Opinion/Letters: Setting the record straight on Twin Brooks Golf Course

Although the town elections are over, I was disheartened when two town councilorsseeking reelection made factually inaccurate statements responding to a survey by the Save TwinBrooks organization. Let’s get the facts straight.

One asserted that the Twin Brooks Golf Course is “not open space.” On the contrary, the Cape Cod Commission’s Regional Policy Plan Data Viewer clearly shows Twin Brooks as open space. Some technical definitions under a particular regulation may classify land as “open space” only when it is subject to a conservation restriction or treated it as “developed” when there has been any human activity.

If that’s the case, then privately owned cemeteries, ball fields, farms and cranberry bogs are “developed” land and not “open space”. Invoking arcane regulatory gobbledygook confuses the discussion. Our townspeople know the difference between open grassy areas and forests on the one hand and empty gas stations and parking lots on the other. Let’s focus the conversation on preserving the former.

Another candidate claimed, “The new state Housing Choice law requires that housing proposals only require a majority vote. Any older local vote thresholds are now out of compliance with state law.” State law lowered the vote required to change zoning ordinances, but when Levesque proposed dropping the vote to adopt agreements with developers that waive zoning on specific properties, the Assistant Town Attorney told the town council that this reduction was not mandated under the new law. Keeping the vote to approve agreements with one-off waivers at two-thirds of the council fully complies.

Karen (Kim) McGuire, Hyannis, president of Save Twin Brooks

Lesson of Cain and Abel lost in the war between Israel and Hamas

Israel wants to obliterate Hamas, and Hamas wants to kill every Jew. History has a way of repeating itself, again and again, ad nauseam. Remember Cain and Abel?

In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, but God favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod ('wandering'), where he built a city and fathered a line of descendants beginning with Enoch.

In the Qur'an, Abel and Cain are known as Hābīl and Qābīl respectively. The events of the story in the Qur'an are virtually the same as the Hebrew Bible narrative: Both the brothers were asked to offer up individual sacrifices to God; God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's; out of jealousy, Cain slew Abel — the first ever case of murder committed upon the Earth. In Islam, the story of Cain and Abel serves as an admonition against murder promoting the sanctity of human life.

Too bad that the sanctity of human life isn’t being followed right now.

Lee Bartell, Eastham, MA

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod Times Letters: Twin Brooks Golf Course classified open space