Letters to the Editor
maureenodonnell
Published Letters: 578 Editor's Choice: 5
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I'm gpoing to say something really shocking.......I
[Read the article: An old-fashioned thumpin' in South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" and all that, but there will be rending of garments and gnashing of teeth when I declare that despite all the gushing of Dowd, Sullivan (Andrew), Shapiro et al, I don't consider Barack Obama handsome. Neither do I go a bundle for Colin Farrell, the actor, so that should sort that out for the people with an attenuated vocabulary whose favourite words end in -ist. I'd read so often that Barack was handsome, and hav ing my own aesthetic antennae finely tuned, I decided I'd have a look and see if all the raving was justified. What I saw was an extremely thin, tall man with very peculiar ears, a gummy smile which is fequently on display, and lips with a blueish tinge as unprepossessing as Bill's red nose.
I don't give a damn what any of the candidates look like, although it would be nicer if none looked like something carved by Grinling Gibbons, famous for making church gargoyles in the l7th century. I made a typo. above but I'm leaving it there because media goo and gushing is my topic. Is everybody supposed to swallow the stuff that the media is dishing out, hook, line and sinker? Plastic smiles, plastic people - the funeral parlour of intelligent debate.
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"When I play a game of golf........
[Read the article: An old-fashioned thumpin' in South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]....I may make a play for the caddy but when I do I don't follow through, cos my heart belongs to Daddy". The backstabbing of the Democratic candidates in the last week or so has been an eye-opener but the vituperation of some followers (I'm not calling them supporters) is really corrosive. Ted Kennedy and his niece Caroline are backing Obama while Cheney's daughter is giving her support to Romney. To those who shriek "Monica" at Bill, I'd think of Chappaquidick in regard to Ted, who couldn't emulate his older brothers no matter how he tried. Anyway, as someone wrote earlier, your country is likely to turn to Daddy in your hour of need. McCain has gravitas - something that many people like in a statesman - and has none of the fly-by-night quality of a quitter. He's come back again after being viciously maligned by the unscrupulous Bush brigade in the 2000 election. I've read that he loses his temper which I think is great and proof that he is natural, not just a product of media hype.
I've put a bet on McCain to win, even though I thoroughly dislike the Republican Party. I see him as a maverick, going against the flow and a man who knows a lot about the world outside the USA. Come to think about it, what exactly do Barack and Hillary know about anything outside their own comfort zones? It's almost Spring here, the birds are busy and I'm waiting to hear a meaningful answer to my question. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast".
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"Old, bitter and cynical"
[Read the article: An old-fashioned thumpin' in South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You can see the apparatchiks a mile off; they tend to write tediously about polls, about the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, or to resort to insult, which is apparently Mark Cooney's only forte. It's Sunday evening and I've just been reading an article called "Lonesome Cowboy" on the premature death of Heath Ledger, the actor. Jack Nicholson, aged 70, was in London last week and made some mild observations on the sad demise of the young actor. It was noted that Nicholson, who had partied hard and lived harder, is here to tell his tale while the unfortunate Ledger, who was 28, is already in the morgue.
This is all factual but what struck me on reading "The Sunday Times" article is that the writer of it, Garth Pearce, commented on Nicholson "For most of his working life he has never explained and never complained. Ledger, on the other hand, was a victim: a young man who pushed himself too hard to live in the big time. He looked set to achieve a great career but there was something lacking. A ruthlessness perhaps or a thick enough skin to deal with the demands of celebrity and the publicity machines of the film studios". The late Heath Ledger found his fame and career exhausting but Bad Boy Nicholson has just launched his 60th film which also stars Morgan Freeman, another man of venerable years. If you want "twisted", Mark Cooney, perhaps you should look to Britney Spears or Amy Winehouse, both young women. Your generalisations are pathetic, even "bitter".
I'm still waiting for an answer on international experience in the candidates in question but it looks as if I shouldn't hold my breath as, almost certainly, another load of obfuscation is coming down the tracks. Or, even more likely, total silence.