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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Alec Elixir
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 8
To the editors:
James Carroll is greatly impressed that Reagan went against all his advisors to make peace with Gorbachev. Yet a better president wouldn't have had to, because he wouldn't have surrounded himself with such inept extremists in the first place. (The same applies to JFK.)
Oddly, Carroll doesn't seem to notice the degree to which the Reagan presidency paved the way for the later hawkish policies he deplores. For example, would the current administration be displaying such contempt for the truth, the law and innocent lives if the whole Reagan administration hadn't got away with their Iran-Contra crimes scot-free?
Yours Sincerely,
James J. Matthews
"Recent polling data suggests that self-described liberals are far more interested in ending the Iraq war than in pursuing al-Qaida, and that a large proportion of Democrats now oppose not merely the Iraq conflict but also the earlier invasion of Afghanistan. Many American liberals, he concludes, 'no longer see the war on terror as their fight.'"
Considering how the Iraq war has played into al-Qaida's hands, ending it might do as much to undermine them as Washington's inadequate pursuit has. And maybe the new liberal opposition to the Afghanistan invasion comes from the bitter realization that this operation was the intentional thin end of the disastrous Iraq invasion. If liberals no longer see the War on Terror as their fight, that's because they see how counterproductive it's been.
If nobody can forget 9/11, that's because they keep reminding us of it.
It seems a shame to get rid of China's character system when there's such a vast, fascinating history behind it. I actually started learning Chinese because I liked the characters. The "radical" system is nifty, adding extra meanings to a character. For example, "po" (break) includes the radical for rock: I can just see an ancient Chinese using a rock to break open a clam shell. And "jue" (decide) includes the radical for ice, suggesting the liquidity of deliberation freezing into the solidity of decision.
You know, besides the writing system, Chinese isn't tough in all respects. Its grammar system is fairly simple and straightforward. And in some ways Japanese is harder: there you put a preposition at the end of a clause instead of the beginning.
Those 1.5 million descendants are just the officially-recognized ones. Almost everyone living in the world today is directly descended from Confucius, and Mohammed, and Caesar Augustus, and Buddha, and almost everyone who had children 1200 years ago or more.
I read somewhere that half of all abortions are cases where they used contraception, but it failed.
The episode where supervillain Neflyte sacrificed himself to save Molly and gained redemption was truly moving.
"I love journalism but I hate asking uncomfortable questions."
So become a Washington reporter. :^)
"Perhaps even more significant is the fact that the authors are a gang of plodding, blue-chip, ultra-mainstream centrists."
Even Edwin Meese?
Gandhi said, "The earth supplies enough for man's need, but not enough for man's greed."
But this problem can be solved. If the world has (say) an oil supply that'll last 108 years at current consumption rates, if we reduce consumption at a consistent 1% a year every year, then the supply will never run out.
"When I was six years old Daddy told me there was no Santa Claus. For nine months I prayed to God for Daddy to be wrong! Then he told me there was no God."
"When A inconveniences B to protect X, A is a scoundrel"--HL Mencken
Rick Perlstein worries that "today's only credible antiwar party" (the Democrats) will fail to take "a position to credibly end the war."
Credible is as credible does. If the Democrats won't back a credible policy to end the war, they are not a credible antiwar party.
That's the same Thai King who had the misfortune to hire Anna Leonowens to teach English to his household, and she turned around and wrote two books telling a pack of lies about him. (Princess Tuptim wasn't really put to death, et cetera et cetera...)
Wasn't the Rohmer original called CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON? LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON was a 1957 Billy Wilder movie with Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn.
At London's Victoria & Albert museum of applied art, in the India section there's a cabinet made in Mysore at the time of the war--it has a musical instrument inside--in the form of a statue showing a symbolic tiger pouncing on a British soldier!
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/asia/object_stories/Tippoo's_tiger/index.html
Nationalize the manufacturers and be very choosy about whom you sell guns to. (And nationalize cigarette manufacturers too.)
Be realistic: ask for the "impossible."
The Democrats are appeasers, but it's the White House they're apt to appease.
...whether Dean could have won in 2004. But Kerry's own "electability" turned out to be exaggerated, didn't it? My own feeling is that under Dean, the Democrats would have at least escaped losing four Senate seats.
Anyway, I'd rather have Dean as president, even a struggling one, then Dean as chairman of an opposition party.
"Impeachment talk, however, is a counterproductive distraction to the real business of getting the Democratic candidates for president up to speed and in fighting shape."
My apologies for thinking that reasserting the rule of law in the United States was more important than putting the Democrats back in the White House.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
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