POINT:

Wow! An alternative newspaper in South Carolina. And I thought this was a wasteland of redneck NASCAR race fan, Bible-thumping hillbillies. It's good to get an open-minded progressive view of what's happening in our state.

Keep up the good work. Looking forward to reading your next issue.

Freedom of speech forever.

Tony Sarver, Charleston

Dear staff and editor:

Visiting for the last two months in Charleston, I found a copy of the POINT and found it a great read. Congratulations on your winter issue -- it is superb. I only feel this good after reading Harper's or Scientific America -- for being exposed to first-class writing with a point -- an edge -- to be made.

Bob Neumann, "Adventure," Charleston harbor

After yet another multiple-murder, this time in Atlanta, the same question returns, a question we ask every time, one that is never satisfactorily answered: how many people must die before we outlaw guns in America? Until we do, this will not stop. The manufacture of guns must stop and those in existence must be destroyed.

And let's expose the NRA for their hypocrisy. They know the Second Amendment says explicitly that we have the right to bear arms BECAUSE OF THE NEED FOR A STANDING MILITIA, something we no longer need, now that we have professional armed services. The Second Amendment is utterly irrelevant to this debate.

It's true that guns don't kill people. But people who kill would have a much harder time killing if they didn't have guns. Why is owning guns more important than preserving human life?

Scott Miller, St. Louis, MO

To the Editor:

I just found your page today and I am very impressed. I am also surprised to find a newspaper with such liberal ideas. That lets me know that not everybody in this state has their blinders on. Keep up the great work. I realize that this particular issue focuses on the environment. I'm eager to see your slant on civil rights in the U.S. and abroad.

Ashley Harris, Spartanburg

POINT:

I have lived in South Carolina for over one year, and have just learned of POINT. It is a shame that not more activities take place in the upstate. Perhaps we can change that. GOOD WORK!!

Derek Chisholm, Greenville

Editor:

After reading an online article about the Confederate flag being hung above the state capitol building, I feel more than compelled to state my feelings on this issue. My impression of the average South Carolinian is "since the nigger can't be hung by a tree, we can hang a symbol that will always remind him of our hate for him." In my opinion this is as racist as you can be.

Furthermore, the North won the Civil War and, as a Northerner, I feel as though I have the right to tear it down. I hope you people will see what a shame this is and tear it down!

Sincerely,

Ken Bountiful, Utah

To the Editor:

I am a Colombian filmmaker who just arrived from Kósovo, where I was shooting a documentary. I am a resident of Japan where I am pursuing a doctor degree in visual arts at Nihon University. I have studied the problem of Kósovo very carefully, I consider myself neutral to the conflict and have understood that the world media has been biased against the Serbs in their coverage of the Kosovo crises.

While working in Príshtina, I was witness of how Western journalists (better called just reporters) systematically ignored the point of view of the Serbs, systematically ignored the Serbian victims of the conflict and failed to explain to the world what the conflict is really about. Even though the majority of the population is now Albanian, Kósovo is the cradle of the Serbian statehood and church (its XII century ancient monasteries are there and not very long ago the Serbian Orthodox Church was in Pech and not in Belgrade).

The Serbs themselves have systematically been expelled from Kósovo since last century, during Second World War when Albania sided with fascist Italy and later with Hitler. They continued later to be expelled by the communist policies of Tito (who was a Croat) and by large immigration from neighbor Albany.

Now the Serbs are a minority in their homeland that has been overpopulated by an ethnia that doesn't want to belong to Yugoslavia, that doesn't recognize its state, that have isolated themselves out of a strange kind of patriotism (better called tribalism). All this has been ignored by the world.

The world must understand that an independent Kósovo is a geopolitical situation as impossible for Yugoslavia as it is for Israel the existence of an independent Palestinian state, as it is for Russia the existence of an independent fundamentalist Chechenia within its territory. If the world understood this, it would be obvious that such a problem could not be resolved in two-week negotiations. The two parties would negotiate without ultimatums, sooner or later a compromise would reached and war would be avoided.

The negotiations in Rambouillet failed because the Serbians were given three choices: to lose Kósovo now, to lose Kósovo within three years or to be bombed by NATO. Milóshevich was right when he rejected the presence of NATO (not United Nations) troops in his territory for if they are now attacking Yugoslavia from outside, one can imagine what they would do if 4,000 American troops were inside the country. Within three years the Albanian separatists would be better armed, and the NATO troops (that are not neutral) would restrain the Yugoslavian police from fighting a separatist terrorist army that hides among the population, a civil war would be started.

While in Yugoslavia I was also witness of how common Serbian people who were indifferent to the conflict or were anti-Milóshevich, after the NATO offensive, they became patriotic and sided with their president to fight the invaders. When I was leaving Yugoslavia through Hungary three days ago, I made an interesting observation: the aircraft of the Yugoslavian air force were stationed like cars on the highways. Neither the aircraft is in the airports, nor the soldiers in their barracks. The NATO bombs are destroying empty buildings, are killing innocent military and civilians and are humiliating a proud people that would seek revenge in the symbols of the aggressors.

A "humanitarian catastrophe" was avoided by creating a bigger one. By starting a war against sovereign Yugoslavia, the NATO countries have exposed the Albanian civilians they claim to protect, to retaliation and this time real "ethnic cleansing" for a war brings chaos, lawlessness, violence and massacres. Didn't Clinton know that? Or did he know that and nevertheless...?

One of the demonstrations that the world media is against Yugoslavia is that this letter won't be published.