Letters to the Editor
maureenodonnell
Published Letters: 492 Editor's Choice: 5
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"Just words - just not Obama's words" -Times Online (London) 2/l9/08
[Read the article: The "plagiarism" problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is getting funnier and funnier. Plagiarism isn't plagiarism unless it involves creativity, according to some, but isn't Obama promising to create "a brave new world" (quotation marks indicate I'm not claiming the expression for myself)? If his speeches are so thrilling that they cause tingling up and down Chris Matthews' leg (an exhilarating fact I only learned today), Mr. Matthews might need to get his thrills from some other source. From another point of view, this media loudmouth might be suffering from "pins and needles", although deep vein thrombosis should also be considered by his medical advisers. Apart from speeches, Obama has little to offer and most of what he says is second-hand and derivitive. His adviser on genocide, Samantha Power, is Irish (I even know her mother's name so I'm basing this statement on fact), he has a gaggle of foreign policy advisers who have been around for years, so if Senator Obama can't give original speeches, pulsating with authentic passion, what exactly can he do? He's a good dancer, it seems, but David Axelrod is THE Man, with a finger in all the pies and a toe in every door. Anyway, be of good cheer. In Farsi, Urdu and Russian, the word has got out that Barack Obama gives great oratory and they're all quaking in their shoes.
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Humpty Dumpty: "When I use a word'", Humpty Dumpty said in a scornful tone "it means
[Read the article: The "plagiarism" problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less". This character from "The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland" just about sums it up. Alice's eyes widened in amazement when a world turned upside down from normal expectation was revealed to her and, in a way this site reflects a "Through the Looking Glass" experience. A short time ago, people were going bananas over the word "fairytale" and now it's another semantic storm that's bringing the thunder(ing) and forked lightning. When I saw what was going on among Democratic Party supporters, I put a bet on John MCain, even before he won Florida. Not one of your candidates would represent my views but that's of no importance but I do want the next President of the US to show some understanding and respect for the lives of non-Americans as well as for those of Americans. I appreciate much about America - particularly free speech which allows someone like me to post comments about the US which are displeasing. Your poet, Emily Dickinson, wrote about "the wiles of words" so that words are important unless empty and false. In the end, there's only one American I really wish I could claim as Irish and that's Jack Nicholson. I'll be looking at "About Schmidt" later for the third time. You could have Bono instead - I can't stand preachy millionaires who hide their money in "tax havens" while pursuing a do-ggoder career. His latest gig was to turn up at the funeral of Senator Lantos of California, and sing a few screechy lines of "All you need is love" in honour of Mrs. Lantos. There are plenty Bono critics her, I'm telling you, who can spot a phoney a mile away. I'll keep supporting Hillary anyway because I'm deeply suspicious of the mainstream American media which, not that long ago, grovelled to George W. Bush.
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ncle Fester, I an be mercurial and now I'm thinking that "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
[Read the article: The "plagiarism" problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]might be more appropriate. There are a few McMurphys here but far too many who seem as if they're the real thing. There are even a "select" few who concentrate their considerable energy on ruminating on the sexual prowess (or lack of it) of others or on defecating and urinating. This does suggest that they have a Puritanical attitude of disgust for the human body but the Puritans didn't hang around all day waiting to ambush anyone, did they? On reflection, Miller probably got it right in "The Crucible" as witch-hunts can get very nasty and those Salem folk certainly knew how to do "nasty". I see the point you're making. Those who should know are of the opinion that we learned our English from the Elizabethans, so there's a fondness for linguistic finery but we've also had the Huguenots here and they were French Puritans. Not to mention the Gaelic language which still thrived until the l840s. So between the jigs and the reels, it's hard - well, impossible - to define it. I particularly like the Dublin dialogue in O'Casey's plays, a great combination of the sublime and the ridiculous, but "high-brows" would almost certainly prefer Swift who gave the word Yahoo to the English language. There's also Pandemonium in Milton's "Paradise Lost" but Id better stop now or someone might accuse me of being eccentric and Tom Payne, who's fascinated with gastro-enterology, could take a notion to call me a snob. In a country where people boast about attendinf Ivy League universities and posh schools, that is just another paradox but outsiders find many contradictions in the US. No Iraqi was involved in the attack on the Twin Towers, yet Iraq was attacked on the pretext of bringing "democracy" to an area where the first civilizations prospered. Perhaps democratising Saudi Arabia should be on the cards but everyone in the world knows that this is not a priority on the American agenda and also knows exactly why.