VICTIM OF AN ANONYMOUS, HATE-FILLED MESSAGE

Dear Editor,

My wife was recently the victim of a "hate crime". She was returning to
our carryall-style auto from a shopping errand when she found a leaflet on
the windshield containing a horrible anti-Arab smear. The message was a
sarcastic "thank you" for supporting "Arab terrorist/oil exporters" and
featured an editorial cartoon photocopied out of the SJ-R.

We feel lucky that the leaflet wasn't a bumper sticker instead. We're
aware that there is a campaign that encourages actual property crimes
against SUV owners in the form of permanently attached bumper stickers
that has received some favorable publicity in the media. The campaign's
Web site specifically exempts smaller SUVs or carryalls like ours that even
they deem reasonably fuel efficient.

Instead of arbitrarily leafleting autos with anonymous, hate-filled
messages printed on bleached and unrecycled paper, a truly concerned
environmentalist would do much better to promote a renewable and
ecologically friendly fuel source like industrial hemp in a signed letter
to the editor like this one.

Larry A. Stevens, Springfield