Carports are bad investments. Despite their possible metaphorical value, they don't add as much value to your house as their construction costs. Increasing the heated space within your home is a better idea. Add another bedroom, a playroom, and/or a study instead.

I was born and raised in Cleveland. I am also a life-long Cleveland Indians fan. However, I understand why some would call for the elimination of Chief Wahoo. Personally, I feel this particular mascot is disrespectful (if not outwardly racist), and so I'd like to see him go.

However, I must take issue with the misplaced outrage expressed over this team mascot. There are so many other problems facing Native Americans (and the indigenous peoples of all colonized countries). Up until the early 1900's, most of the US government's policies toward the Native Americans were overtly genocidal. The reservation system was designed to isolate and marginalize an entire race, often on land unsuitable for anything productive (such as agriculture) and usually far removed from their culturally-important ancestral lands. Even in 1900's, official policies were designed to strip these peoples of their culture and assimilate them into American society. For example, Navajo children were forcibly shipped to off-reservation boarding schools, where any expression of their culture was brutally punished. Until 1967, Native American children were removed from their families and adopted to whites. That legacy continues to have enormous impacts today, including unemployment, poverty, alcoholism, diabetes, and substandard health care and education. The past and ongoing mistreatment of Native Americans should be our national shame. However, this mascot issue is the only thing that seems to catch the attention of the national media.

So, let's all keep our outrage about Chief Wahoo in perspective. If you are sincere about your concern for Native Americans, there are far more useful and needed things you can do besides writing an angry column or letter in Salon.com. Otherwise, you are just a hypocrite.

King,

You are taking the easy way out. I don't buy the "I'm just a sportswriter" excuse. That's lame and you know it.

I'm sick of hypocrites who are indignant about mascots, or whatever minor outrage, but don't do a damn thing to actually help a Native American community. The reason Native Americans face so many problems is that no one really does anything to help them or change public policy.

If you just want to be a sportswriter, stick to writing about sports. Otherwise, there are more important articles to be written about Native Americans.

-Mike

Dear LW,

Eight years ago, just I started to write up my dissertation, I was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer. According to my oncologist,tThe odds of this particular diagnosis were literally one in a million. Despite it being metastatic stage 4, chemo and radiation has cured me. The origins of particular form of cancer are not well understood, except that there is no obvious cause for most cases. Many that I met in the treatment center while I was ill didn't make it. A few more weeks and the cancer probably would have spread to my brain and/or liver and I wouldn't have made it.

Many who've never had cancer have tried to tell me what I should learn from this experience. My own response is that we are fragile biological organisms who are all too often subject to forces we have no control over. Life can be short and over before we know it. Furthermore, I've never seen or felt anything that says there is an afterlife.

Some tell me that this is a depressing way to live life, that they couldn't stand not having anything to live for or believe in. However, I think its better to know that there is nothing but right now. Live your life to its fullest as soon and as fast as you can! Be good to others! Enjoy that baby! Have a wonderful life!

Mike

The Chief Wahoo thing comes up in the media once every few years. Everyone makes a big stink about it and then it fades away. In the meantime, life for Native Americans doesn't get any better.

Taking a stance against a team mascot is a cheap, easy way to write a column in a few hours that gets lots of attention and letters.

The idea that simply complaining about injustice, rather than working to fix it, is all that is required is what makes the left look hypocritical to the right.

My point is that if you really want to do something about the real problems Native American's face, then write a good, investigative story about those problems. We all have our skills, use yours for something more productive than "the Cleveland Indians minstrel show."

Meat production uses far more fresh water than crop production.

Land that could be used for food production is being used to raise animal feed. Many pounds of this feed is needed to grow one pound of meat. Ever wonder why we grow so much corn? Most of it is feed corn for animals.

If you ask me, lying about your religion (or lack thereof) can be a matter of self-preservation. In the United States, a person's religion is their own business. Therefore it is acceptable to lie about it on a job or college application. The same holds for anyone who asks you to sign something declaring your faith in god. Its an unfair, unreasonable, and unethical question, at least in the context of education and employment. When faced with discrimination and/or unethical behavior by those who hold power over you, lying and avoidance are perfectly reasonable actions.

Feel free to keep lying, guilt free, until you graduate. You are not ethically required to become a martyr.