Letters to the Editor
Rob H.
Published Letters: 123 Editor's Choice: 30
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Great Announcers
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know most people tune into games because of the teams on the field, but I think there was a time when it actually was pleasurable to tune into a game knowing that you were going to be able to hear great announcers.
For me, when I was a kid, Curt Gowdy's voice was Sunday afternoon football and I'd tune in sometimes just to hear him, no matter what game it was. Later on, it was Madden and Summerall on CBS. Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen were another pair I enjoyed listening to. Howard Cosell was Monday Night Football. Today, when I get the chance, I'll even tune in to hear Vin Scully call a game, even though the Dodgers are the epitome of all evil in the world (hey, my family is from Brooklyn).
Maybe it's just nostalgia (and I'm only in my late 30's), but I do think a lot of the magic has disappeared from the announcing booth for any number of reasons. Maybe it's hype. Maybe it's money. I don't know.
All I do know is that I'd give my left arm to hear Curt Gowdy call even the Lions vs the Saints.
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Weak, Shallow, Apologist Tripe
[Read the article: All cartoon politics are local]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not a word, not a single word of condemnation in Juan Cole's piece. Just a litany of excuses to justify what can only be termed wanton violence.
Cole's premise, as he lays it out, proves more than ever how destructive a force radical Islam is in the world. He dissects every demonstration and concludes that in each case, it's only politics and justifiable rage against the west that is causing these protests. Excuse me?
Putting aside the threats to free speech, how does Cole completely and utterly ignore the fact that vast swaths of the Muslim world are being cynically manipulated by their so-called leaders? Does Cole believe that these types of activities are healthy for the Muslim world? Instead of addressing the rampant poverty, lack of freedoms, treatment of women, and a host of other issues, Cole seems to think that riots, killings, death edicts and the burning of embassies are perfectly normal and acceptable in defense of the Muslim world against the dread specter of the... gasp... political cartoon.
And if some in the Muslim world are free to rampage at the slightest provocation, what does that say about Israel, Professor Cole? You talk so much about Muslim distrust of the west and the outrages visited upon the Muslim world, well, what about Jewish distrust and the litany of outrages visited upon them?
If some Muslim leaders are free to instigate shocking violence because of some petty cartoons, aren't Jewish leaders justified in building a wall and some settlements to protect themselves from 60 years of terrorist attacks? Haven't their sensibilities been offended just a bit over the decades? Sadly, one would have to guess that justification is only a one-way street in Juan Cole's eyes.
Almost every day in the news we read of Muslims killing fellow Muslims in Iraq. Just this morning I read about at least 27 deaths in Pakistan after a bomb was detonated in a Shiite procession. Muslims slaughtering Muslims day in and day out. Thousands and thousands of INNOCENT MUSLIMS being killed in Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands in the Sudan. And not a peep. Not a protestor in sight. But hey, print twelve cartoons, we'll show you worldwide outrage.
The garbage that Cole asserts here is simply disgusting. I wonder how this type of weak, shallow and apologist tripe can make it into Salon. It's also, quite frankly, an embarrassingly bad piece of journalism.
I'll wait to read Juan Cole's piece dissecting and defending the rationale for the coming Iranian Holocaust cartoons. And then I'll wait to read about his condemnation of Jewish reaction.
You have to know it's coming.