"There is nothing rare or holy about growing corn."

"Actually, they are superstitious and bitter people, whose hatred of technology and sense of arrogant moral superiority causes them to believe their minority view is more important than the best interests and public opinion of this entire region."

"Must a living civilization take a back seat to a dead one? "

"The folks whose religious views we are supposed to accept as superior to our own believed that the world rested on the back of a turtle."

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Letter to WHAM Program Director

Program Director
WHAM Radio
207 Midtown Plaza
Rochester, New York
14604

Dear Sir or Madam:

I would like to comment upon your employee "Bob" Lonsberry's broadcast of 2/21/97. Though I would most certainly like to call Mr. Lonsberry an uneducated, ignorant arrogant, racist son-of-a-bitch, I will hold my tongue and simply comment upon two points of his broadcast.

Mr. Lonsberry stated that Native Americans believe that, "the world rests upon the back of a turtle" and went on to comment upon cultural superiority/inferiority based upon his perception of their beliefs. Mr. Lonsberry professes a belief that teaches that the surface of the earth "flip flops" every few thousand years so what was once up is now down, hiding the vestiges of the great civilizations of the patsy which his religion teaches once existed, it is a faith based upon a book which a court case of the recent past proved had passages from an earlier work copyrighted in England incorporated into it. Perhaps Angel Maroni caught up on his reading while hunting the Scottish moors? Do Bob Lonsberry's religious beliefs make HIM culturally inferior?

The Iroquois turtle myth is just that, nothing more than a childrens bedtime story, however it is an allegory to a greater scientific truth. . . a truth that AKZ0 recently discovered. . . that the earth heaves and moves under a thin surface.... like a turtle in its shell...

Mr. Lonsberry also commented that, "there are no burials at the proposed mine site".

I served for fifteen of the twenty years the Native American Cultural Center has been in existence on its Board of Directors, I am a former President of that organization. I have also served as a Fire Keeper for the Iroquois Confederacy , as well as in public offices of trust here in the local community. Those offices include Deputy Sheriff, Municipal Police Officer, Zoning Chairman, State Field Archaeology Crew Chief, and State Cub Scout Commissioner. I am offended by Mr. Lonsberry' s recent openly racist broadcast.

I am a trained archaeologist, having directed archaeological surveys for 23 major public works projects in New York and Pennsylvania. I was a crew chief on the state archaeology crew which surveyed the proposed mine site for the Rt. 390 Expressway, which goes OVER the site. As an undergraduate I was the assistant to SUNY Genesee's Anthropology Department Chairman Wentell Rhodes for three years. I taught the summer archaeological field schools held at the Macauley Complex, ne' Hampton's Corners proposed mine site. I have enclosed documentation regarding the existence of graves at the site, including a segment of an official state report.

The Hampton's Corners area is internationally recognized as an important archaeological resource. Burials from Hopewellian mounds to Late Woodland [Iroquois] burials exist there. There is significant evidence that even earlier use exists, spanning sixty centuries. The site is located at a major intersection of two water highways, Native Americans of many different nations throughout North America come there to conduct trade, rituals and to give final rest to their ancestors. In a practice known as "secondary inhumation or secondary burial" the bones of the dead were gathered and brought to a central sacred location for final burial. Clearly the site was considered sacred. The well known English site of Stonehenge was used for the same exact purpose. The site is as important to Native Americans as Stonehenge is to Anglo culture.

Mr. Lonsberry stated that we should not be slaves to the past. There is a Jewish saying that a society which does not learn from the past...and past mistakes... is doomed to make those same mistakes over and over again. The Nazis were not slaves to the past. Neither were the Red Brigades.

A society which does not honor and respect its dead can not honor and respect its living. The Hampton's Corners site is an important cultural property for all Americans, that is why it should be a park, not a mine. The full importance of the site is not yet known, but it must have been very great. Imagine yourself paddling your canoe six or seven hundred miles, with your only company your grandmother's bones.

Mr. Lonsberry's recent broadcasts do nothing to educate or entertain. They are clearly racist while at the same time using Orwellian "double speak" to claim those he is attacking are racist. He blames the wife of a miner with a four generation tradition of mining as the reason for their unemployment. AKZO's demise was due to a 90% salt extraction rate which AKZO, a foreign corporation used in preference to the traditional 50% rate. He holds Melissa Jacobs up to ridicule and stated that she is the "only thing" between them and a job. He practically calls for vigilante action against her and her family. She does not have Mr. Lonsberry's expensive AK-47 under her bed to protect her. She is a harmless farmer and mother.

Should harm come to Mrs. Jacobs or her family, your company could be held liable for damages by a court for allowing Mr. Lonsberry to conduct his broadcasts without regard to the facts. There is no new mine because the promoters have no money for a new mine. They want to use your tax dollars. My great uncle is a FCC attorney and consultant to the US. Congress, [you can look up the last name in Who's Who for his name] and I am sending a copy of this letter to him for his records.

The bottom line is this:

Should a new mine be commenced at Hampton' s Corners, there will be a land claim initiated by the Seneca and Tuscarora Nations affecting most of Livingston County and part of Wyoming County, to protect the Hampton' s Corners site. The "Big Tree Treaty" delineated areas for Native American use, It also stated that the Chiefs could also add other areas as needed for Native American use.

The salt deposit beneath us is great and vast. It stretches from New York to Michigan. While salt is easily exploitable, the economic truth of salt is that it is cheap. It is everywhere, it is under you , it is in the sea, in your veins . Toxic waste dumping; sites are not so common, but much more profitable. Is it truly a mine being requested or simply a way to create space to be "back filled" with waste?

The use of the Hampton's Corners site for industrial use is nothing more than cultural terrorism. A move of several hundred yards would take the mine site away from the burial site and be welcome by all, It would protect the site and save jobs. I support salt mining and the railroad, however I firmly believe that the Macauley site is not the proper place for a mine, Nor do I believe that you should allow Mr. Lonsberry to spread his racist doctrine and false "truths" through your publicly granted airspace. It is ironic that Mr. Lonsberry, who admonishes those who do not agree with him to "shut up and mind their own business" should also use the same air time to practically beg for money to cover his own self inflicted financial problems. I surmise that if one is not a slave to the past they can simply forget about their non-assumable VA mortgage.

Very truly yours,

Charles J. Cottone