Letters to the Editor
Dr. Zachary Smith
Published Letters: 153 Editor's Choice: 11
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Writing the Truth
[Read the article: How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's what your writer wrote, quoting a right-winger:
"The ACLU has a pretty sordid past. They were founded by a guy, Roger Baldwin, who was an avowed atheist, and he had a certain agenda. He wrote about being a socialist, and communism was his goal."
My question to you is simple: why did you allow this quote, which is simply false in its implication, to stand unquestioned? "Balance" alone would seem to have mandated a response from a historian of the ACLU. More importantly, a decent regard for the truth would have caused a careful writer to correct the impression that this quote left. I'm quite disappointed in Michelle Goldberg--more shoddy journalism and simple pandering to the Right.
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Hole in One
[Read the article: A hole in the president's Katrina defense]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, but was the warning in writing?
I mean, if it were in writing, you can't really Bush to have known about it.
We don't expect miracles from the man, after all.
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Crown of Thorns
[Read the article: From "To Hell With Them" hawks to "Christians for Torture"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, it is part of their religion, after all. If it was good enough for Jesus, why shouldn't it be good enough for the poor sods who got sold to us and sent to Gitmo?
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Infantilizing Black Folk
[Read the article: Didn't she almost have it all?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yep, it was society that made Whitney into a crackhead. Society, and racism, and celebrity, and white America. And don't forget her lesbianism and even let's presume some sort of abuse in her childhood.
It's never Whitney herself. Because, apparently, as a black woman, she's neither mature enough nor intelligent enough to make her own decisions.
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Under Your Seat
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Had to laugh at the guy who protested about the fella who got extra leg room by sticking magazines "under his seat."
He means he sat on the magazines, lifting him up as a result, ya big yo-yo.
When will we see "big and tall" flights? I'm real tired of sitting next to the 300 lb. mama who takes up half my seat space too.
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TV
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]>Battle Star Galactica is a re-make of a rip-off.
Man obviously hasn't watched the show.
Every reality show sucks. Sucks big time. Sucks donkey balls. There's not a single one of them worth the time and energy involved in changing the channel.
People who like reality shows have no taste. QED.
As for Heather, it would be nice to have a critic who actually thought deeply about what she was watching.
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The Truth
[Read the article: The Gore watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When asked a political question, Al Gore told the truth. What's so hard to grasp about that?
If he had wanted to make a political answer, it would have been vastly different, something along the lines of, "The American people can look at my positions and make up their own mind about whether I've changed."
Instead, he told the direct, honest truth--we're run by a group of right-wing extremists.
It's a sad day when the politics-watchers can't distinguish between the truth and playing politics.
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Can't Win For Losing
[Read the article: The Gore watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So Grieve thinks " it's beyond fair to describe the current Republican leadership in Washington as 'rightwing extremists.'" But when Gore does this--apparently, just speaking the truth "beyond fair"--he gets labeled "political" and worse yet, suspected of running for something.
How come I suspect that if Gore had said nothing, Grieve would call it political? And if he had issued a typical weasel-worded truly "political" statement, Grieve would have called it political? That Gore could have vanished from the seat with a pop, and Grieve would assert that he was "running for something"?
Maybe I do Grieve a disservice, and what we're seeing here is just wishful thinking on his part--I know I wish fervently that Gore would run for something and would do so with the straight talk that he exhibited in this interview. But until then, give the man a frackin' break.
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You're So Right, Kate
[Read the article: Coulter vs. Lauer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're so right, Kate. So let's not criticze Ann for her evident anorexia, her little black dress, or her questionable femininity.
Instead, let's go for the meat of the matter: the fact that she's a mean-spirited, empty-headed, money-grubbing right-wing panderer to every prejudice and fascist opinion that she thinks will earn her a quick buck. Her books are filled with errors; her speech is filled with hate. In one ugly package (not a reference to the way she looks, now) she represents everything bad, everything wrong, hell, everything evil in the current American political scene.
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Natalie Jeremijenko
[Read the article: The artist as mad scientist]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Natalie Jeremijenko, your 15 minutes is up. Please turn in your roller skates and your bad art at the exit.
Somehow, I don't think da Vinci or Henry Moore have anything to worry about from this "artist."
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The Very Pineapple of Perfection
[Read the article: Bloggers' double-super-secret smoky room]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Then Moulitsas excoriated his followers to drop their subscriptions to TNR and block the magazine's heretical ideas from their minds."
No, he didn't. He may have encouraged them; he may have told them; he may have directed them.
He certainly didn't excoriate them.
"To excoriate" means "to strip the skin off of."
A place in the Leo Gorcey Hall of Fame has been reserved for this writer....
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If Lois is a Slut....
[Read the article: Superman is super-gay? Lois Lane's a slut?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Then what does that make Viagra-toting Rush Limbaugh?
Where's the outrage on the right about Limbaugh's apparent complete lack of "morality"?