Letters to the Editor
GeeJay
Published Letters: 117 Editor's Choice: 19
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Futher investigation
[Read the article: The three stooges]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The congressional committees who are investigating Bush administration activities should apply a new tact toward acquiring documentation.
The Bush inner circle may be politically savvy, but given their age, they most likely are not computer savvy. Most probably they have not clamped down on electronic data issues as they have clamped down on political loyalty issues.
The congressional committees should subpoena bureaucratic level data, network, server, and security administrators who work in the departments they are investigating. These are the people who are privy to the best guarded secrets in this country. These are the people who administer the databases and other file systems that store all electronic data. These are the people who can answer many questions, and who can not be covered by executive privilege. The only problem is that the committees must know whom to ask, and which questions to ask of them.
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Death to the death
[Read the article: A surge of phony spin on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The brutality of thought and action continues in Iraq, perpetrated by those to whom we have given unfettered power to represent us. The application of more violence to a violent drama is supported by an oil field analogy- if an oil well is on fire, extinguish it by using a large explosion, sucking the oxygen from the combustion – a surge of violence will extinguish the violence. Such analogies work well in conference rooms when discussed by self-serving, wondering, and non-practiced minds.
The violence forced upon the Iraqi people is being prolonged by those who are concerned with upgrading their resumes. The U.S. population has acquiesced to the mass murder by choosing blindness and comfort over responsibility, duty, and compassion.
We accept the reasoning of this U.S. administration; that to free you we must constrict you, to protect you we must make new enemies, to be a patriot you must not see nor think but become blind and follow, to stop the flowing Iraqi blood we must kill the Iraqi neighbor.
A personification of evil resonates from a large white house just off the Mall in Washington D.C. But we are too afraid to battle this evil, and so release ourselves of the responsibility. The trains roll by, but we don’t hear the wails, nor smell the stench, nor see the cloud rising from the distant smokestack. Courage is for someone else to display, we no longer know how.
The way to stop the butchery is to stop it.
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Bury Bonds
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am amazed at those who continue to state that Bond’s achievements should not be tainted by his illegally produced body. Perhaps an analogy will describe my feelings about the home run usurper.
Consider the story of PGA Tour golfer, “Big Cat” Forrest. During his college years he was one of the group of best college golfers, having won an NCAA championship and eight other tournaments.
After moving on to the PGA Tour, his first three years with the Tour were successful in that he managed to retain his playing card every year. However, he had only three top ten finishes during that time. He felt his talent was being cheated and he deserved to do better. He felt he should be recognized as one of the best, if not the best golfer on tour, though his record did not support that.
Before the start of his fourth year, he was approached by a golf ball technician who offered him the use of a golf ball that would increase the length of his shots by 20%. Also, the ball would carry in a straighter line than any other ball on the market. But the best thing about the ball was that the composition of the ball that made it travel so long and true would loose those properties after being exposed to the air for five hours, and return to having the normal properties of a PGA Tour ball. To use the ball, all he had to do was split his winnings with the ball’s inventor.
Big Cat’s fourth year on tour was a record year. He won three major championships. His prize winnings were more than twice that of the runner up’s. He won praise from many fans. But there were rumors in the air about how a golfer could improve so much from one year to the next, and how Big Cat’s golf ball seemed to carry so long and true, even though his swing did not seem changed from the previous year. It seemed so unnatural.
You and I could not have done what Big Cat did for it takes great skill to hit and control a golf ball. It also takes great fortitude to deal with golfing pressures, though some would say those pressures are diminished by knowing one has an unfair advantage.
Many people lauded Big Cat’s great achievements. But not those in the know. They basked in the attention, the glory, and the money. That suited them just fine.
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Powell
[Read the article: Will the real Colin Powell stand up?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As Banquo’s son begat the kings,
the Quitter of ceasar dreams,
Pleads for Fleance as Michael’s lot.
The things we become,
Aft’ bartered the soul,
Are not undone.
With no repents,
He curses the innocents.
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Rove
[Read the article: We'll go no more a-Rove-ing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My strongest impression of Karl “M.C.” Rove is as a person without a conscience. He appears to be a person who is longing for love and acceptance but does not know how to acquire it. He most probably had many setbacks as a young person and did not have the guidance and fortitude to overcome them. He substituted “ends by any means” as a confirmation of his self-worth. In this, he and George W. Bush have much in common.
Passion without heart is a dangerous combination. He envisions himself as powerful and successful, but he can not see that his admirers admire from close range, waiting anxiously to ridicule him as soon as he is distant.
This faux Texas boy will not survive long in the Texas heat, for the heat is neither assuaged by audible manipulation nor receptive to plaintive wailing.