I've been wanting to say this after reading many of your letters. 1) Email is a terrible way to communicate and a terrible way to maintain a relationship - especially a long distance one. For some people, it generates misunderstandings and miscommunications that are impossible to correct. Nothing replaces speaking to a person. 2) Writing is also a precarious way to communicate. Here is my rule of thumb. Love letters are always successful. Letters of admonishment neve work. This is because you have no control over the written word once it has left your keyboard. Many of us think it is more exact than the spoken word and can set the record straight. In truth, it is quite the opposite. One has only to think of the many interpretations of the Bible and the blood spilled over the written word to understand this. So in love and in many other types of relationships, nothing replaces real dialogue. And e-mail is the saddest form of communication that has ever plagued humanity.

A quick search of the Pro-Quest, New York Times database came up wth a wonderful display advertisement for the Franklin, featuring Amelia Earhart. Here is the reference and some of the text.

SHE WANTED AIRCOOL1NG AS DOES

EVERY FLYER SHE WANTED

SMART STYLLNC AS DOES EVERY WOMAN

AMELIA EARHART

FOUND BOTH IN FRANKLIN.

Without air-cooling, Amelia Earhart might never have made her Transatlantic flight.

I can send the pdf of the ad to an e-mail address.

Reference for Advertisement

New York Times, May 4, 1931; pg. 13

I'm so sick of this crap. My African American grandmother went to a Catholic Church where the priest forced her to sit in the back while preaching segregation. Did she agree with all of his views? What is wrong with you people? Is it still 1971?

Yes, Hillary does have balls. So do Dick Cheney and George Bush. She showed us all that she had balls when she voted for the Iraq war. Balls are important. They've always been important. That's why in a real lynching, that's one of the first things the posse goes after. The black man's balls. But is it possible for women to have a strength and courage that has nothing to do with this bullshit that leads to wars and castration? My mother had such strength and courage. She was the strongest, most caring person I ever knew. When a television caught on fire in our house, she called the fired department, sent us six children onto the front lawn, and five minutes later, came bursting out the door with the flaming TV wrapped up in sleeping bags and threw it at the feet of the firemen. A single parent, she did what she had to do. This wasn't, however, balls. I would never belittle my mother with that type of language or with trying to pin onto her some of the ugliest aspects of the male anatomy. Yeah, Hillary has balls. So did Margaret Thatcher. Mother Theresa didn't. I'm sick of people with balls. People with balls are always trying to get those of someone else - Saddam Hussein, Ho Chi Minh, Salvador Allende, etc., etc. I'd like to see what this country would be like if it were run by someone like my mother. Someone with steely eyed courage. Someone with unmatchable strength. Someone with true wisdom and judgment. Someone with saint-like caring (Still fallible, mind you. Very fallible. But that is her strength, isn't it?). And someone who couldn’t give a damn about (and would sometimes only offer a little derisive giggle about) the balls of others.

The argument goes: we need more colonialism to solve the problems of colonialism. When you speak to most American college students, they think that colonialism refers to a furniture style, or to the American period that precedes the revolution. If you speak to many others that think they know about colonialism, whatever existed before the "enlightenment" of England or France or even the modern state of Israel were savage, warring, disorganized tribes killing each other. In many ways, the horrors of WWII overshadowed the horrors of colonialism throughout what we call the third world. What is the state of Somalia? What is the state of Iraq? All of these countries knew Western occupation in the past. And they know the fact of neo-colonialism now (the exploitation of their labor and resources for the comfort -- the way of life -- of the West). Somehow, awareness of exploitation has become some sort of touchy feely liberal thing. But if current politics tell us anything, they should tell us that you can't completely kill off opposition or the people who disagree with you or the people that you dislike. The killing takes a toll -- not just on the devastated populations, but on the killers. Horrors are not forgotten, they live on in memory and even in political structures and in failed regimes. The real problem is that if we pull out of Iraq, someone will come in and disinterestedly solve the problem with money and resources - probably China or India, who could use the oil.

Maybe Carney sees the writing on the wall. If he does, he'll probably try like hell to secure some sort of lucrative employment for when he leaves office. How do you think he might do this?