Letters to the Editor
Neil Fazel
Published Letters: 18
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Go visit Tehran
[Read the article: Destination: Turkey]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Michelle Goldberg asserts that Istanbul "is a rare Muslim city that retains a Jewish community". Apparently she hasn't visited Tehran.
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David Frum, the Canadian neoconservative
[Read the article: Neoconservatism -- RIP]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]David Frum, who is said to have coined the term "Axis of Evil", is the son of Barbara Frum, the great Canadian journalist. In his case, though, the acorn has certainly fallen far from the tree. Whereas his mother was an icon of journalistic intelligence and integrity in Canada, David has turned out to be arrogant and mean. I never forget his calling Gore Vidal "senile" on Real Time with Bill Maher. The shamelessness of it...
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Paglia for President!
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Paglia makes Salon Premium worth the price. Reading her is like reading Gore Vidal: it has an anti-depressant effect, because at her best, she puts things in context.
Thank you Salon.
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liberal hostility
[Read the article: Real inconvenient truths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The amount of vitriol directed towards Paglia is staggering; now I know why middle America dislikes liberals; beneath the thin veil of liberal niceness one discovers a deep reservoir of hostility. You guys need therapy!
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Diagnosis: Narcissistic Personaliy Disorder (NPD)
[Read the article: Condi Rice never looks back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anonymous Foreign Service Officier said:
"You meet a lot of people in Washington that see and treat others primarily as tools to be manipulated for personal advantage. Secretary Rice truly seems to be an extreme example of this; she is cold as ice."
Unfortunately there is no cure for NPD.
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Delta and AA terminals at JFK
[Read the article: Ask the Pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Delta's terminal at JFK is positively claustrophobic; its entrance area traps exhaust fumes, has bad lighting at night, and is just poorly designed.
AA at JFK is unfriendly inside the terminal. The worst part of it is the distance you have to walk to get to the gate (first going down the escalator, walking a long distance, then going up another escalator); it's airport terminal design at its worst. I also found the security guards at JFK's AA terminal sadistic. (If you're in a hurry just because you're missing your flight, it's more likely they'll stop you.) They don't seem to be so much diligent as intent on ruining you travel experience. This is one terminal to avoid.
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The Sopranos as indictment of family values
[Read the article: "The Sopranos" goes dark]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So much for family values. We all saw how Tony's family, especially his wife, acted as enablers. Maybe that was the secret to his survival: to the end, his family enabled him in his criminal enterprise. None of the other crooks in the story had as close a family as Tony. They mostly got whacked.
The ending was realistic: we all know how strong families survive. And probably the most immoral person of all was Carmela, the chief enabler who kept it all together.
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NPR no better that the NY Times
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've noticed that NPR now regularly interviews people who identify themselves as Iranian torture victims. It seems that all of a sudden there are all these people living in the US or Canada or Europe who once were tortured in Iran.
I don't think any country in that part of the world has a pristine human rights record, but I have yet to hear interviews with victims of torture from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, Georgia, etc. Iran seems to have become an NPR favorite when it comes to human rights violations.
On top of that, putting the spotlight on Iran at such a time when people like senator Lieberman are advocating war with Iran just feels like propaganda to me. I mean, the Shah's torture record was just as bad, but the NPR never showed interest in Iran at that time. (Maybe if it had, there wouldn't have been a revolution in the first place.)
So much for the liberal media.
Neil
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Lies, damn lies
[Read the article: Joe Lieberman, from his indie perch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where is the evidence that Iran and the Taliban are cooperating? Why is Sen. Lieberman equating the danger to us from the Taliban or Al-Qaida with that from the Ayatollahs?
Does Sen. Lieberman care about America's interests in the Middle East? If so, why is he so worried by Iran and not as much by Pakistan? Iran supported us in Afghanistan and is supporting the US-backed government in Iraq. Pakistan is a country with the bomb where the Taliban have found shelter.
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Feinstein the anti-Iranian
[Read the article: Dianne Feinstein, symbol of the worthless Beltway Democrat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just ask long-suffering Iranian-Americans, who have long been on the receiving end of Feinstein's venom. After 9/11, she was trying to pass legislation barring Iranian students from visiting the US. Iranians already have a hard time getting visas. She wanted to stop even academic exchanges. Shame on her.
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Living in America
[Read the article: Mission accomplished -- for Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As an Iranian I think life in America is becoming like living in The Matrix. Maybe that's why the movie was so popular.
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Blame it on the rainbow flag
[Read the article: How did the T get in LGBT?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What you're saying about conservatives spending years to get their agenda implemented, little by little, is so on the mark.
BTW, once we chose the rainbow as our symbol, then we obligated ourselves to accept anyone who wanted in. Personally I think the rainbow symbol has outlived it's usefulness. We need a new symbol.
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Dianne Feinstein as President? You gotta be kidding
[Read the article: Queen Hillary's disruptive court]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Feinstein is one of the biggest enablers of the bellicose anti-Iran agenda in Washington. Does Paglia really want a leader whose first act as President would be to start a war with Iran?
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neoconservatives are sissies
[Read the article: The Tom Friedman of 2002 has not gone anywhere]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]War is the mechanism by which weak men sublimate their inadequacies. Warmongering is what makes them feel masculine. That's how they manage to get it up.
The tragedy is that real men have to die in wars just so these brainiac sissies can feel virile.
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maybe she's afraid of what he might do
[Read the article: I let a homeless man move in with me and now I can't get rid of him]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think there's a combination of fear and identification with the abuser going on. This person might even be suffering from PTSD.
I say this from personal experience. My ex once called the police and told them I was killing her, and had me arrested. (In LA, after OJ Simpson, the police usually arrest in response to such calls.) It took me 3 years to have the case dismissed. She later confessed to me that she did that because I threatened to leave her. After that I was even afraid to file for divorce; I really didn't know what she would do.
I did finally divorce her. But long after our divorce she kept blackmailing me by threatening to get me into trouble (like she did when she called the police).
This woman could have fears unknown to us. Let's show some sympathy.