Letters to the Editor
Retired Military Patriot
Published Letters: 2236 Editor's Choice: 11
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Wish I Watched
[Read the article: Our favorite murderer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I never have watched more than five minutes of the Sopranos or Godfathers or any Mafia movies since Elliot Ness. Before you dismiss me as a male freak or heretic, here me out.
Mafia violence on the screen or in real life always seemed to me to be a meaningless cop out from reality. You needed a moral code that drove feelings below consciousness. Real violence can be very necessary, yet it’s use should start you walking on a tight rope of uncertainty even though you may not realize it.
My exploration of violence, other than cowboys and Indian movies, began in earnest when I visited my grandparent’s farm in North Dakota in the ‘50s. My grandfather and uncle needed violence to stay alive, whether killing game for food or familiar cattle, chickens and pigs. It didn’t bother me laughing at chickens running around without heads. But when I threw for silly fun some soon to be hatched hen house eggs against the barn wall, that decision greatly bothered my grandparents and my behind.
Because they had no TV, one escapist violent amusement when my grandfather or uncle had some rare down time from farming was riding around in the Ford pickup shooting gophers. We killed at least 40 each time and left them to die without bothering to even examine the corpses. I kind of felt sorry for those gophers and also felt they were stupid for not stuffing their curiosity and staying in their holes. Then one day a robin changed everything about my view of gratuitous violence.
I was not on the farm but home in Grand Forks in my back alley and had just nailed a robin perched on phone line with my Roy Rogers Daisy BB gun. This time I went over to the kill and saw the robin writhing on the dirt alley. I couldn’t save it. That was my first reality look at death. From that moment on, although I have watched innumerable human death in movies and TV shows, I see unreal death for what it is, nonsense. I want my deaths to mean something. I want to understand the human condition that causes and can prevent it. I want to be sure violence is my only recourse.
Before I read Gary’s explanation of the Sopranos, my brief sojourns into Mafia movies only showed me a boring king-of-the-mountain game that ends up with the deaths of people I didn’t care much about. Now I wished I would have watched the Bravo re-runs. I hope the people who support our president and his “ends justify the means” ignoring of real human consequences watched it. I hope Tony finally started them to question their moral certainty like I did when I watched that robin. Judging from Gary’s explanation and Bush’s polls, he may have.
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Too Much, Not Too Little
[Read the article: Better to be Hamlet than President George]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]-- MereMortal
Your evaluation of Americans and our elective process is quite accurate as is your prescient statement that as humans we should all be striving to avoid the lure of easy certainty. The certainties of an after life in heaven or nirvana are not my vision of where to spend eternity. It would be far too boring. How could I enjoy my ups if I never had any downs? Mankind has always had doubt. How could you feel certain about what could possibly be beyond our universe or eternity or if there is a God?
Birkenhead’s thesis of insufficient doubt is as wrong as you are right. We have far too much doubt, not too little.
Yes MereMortal our political opposition ads have given us trite and false ideas about our candidates. So has both mainstream and ideological media’s slanted and shallow reporting. They bombard us with doubt, not just about our vote, but about almost everything. One day we are told to avoid too much sun to prevent cancer and the next day that too little vitamin D from the sun is hurting our immune system and causing cancer. Television weather stars make it sound like getting drenched by rain will ruin our lives not just our hair. Seniors who need the mental and physical health gained from going outdoors, huddle inside scared to death from the doom of crime and nasty weather. Our youth are not troubled by the normal challenges of reaching adulthood, but because of music, video games and Paris Hilton. Anyone reading this can easily come up with their own list of similar scare stories.
To be sure, there are real things to be worried about today like health care, the influence of money in politics, the deaths in Iraq, our image abroad. In JFK’s day we had real cause to worry about like nuclear holocaust, minority rights, and poverty. I doubt that we had less doubt during the ‘60s than we do now. I am certain that we have a lot more opportunities to hear about doubts and selfish people who manipulate us through our doubts.
We simply need to remind ourselves: that as JFK said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself; to be very wary of fear mongers like officials who use 9/11 every time something seems to be going politically wrong; that with every dark cloud there is a silver lining; and to teach our children the fun that comes from facing fears and that challenges and uncertainty are a vital and most interesting part of life.