Letters to the Editor
GeeJay
Published Letters: 117 Editor's Choice: 19
-
Business as usual
[Read the article: The fuel on the hill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The ethanol program certainly has strategic advantages but it’s ever increasing scope seems to be fueled by typical corporate and political gorging.
One issue to consider in this debate is the distribution network needed for any fuel. There currently is a system that distributes fuel to over 99% of our country’s homes without the need for any bio fuel intervention. Look to your nearest electrical outlet. Compare that to the fuel tanker that almost blew you over on the freeway.
-
Campaign smart, not hard.
[Read the article: McCain's last stand?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Iowa and New Hampshire Republican primaries are a test of the political organizations of the Republican candidates rather than of the candidates themselves. Media reports have not caught up with the fact that these small states no longer have much sway in the primary process. A candidate can no longer win much in these primaries, but a candidate can certainly lose much. It doesn’t matter so much how well you do, but how far from expectations you fall.
I am betting on the political organizations that are bypassing these primaries. The strategy should be to pay lip service to these states, don’t deal with anything controversial, while aiming for the large state and multi-state primaries. Candidates campaigning hard in Iowa and New Hampshire are displaying a sense of desperation. The desperation may lead to a short term success but such displays eventually enter into the consciousness of the public where it evolves into a negative reaction.
-
McCains last stand
[Read the article: McCain: The last man standing in New Hampshire]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The dynamics of this season’s presidential primaries are such that the results of the New Hampshire primary are not important. At best, it can be considered as a preseason football victory, overly enhanced by the victor and disregarded by others. Momentum garnered from the preseason is meaningful only to rookies. Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s primaries were a time to tune political machinery without worrying about the results.
Most all of the energies that were expended in Iowa and New Hampshire should have been expended towards election efforts in Michigan, Florida, and Super Tuesday.
John McCain has not been a viable candidate for the last 8 months. He does not have the corporate and political support needed to run a challenging campaign. He won a moral victory in New Hampshire, but that is all. Hopefully that will bring him some satisfaction.
-
Cheating
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let’s look at professional body building as an example of steroid use and for the sake of argument, let’s call it a sport.
It is impossible for an athlete who does not use steroids, HGH, etc., to compete with body builders who use these drugs. An athlete is given the choice to use and compete, or to compete in the less prestigious non-drug circuit. Is this “fair”?
The sporting life is all about “fairness”. Consider an adult tennis player playing a non-tennis playing twelve year old in a tennis match. Consider that the adult is exploding in self-gratifying shouts at every winning point. Why is this scene so abhorrent? It’s because of the unfairness of the competition.
Tommy John surgery, cortisone shots, Lasik surgery, and the kind are all accepted within the fairness dictum.
I have nothing against a person making the choice to use drugs, it is their nickel as you state. I just have a problem with them using them to gain an unfair advantage.
Sporting contests will lose their appeal if it is not assumed that both sides have equal access to winning. Steroid usage has been defined as cheating, and until it is redefined, possible by allowing everyone to use whatever drugs one desires, it will be demonized.
As to why steroid usage is defined as cheating? Primarily it was because steroids were not initially available to all participants, partly because of scarcity, price, and the lack of people qualified to administer them correctly and safely. Why should one athlete who had the means to have access to a steroid program have an advantage over another who did not have access?
-
Trust the people
[Read the article: The dismal state of George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"So long as we continue to trust the people, our nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure and the state of our union will remain strong." -G Bush
From what I perceive of the Bush administration, it does not trust the people. Thus our nation will not prosper, our liberty will not be secure, and our union will not remain strong.
Bush’s speech writers finally got something right, defining the feeling of the country as a whole, though in a convoluted manner.
-
unFoxy
[Read the article: Republicans make Fox News sick]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have never watched Fox News by choice. The only time I can recall watching it was when I was in a hospital waiting room that had Fox News airheads pontificating from a ceiling level television set. Usually CNN was the channel of choice (I had regular visits to the waiting room that stretched over several months), but for this one day, and one day only, the amateurish hacks of Fox News demonstrated that their depression could overwhelm the depression of the waiting room.
I have no idea how anyone can consider Fox News to be a news channel. They are obviously an entertainment show, and a very poorly written and acted one at that, along the lines of Entertainment Tonight.
The past success of Fox News is clearly a reflection of the cultural level of many Americans. Ill informed, stupid, prejudiced, self-centered, bad acted, poorly educated, cowardly, racist, patriots of the lowest level of a scoundrel type, homophobic, flip flopping, blood thirsty, proselytizers, Sunday church hour only Christians, or to put it more succinctly, typical republicans. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.