Letters to the Editor
tom payne
Published Letters: 1101 Editor's Choice: 3
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David, again
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And Robert Penn Warren,and Wendell Berry, Eurdora Welty, Thornton Wilder. I'm a poet by nature, though the drivel I type herein is in no wise and indication of that. America has less use for poets than for Catholics, but I'm a guitar player, too. Gets me out of the house. And away from the blinking keyboard. I've enjoyed this exchange. 95% of Americans wouldn't know any of those to whom we have referred. More's the pity.
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Poets, not Bullets
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And Edna St. Vincent Millary (God's World), and early James Dickey, Thomas Wolfe (after whomI was named), William Carlos Williams, some Gary Snyder, some Robert Browning (a little baroque, but hey), small doses of TS Eliot, but Ezra Pound gives me the hives.
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Art is Long, Art is Hard
[Read the article: I'm a jazz pianist, nearly 50, and I need to make some real money!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having been a guitarist and a working musician on and off for 40 years, my advice is play with all your heart and don't expect to be well paid for it. If you do, it will be an accident, a bit of serendipity. I've played in more bands in more styles than I care to count, done solo gigs, weddings, parties, pubs, country dives, the whole magilla. I've give hundreds of lessons. I've never had much money, I almost always had a day job, but, you know, I'm 60 and I"m still in two bands and play 8 or 10 gigs a month. If you want to be a purist, alone with your muse, get used to a low calorie diet, tighten your belt, and don't whine. Play. Sure, you have to have some integrity; I'm not saying to do American Idiot covers. But play, and don't give up, ever. Music is the speech of angels.
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But the Surge is Goin' Great
[Read the article: I don't know what happened, but I know it wasn't improper]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]68 dead American soldiers in the first 19 days of April, well on pace to be well over a hundred for the month. Eight times as many dead innocent Iraquis blown up Bagdhad as there was students murdered at the Va. Tech. tragedy. wonder if the George 'n Laura show will go to sympathize in the oh so safe Green Zone. John Mclame says it's all good; he only needed a hundred armed guards to walk around a bazaar (bizarre). I'm sure Tacobellgrande Gonzales knows nothing of any of this either, just like Commander Codpiece.
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Major Murkey
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Bushistas have already effectively repealed or eroded at least four of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. First Amendment Zones sound familiar, Major? How 'bout search and seizure, or probably cause? Are those socialist notions too, Major? With the largest and most powerful standing army in world history, the second amendment means nothing to any sane person. Maybe it's a Freudian thing. Ooooh, baby, I'm polishing my gun. I'd salute but I've been off active duty since 1972, following our glorious victory over the Vietnarians. Major.
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Dreamwit Gunnut
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, the Wall Mart cable channel fatassed deep fried american public is gonna turn into the Afghan guerilla force, or the Russian army at Stalingrad in winter. Sure. Of course wars of attrition are in progress, and have been throughout history. But overthrowing your own government, bunker busters and all, is delusional, if your're so thrilled with the word. Something about gun ownership seems to lobotomize folk. No, I've never read history, and I have no idea about our ongoing pissathon in Iraq. How that is analagous to challenging, in a revolutionary way, the standing government of your own massively armed country is stump stupid. Have a nice day.
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Dreamwitless
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ah, I see the confusion. Two posters named Tom think you're argument holds less water than a sieve. Go polish your "gun". Tom 70 has more patience than I with suffering fools. Have a nice afternoon.
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Dreamy Dipstick
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The army does what it's ordered to do. We're already holding American citizens without charges for five years and counting. Eisenhower's admonition about the military industrial complex is a long-since accomplished fact. We have whatever "rights" George and the boys (that includes Ricearoni) allow us. If they felt a real threat, they'd kill civilians without flinching. Kent State sound familiar? That was an idyllic period compared to the fascist extravegance we've got goin' on right now. Now, be a good German and stay inside your designated First Amendment Zone. Rights, my veteran ass. We could reclaim them if we'd register and vote. Ain't gonna happen. Gotta get up from the couch and turn off the remote. ZZZZZZZZ.
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Race is Irrelevant in this
[Read the article: Killer reflection]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cho didn't smother 32 students with kim chee. He shot them. His Korean-ness has exactly nothing to do with it. He was quiet. Should we profile quiet people? Are Trappists a threat? It's about easy access to guns, designed to hold clips with dozens of bullets (now exactly how is that relevant for hunting or self-defense?). Cho was a lunatic with two handguns. That he was Korean is no more to the point that how tall he was or how he dressed. Guns. It's about guns.
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Concealed weapons
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oklahoma City required huge amounts of granular nitrogen fertilizer and, if I recall correctly, kerosene or some other petrochemical fuel oil. It took a large Ryder truck to carry it all. Cho killed 32 with 2 handguns you could carry in your baggy pants pocket. the point is that 2A arguments about "gun control" really beg the question of the wording of the amendment itself. It's "arms", not "guns". I won't insult you by reducing to absurdity the inherently absurd NRA gunnutz notion that any weapon regulation is an abrogration of the Bill of Rights. The Bushistas have used the Bill of Rights like a roll of Charmin for six years, and no whines from the far reich. This brings us back to fertilizer, albeit of a more primitive form, which characterizes the gunnutz credo :from my cold dead hands. The problems is their thick dead heads.