Letters to the Editor
awalk54
Published Letters: 6
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The emperor's new clothes
[Read the article: War, chaos and Bush's faith]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gary Kamiya's article makes use of the fairy-tale about the naked emperor and his hallucinated clothes. However, he remarks that unlike the crowd in the fairy-tale, the American crowd believed Bush's and the neocons'delusion. As one who has wearily followed the non-progress of the war, I would like to take issue with his take on fairy-tales and credulous crowds. First, in the traditional story, the goggling on-lookers believed that the clothes were real--because they were told the clothes were real--and remarked on the finery aloud. It was a one small boy who pointed out the obvious: that the emperor's unlovely and naked butt was hanging out for all to see.
At the outset of this war, there were great numbers of us--operating on common-sense and historical precedent---who never believed this unprovoked attack had the slimmest justification. You may remember the enormous demonstrations both in Europe and in America. I marched here in Dallas in one of the city's largest ever protest marches. It not made up of any single wild-eyed hippie clot of people--there were elderly people, fashionistas, Muslims, regular-joes, the stolid middle-aged, women pushing strollers...in other words, everyone. There was no mention of the protest on the evening news, so I decided to write a piece about the futility of the Vietnam war (which I remember vividly and sorrowfully). I shipped it off to a magazine, which has often published my stuff. Returning it, the editor wrote, "...as for peace-marches, well, we've all been to peace marches..." Well, they weren't world-wide and they didn't number crowds of a million or more. So, when I read about dopy American buying into the Iraq war, I'd like to remind the writer that there were large numbers of us who never did. But, as with the emperor's new clothes, no one really saw us.
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Sunday morning up and down
[Read the article: Sunday morning coming down]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for your gentle essay which, I think, was more about taking a spiritual breather than who won what, Nader, sweaters, or your dad. I too had a dad who didn't know much about me but that was because he died young when I was young. I've forgiven the Naderites, although I was quite irritated with them for a while. It's hard not to descend into anger over the Current Occupant and the wrong-headedness of other people, let alone ourselves. Best to do what Sunday morning reminds us. That what is, is, and we can still go forward into whatever sunshine remains in the day. Old hymns are beautiful and Sunday is a good day to hear them.
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Flirting or disaster?
[Read the article: Flirting with disaster]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Janis Joplin was the hot mess of my day and a sad day it was when she ODed. Her smack use and dispair were well-known, although I don't recall her downfalling followed with the kind of wolfish avidity accompanying Amy Winehouse.
Drug addiction goes about messy clothes. Drug addicts do not do volunteer work at the children's cancer wing. They steal and they lie and they hang out with terrible people. Amy is doing precisely what addicts do, so why all the wonderment? The amount of tabloid marveling at her is both remarkable and disingenuous. With so many dreadful happenings in the world, many beyond our human comprehension, perhaps we need Amy Winehouse to be a shrunken disaster of a size we can understand.
In the meantime, she wanders the streets weeping and snarling, accompanied by the click, click, click of many cameras, alone in the most terrible way of all.
James Hannaham's suggestion that this is a slick career move is a silly and compassionless notion. Amy Winehouse is in a dark place, devoid of controls or free will. I can only hope her best and most creative self will finally speak to her--urge her to rise and resist.
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Into the mud puddle...
[Read the article: I quit being a musician because I couldn't play without drinking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I confess. I often disagree with Cary because he gets a little too wordy over situations that are simple...situations where someone just needs to say: Okay, knock it off.
I've been sober and working a program for 20 years now. Before that I spent my time dying. When I decided to live, life got tough and messy. I spent whole months, maybe even years, wandering around unhip, broke, and stupid. The major difference in my life was that suddenly I had a chance. I'd never had a chance before.
Using my chance, I'm not sorry to report that I didn't become famous or rich. Far from it. Instead, I became a dues-paying member of the human race. I discovered that love, friends, and a life worth living involve humility and often much sorrow. I learned I wouldn't die from my emotions. When you live an authentic life, any sacrifices you make are near beer and small change.
Cary is right on this one.
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Crazy enough...
[Read the article: My fiancé suddenly joined the Marines]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When very young, I married a man who had bi-polar disorder. Ideas about mental illness were very limited then, and although I questioned his many oddities, none of the professional grown-ups around us thought he was nuts. The various psychiatrists who came and went diagnosed him as being anxious and promptly put him on stunning levels of Valium. After eight years, I didn't care whether he was crazy or not-crazy. I'd had it. I said as much and left. Many years later, at the age of fifty, he took a flier off an overpass and killed himself.
As I say, I saw and sensed many of his problems but, since I doubted myself and my own perceptions, I ignored my correct and self-preserving instincts. The price of staying with someone who is so severely mentally ill is to become sick yourself. It took me a long time to recover.
The LW might ask herself why she would consider staying a single instant with this man and then, whether she can answer this question or not, she should leave.
Run, my dear, as far and as fast as you can.