Protectionists claim that free trade is bad for America - that increasing imports of goods means increasing exports of jobs, thereby gutting our economy. This notion could only be valid in a zero-sum world with a fixed number of jobs, where one country's gain would be another's loss; in fact, though, the number of jobs, both at home and abroad, is locked into a clear uptrend. New businesses and industries continually emerge in the never-ending attempt to satisfy humankind's insatiable wants. We can never run out of jobs.

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-Day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel, feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme."

- Ray Bradbury

I find it is disgusting when insecure people regurgitate the ancient fables of the Bible as a justification for their bigotry. I would like to address the Rock Island man who, in a letter to the Quad-City Times, was criticizing the print media for not mentioning "Christians" in their coverage of the court rulings regarding gay marriage in Iowa. I would remind him that our Constitution guarantees our freedom from a theocracy (in spite of the Bush administration).

I'm confused. By what authority does Davenport City Administrator Craig Malin issue a "no contact with staff" order against Third Ward Alderman Keith Meyer, or any other council member for that matter? Davenport is a strong-council/weak-mayor form of government, making city-council members Malin's bosses, not the other way around.