To the editor:

There are ideologues and misinformed voices on both sides of the South Lawrence Trafficway debate. However, any objective review of the “comments” posted to your Dec. 31 story about our appeal of Judge Vratil’s trafficway ruling will confirm one fact. The bigots and bullies were overwhelmingly represented in the “build it!” camp.

One anonymous blowhard called for my employers to fire me. Another, user name “DOC1,” wanted my home address and later suggested that baseball bats should be used on those of us who continue to oppose paving the wetlands! Others couldn’t wait to see protesters mashed under bulldozers.

Far too many posted blatantly racist comments that were not removed. Several posts insinuated that the only spiritual connections Native Americans have in the wetlands come after consuming alcohol there. Such narrowmindedness has no place in our local newspaper, whether online or in print. I read repeatedly, to the point of disgust, that every aspect of Native American concerns about the SLT had been fabricated because they and their supporters “hate progress.” The SLT should be renamed the Glenn Beck Beltway. It certainly epito-mizes Beck’s worldview.

Those nitwits online don’t reflect the majority here. Unfortunately, ignorance of Haskell’s history and its relationship to these wetlands is a product of how the Journal-World consistently frames the trafficway story to favor proponents. The “reporting” of how this SLT plan would really impact these wetlands has been particularly one-sided. Lawrence is not Fox News territory.