THE LACONIA DAILY SUN, Friday, January 21, 2011 — Page 7
LETTERS Thanks to every person who joined Laconia’s MLK Day celebration To the editor, One of Dr. Martin Luther King’s quotes is, “The time is always right to do what is right.” The community chose the right time to do the right thing – to commemorate Dr. King by gathering to celebrate togetherness at the Laconia Middle School on Sunday, January 16. It was the 6th annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sponsored by the Laconia Human Relations Committee (LHRC) and the Laconia Refugee Connections Committee (LRCC). Among other things LHRC works to educate the public about the presence and dehumanizing impact of any prejudicial attitudes that are currently at work within the community. It also works on promoting policies and practices which encourage and demand equal opportunity and responsibility for all people. The middle school cafeteria was crowded with refugees, their friends, neighbors, volunteers and people just willing to learn more about their new neighbors. There were people born in this country and newcomers; white people and people of color; people from Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. Diverse people have much more in common than they have differences. The common characteristic of all of attendants that stood out was Dr. King’s phrase, “I have a dream…” Getting together was an opportunity to learn about one another, to build bridges between cultures, to live up to Dr. King’s words, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love
can do that.” The event started with screening of the documentary “Uprooted: Heartache and Hope in New Hampshire” featuring five refugees, of whom three are local. The documentary, sponsored by the New Hampshire Humanities Council, aims to understand how the experiences of New Hampshire’s most recent newcomers connect with those of past immigrants. Youths from the Boys and Girls Club of the Lakes Region did a wonderful job citing quotes from Dr. King. After that part of entertainment, the attendants were invited to enjoy food typical to the cultures of this country as well as the cultures of Bhutanese, Nepalese, Bosnian, Russian, Burundi, and etc. While digging into the food on their plates, people enjoyed watching and listening to the NH Burundi Drum and Dance Group. Two Bhutanese girls performed their native dance. The newcomers appreciate the support of the entire community: individuals, the police department and agencies. They are thankful to the volunteers who help them to accommodate to new life conditions. Our thanks go to every single person who joined us in celebration. We send a big thank you to the middle school for letting us use its rooms. We would like to thank the NH Food Bank for their donation of beverages and St. Francis and Rehabilitation Center for helping with transportation. We also would like to thank our local press for covering the event. Umija Gusinac Laconia Human Relations Committee
PHILA from page 2 induced in very late-term pregnancies with unsanitary equipment, the viable babies born alive and killed with scissors to the spine, and their body parts left in jars — or clogging plumbing into which unattended women had given birth. Nearly a decade ago, according to legal documents, a former Gosnell employee gave the state’s Board of Medicine a complaint that “laid out the whole scope of his operation: the unclean, unsterile conditions; the unlicensed workers; the unsupervised sedation; the underage abortion patients; even the over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street.” Nothing was done. In its report, the grand jury said failures of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and other agencies — including the Department of State, under which the Board of Medicine falls — allowed the clinic to operate nearly unimpeded since the late ‘70s. It hadn’t been inspected since 1993 and wasn’t closed until it was finally raided as part of a drug bust early last year. “We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities and because the subject was the political football of abortion,” the grand jury wrote. A spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who was inaugurated this week, said Thursday that Corbett held a morning meeting about the matter with his new nominees for sec-
“He called it horrific, and certainly public safety is one of his major concerns,” said administration spokeswoman Janet Kelley. Officials are reviewing the grand jury report and working on a response, she said. “It’s essentially looking at information gathering and certainly changing things for the better,” she said. The Health Department has not commented despite repeated requests from The Associated Press. Lawyer William J. Brennan, who represented Gosnell during the investigation, has declined to comment. Former Health Department official Janice Staloski personally inspected the clinic in 1992, but “let Gosnell slide on the violations that were already evident then,” the grand jury said. A decade later, when she headed the division that was supposed to regulate abortion providers, Staloski failed to order an investigation of the clinic despite having received several complaints about Gosnell, the report said. Staloski, who retired last year, declined to comment Thursday. Her lawyer, Arthur Donato, said Staloski acknowledged to the grand jury that she made mistakes. “I think the grand jury report speaks to an institutional and systemic problem, and I think a lot of people were responsible for the fact that these clinics were not surveyed annually,” he said. “She did receive some complaints (about Gosnell) and she did not cause a survey or an inspection to occur, and I think she testified truth-
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