Letters to the Editor
Pindenh
Published Letters: 18 Editor's Choice: 2
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Oh hoe!
[Read the article: Hoe, hoe, hoe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I learned to hoe when I was her age and soon therafter to pick potatoes." Pick potatoes?! I don't believe a word of it—not the verb, anyway, not even in Minnesota.
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Where are the journalists?
[Read the article: U.S. accused of kidnappings in Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The atrocities continue, and their numbers grow, but for me they always are one-plus-one plus yet another one, not a total: the general murdered in a sleeping bag brought me to tears.
More frightening, for me, than the kidnapping and torture of detainees' family members is that our mainstream media have dropped the subjects, if they've picked them up at all. Although I read two metropolitan papers every day, I have yet to see this story anywhere but in Salon.
Has anyone else read it anywhere?
We shall have to look to Salon to learn what happened at the DOD when the deadline came—Friday at 5 p.m.—for Rumsfeld to reply to the subpoena.
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Shoveling
[Read the article: Still looking for that pony]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tim, I always scroll soon to your commentary. Here you've scored a rare journalistic coup by letting our president speak (if that's the word) for himself, without comment.
Have lovely vacation times. And don't worry—he won't find that pony while you're away; it's impossibly deeply buried now.
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A kosher circumcision
[Read the article: The unkindest cut]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh my goodness, Neal, what an awful time you and your wife had with your parents! I've been in that place! When our first son was born, we lived far from my husband's parents, and we did the best we could to please my mother-in-law while pleasing our lovely new child. We took the little one back to the hospital on the eighth day and had the surgery done by—a pediatric surgeon...a Presbyterian... Our dear (reform) rabbi attended, delivering the requisite blessings and popping into the baby's mouth a whisky'd ball that caused our child to widen his eyes and gasp but not cry.
Fast forward. Presently we moved back into my mother-in-law's geographic domain, and she began to babysit. When our son was three or so, he asked us why his Oma, every time he stayed at her house, pulled down his pants and asked her assembled friends: Do you think that looks right?
I trust that you'll be wrathful on my behalf, but I'm getting even with her. I'm writing a book about mothers-in-law, beginning with mine. If your long-suffering wife wants to be interviewed, have her get in touch with me!
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Not a sex-change operation!
[Read the article: Care for something saucy?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Surely la Pompadour is a marquise?
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Marshall-ing A Plan
[Read the article: Condi's spin, Godwin's Law and the Marshall Plan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good work, Tim. Thanks for reminding us.
While we're thinking about then and now, I'm reminded of my German-born father-in-law, who came here (read 'escaped') with his family in 1938. I asked him once to explain how Hitler came to power. The answer was short: "He was elected."
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Where shall we put him?
[Read the article: Imperial presidency declared null and void]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sidney Blumenthal has clearly shown that Bush's concept "of a presidency operating...above the rule of law...is a mortal threat to the Constitution." Is it not incumbent upon us, then, to declare him an "enemy combatant," by definition an unlawful one, and proceed accordingly?
I invite creative suggestions about where we might best confine him, and what we might do to him there.
Pindenh
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Where shall we put him?
[Read the article: Imperial presidency declared null and void]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sidney Blumenthal has clearly shown that Bush's concept "of a presidency operating...above the rule of law...is a mortal threat to the Constitution." Is it not incumbent upon us, then, to declare him an "enemy combatant," by definition an unlawful one, and proceed accordingly?
I invite creative suggestions about where we might best confine him, and what we might do to him there.
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"All been done before"...or not
[Read the article: Wedding trashers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Cleopatra drinking that pearl dissolved in a glass of wine..." A more acerbic legend tells that it was vinegar, not wine, while other scholars assert that a pearl will not dissolve in either liquid, so Cleo must have swallowed it whole.
I can't say. I wasn't there.
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Lead-test kits
[Read the article: Barbie's home ruled a toxic site]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...parents are simply left to wonder and worry..."—not true. There are on the market many test kits for lead content. One can Google for brands and descriptions, then buy them on line or in a hardware store.
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Boys and girls?
[Read the article: "Boys against girl," Part II]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is, after all, Ms. Clinton who referred to a "women's college" but a "boys' club."
Shall we move on?
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What shall we DO?
[Read the article: Inside the CIA's notorious "black sites"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I knew that a witness must surface, and I have little doubt that corroboration will come from other victims soon. Thanks to the ACLU for bringing the documents to light, and thanks to Salon for bringing the story to its readers.
An important difference between Hitler's murders and those conducted on behalf of our present regime is that some brave people risked their lives to shelter and save others, even in the German homeland. (These men and women still are being located and honored as the "Righteous Among the Nations.")
What can WE do?
Since Bashmilah "laid out his story...to a U.S. District Court" on Friday, why is it not front-page news in either of the metropolitan dailies I read this morning? I think we must spread the word. I plan to email the Salon story to my Senators and Congressman, and to Senator Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I hope that Salon editors will give their blessing for all of us to do this, and more as we think of what we can do.
There may be not much time. The illegalities grow. One of the papers on my doorstep this morning led with this headline: "Control sought on military lawyers," with the story revealing that the administration proposes to take control over promotions within the Judge Advocate General corps--the military's legal arm--where some of the uniformed attorneys "have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism." (The Boston Globe, 12/15, p. 1.)
Finally, this from "The Sayings of the Fathers": "The day is short, and the work is great, and the laborers are sluggish...It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."