Letters to the Editor
maureenodonnell
Published Letters: 475 Editor's Choice: 5
-
To Ano @ 4:03 a.m. and to his/her clones
[Read the article: Quote of the day: Obama on Clinton ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I so very much regret that I couldn't sustain the high level of debate initiated by Manos 99 in the first letter on this thread and I suppose I'm expected to go into Uriah Heep mode (never mind!) and show my humility. You'll get none of that from me and I try to keep my vocabulary civilised. It's interesting to know that I'm being stalked by a rather dim-witted person who mentioned my "faux-Celtic" nationality and another cloaked individual who described me as an "Irish harridan" - words are clearly not "his" thing. I did not mention my Irishness when I posted mid-morning (l7th February 2008) so perhaps you should read more Raymond Chandler or James Lee Burke, and then you might not show your hand quite so obviously. That inevitable mention of leprechauns has me in stitches (of laughter) and I'm sure such wit would also have been appreciated by Oscar Wilde. Of course, you've never heard of the 8th century Book of Kells, one of the great manuscripts of "Old Europe", written at a time when America, as we know it, did not exist.
There's an election in Russia in March and in Pakistan shortly but I don't speak Russian or Urdu so, early in January, I thought I'd have a look-in at the American election. It's been an eye-opener and not in a way that flatters your country.
I had no interest, vested or otherwise, in any of your candidates although, since America is the biggest war-machine in the world, everyone on earh must hope that this time the American people will get it right. Eventually my thoughts about your candidates crystallised, particularly around the time of the South Carolina hustings and and the uproar about "fairytale" (this time without leprechauns). From a distance, I began to evaluate Barack Obama, a man with three years experience in the US Senate. His campaign was cleverly conceived; the autobiography was a form of "getting your retaliation in first" so that any subsequent criticism about a whole variety of things could be dismissed as youthful indiscretions or "whatever you're having yourself", as we say. The media has been slavering shamelessly and I wondered why. High-falutin' speeches won't cut the ice with Dmitry Medvedev, tipped to be the new President of Russia and Obama has no experience of foreign policy, the area in which America can hurt the rest of the world most of all. Dubya Bush had no understanding of any place outside of Texas and I wonder if Obama's knowledge extends beyond Chicago and Honolulu. Questions such as this, particularly from a foreigner, tend to provoke wrath rather than thought. No, I'm not Christopher Hitchens, that pompous prat with the plummy accent who wrote a hatchet-job article on Mother Teresa. If any of the Anos think that I would aspire to be Christopher Hitchens you're even more foolish than that arrogant little man. He's a naturalised American now, isn't he, along with Andrew Sullivan whose saliva quotient must havw run out with all the slobbering he's done over Obama in "The Sunday Times" (London). Well, Ano. and co. why don't you go the whole hog and contact Joan Walsh to have me silenced? I don't know the woman or anyone of her kith and kin but my grandmother;s name was Walsh, a very common name in Ireland. Maybe "Irish harridan" wouldn't go down all that well with her but I don't really care. We all have our foibles. I wouldn't go as far as the Irish playwright, Brendan Behan, once did when he said that America was discovered long before Columbus but they managed to hush it up!
-
Anonmous, in response to my letter.
[Read the article: Quote of the day: Obama on Clinton ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You've just revealed that you have reading difficulties, and in that case, I'm sorry for being so hard on you. I'm not sure whether you're the one who has a leprechaun fixation or the one who got into Notre Dame because you could play with a ball. Maybe you're the one who resented Irish people being specific about their Irishness. When I mentioned this to my husband, his response was "And Americans don't let us know that they're Americans?" I thought about that for a second or two and decided that, in general, they don't have to tell us as it's evident. Fortunately for you, Ano, I've met some intelligent Americans (and not in Ireland) so I know they're not like you. Literacy classes might help you but youmightn't get as far as Dickens' "David Copperfield" in which the character Uriah Heep appears. It's along book with lots of big words. Now hurry off, lad, and contact Joan about me, complaining about the "Irish harridan" who's racist because she doesn't go a bundle on Obama. I suppose you've never heard this before either but I'm telling you and your clones right now that "Suspicion haunts the guilty mind". I presume you gurgled with delight when you managed to read the first post from Manos 99. All that wit about flatulence or farts, possibly a word you'd find easier to understan. It's a lovely Spring day here and I'm feeling mellow but if you think you want to continue,all I'll say is "Bring it on!", although those words, used by John Kerry, evoke memories of John Kerry the last Democratic candidate to give the world four more years of George W. Bush.