich. The company's success is secured by millions of dollars worth of federal contracts from this administration. Currituck County recently changed its zoning to accommodate Blackwater. Isn't it ironic that the same county officials can seem to provide only conflict, expense and zoning problems to the local volunteers of the nonprofit organization that saved their county's lighthouse so patiently over the last 20 years? ("More heat than light at Currituck lighthouse," May 19) When the nonprofit opened the lighthouse to the public for the first time in its history, didn't that count as an economic engine too? What does this say about the values of Currituck officials--and indeed the values of those running the country these days?
Debbie L. Hill
Hillsborough

Statements too similar
The following is a direct quote from Godfrey Cheshire's article ("Moore to the Point") in the June 23, 2004, issue of the Independent Weekly: "Two words are blazingly missing from Moore's analysis: ideology and Israel. It's impossible, of course, to understand the war on Iraq without examining the plans for it that were drawn up during the 1990s by a small group of mostly Likud-connected U.S. ideologues, now identified as neoconservatives, whose motives included assisting Israel's territorial ambitions and continued subjugation of the Palestinians."

And here is a direct quote by Malaysia's prime minister in October 2003 (find it yourself at this site: www.cnn.com/2003/ US/10/16/wbr.Islamic.summit/index.html): "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of twelve million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."

These comments sound rather similar to me. I suspect I could also find similar statements in publications by the Ku Klux Klan. I believe Mr. Cheshire is one of your regular contributors. Is this your paper's official position, then?
Byron Rubery
Chapel Hill

Correction
In our endorsement of Bill Fletcher for the Republican nomination for Superintendent of Public Instruction ("Independent Endorsements 2004," July 14) we incorrectly said Fletcher was a former Wake County school superintendent. He is a member of the Wake County school board, and a former chairman.

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