Letters to the Editor
Nequals1
Published Letters: 295 Editor's Choice: 6
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Word from Boylen's Boss?
[Read the article: The case of the angry colonel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's does General Petraeus have to say on this issue?
The military has an obligation to always, without fail, remain apolitical under civilian control. Boylan's performance history, irrespective of this latest incident, does not meet that criterion.
Therefore, first of all, Boylan needs to be removed.
Secondly, his claims of identity theft and his disavowal of having written multiple emails bearing his email address and electronic signature must be investigated comprehensively in a timely manner and the results transparently reported to the public.
Third, General Petraeus must make a statement verbally and in writing committing to the accomplishment of the first two needs.
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Patriotism is now ordered to be blind faith in benevolent fascism
[Read the article: We are the Thought Police]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Both parties are total hypocrites relative to combat operations and the Iraq occupation.
I believe our duty as citizens is to honor every military member killed, by greeting each returning coffin, by greeting every returning wounded service member, and by greeting every returning service member at his and her end of deployment.
I also believe that our duty entails assuring that there is a robust diplomatic and economic effort underway, 24/7, which does not allow for any elected federal official to take vacation days AT ALL. If the US is at war, then it needs its elected officials to remain at their stations without recess until they effect the end of the combat operations.
And Americans have a duty to look at the horrors that the war and occupation has wrought and is wreaking. That involves having daily newscasts showing scene footage of combat operations. Where is the "if it bleeds it leads" ethos? It hasn't disappeared from local news coverage. Americans need to know how many Iraqi civilians have been killed, have been wounded and have been displaced. We need to know - every day - how many hours of electricity Iraqis have, what the occupancy rate of their hospitals is, what the percentage of professionals and technicians is who have fled the country or are refugees in country. And we need a daily count of how many Iraqis have been granted asylum in the US for their cooperation at their own risk. And we deserve daily coverage of American efforts to end the occupation - what is State doing? Defense? The Senate? The House? The White House?
Instead, we get Brian Williams devoting an entire week to prepping for a host gig on Saturday Night Live. And the real news won't be reported at all until the end of the writers' strike, as the Colbert Report and the Daily Show - the court jesters of the imperial Bush regime - are on hiatus.
Americans have to read the news from the Asia Times, the BBC, al Jazeera, etc. to glean any understanding at all of what its government and its military is doing in the name of we the people.
America the republic is but a memory. America, the oppressed, is the extant iteration.
The Constitution is but a ghost. Faded, transparent and chillingly absent from the world as we experience it.
Daily. Without end until they all come home - Americans and Iraqis.
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Whatever the psychodynamics,
[Read the article: Battle of the Bushes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is a question to be asked:
Is there a need to legislate and prohibit family members from assuming the presidency? If so, for how long? Which family members/which relationships?
In my view, it seems more imperative to prohibit a move toward a patriarchy or monarchy in light of the Bush legacy of Constitutional decimation and with multiple Bushes out there waiting in the wings.
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Antibiotics are available to all comers
[Read the article: Is the way we raise our food giving us MRSA?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]who walk into a feed store or who order from a veterinary or livestock supply catalog.
When I operated an animal sanctuary, most veterinarians requested that I keep antibiotics on hand and medicate preventively. It was difficult to find commercial feeds without antibiotic and other medicinal additives. I ended up having feed custom formulated and ground.
But I always had a "tank" of penicillin injectable (240 ml or 8 oz) on hand in the refrigerator. Obviously, none of the sanctuary animals were ever food bound, but the vast majority of farmers medicate as they see fit - without the oversight and specific recommendations of treating veterinarians. Factory farms are especially prone to medicate as it's difficult to stop a communicable disease in overcrowded animal housing conditions, and a veterinarian might be pesky enough to report any outbreak to the authorities.
For anyone who disagrees, just sit in on some Farm Bureau meetings and listen. Or ask how much a veterinarian farm call and subsequent treatment is compared to a tank of antibiotics.
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Of course he's guilty....
[Read the article: Interviews with AP executives on the Bilal Hussein travesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]of being Iraqi.
Why isn't the media up in arms over this?
My guesses: warrantless surveillance on media and reporters, greymail by Cheney/Bush and corporate complicity and direction to control the message of blind obedience, terra all the time - perpetual fear, and marketshare for war profiteers and "Big Warmonger" business.
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Williams is a GOP hack
[Read the article: Brian Williams: "Marriage is under attack"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have regularly responded and criticized him on his blog, The Daily Nightly. It only takes a single mention of Russert's failure to cite sources and NBC News failure to disclose conflicts of interest for my comment to be banned. He took umbrage to a comment which addressed the Germany of the 1930's with Bush/Cheney's all terra all the time as being too radical and which "demanded" his response.
Now he simply bans all of my comments, so I occasionally post under sockpuppet names, just to keep the conflict of interest non-disclosure subject in front of him.
Williams is all about his comedy gigs and his "compassion" for the people of New Orleans, even as he distorts and suppresses news of Bush and Cheney's march on the Constitution.
The Daily Nightly blog is worth a read to get a better sense of Williams' many blind spots and inadequacies in the journalism department. But on a positive note, there is a news writer, Chris Colvin, who posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays a very decent blog round-up on the news and politics. She, at least, writes about and cites news sources. Too bad that Williams doesn't read and use his own staff's reporting.