Letters to the Editor
RobbySh
Published Letters: 27
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Affirmative action
[Read the article: Clarence Thomas is not a sellout]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't plow thru the 140+ responses but in the 9 you all chose, you didn't address Thomas' personal complaint about affirmative , at least as practiced at Yale. Yes, Yale does practice affirmative action for whites--mainly whites. Yes, by their connections they do get well-paying jobs that are denied perhaps to others who are less connected. In his book Thomas played the game, was a good...boy..and his fancy degree from Yale gained him nothing. He felt played, he was played. The white guys felt good because they gave him a hand-out. But they wouldn't give him a real chance between they thought his degree tainted. I am not saying this is true. I don't know it is true, but if I were a "scholarship boy" and I felt as he does, I would also spit on this kind of condescension, this white liberal racism that treats minorities like handicapped people, expects little of them, and think they have little to offer in return.
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Islamofascism
[Read the article: Blowback from the GOP's holy war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Probably should be called Jihadism, because its proponents are engaged, like the first Muslims, in a war of religious conquest. But all you liberals who are obsessed with "theocrats." as if someone like Falwell was to be compared with someone like Khomeini, who hates everything that liberals--and conservatives--stand for, and who have no comittment at all to science, except as something to be exploited, need to look reality in the face and see that that is exactly what the Jihadists want. That is what any Muslim wants, any Muslim who actually believes in the Koran. As to the potential power of these groups, think of the Spanish infantry backed by American silver. Thank of Oliver Cromwell backed by the power of Great Britain. More to the point, think of the Grand Turk Sulieman who came as near as Napoleon later did to conquering all Europe. It wasn't so long along ago that the thought of the Janisarries struck fear in the hearts of all Europe. Had not the Grand Turk's not lost themselves in the pleasures of their harems; had not Europe used science to develop its economy and create modern instruments of war, then Europe would have had a very different history, and no one today would be spouting the word "theocrat." But let us ignore history and thus smugly assume that no "reasonable" person believes "all that." Well, the pope has gently warn you that the Jihadists--and Muslims in general--are NOT reasonable,and they have the equivalent of American silver to spend.
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Obama and blackness
[Read the article: Multiracial man]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Iread this
Since he looks like what most Americans think of as a black man, talks like one, and would be treated like a black man on the average city street -- that is to say, feared and suspected of wrongdoing -- he must be one.
And thought: Is the writer whacked or something? Obama is the kind of black man who, like Will Smith or Morgan Freeman or Sidney Poitier, is "on the average street. " totally unmenacing. He drips "class." He would just have to say a few sentences to dispell any doubts that he is OK. Henry Higgins has nothing to teach this guy. Oy would be interesting to learn how he fits among the "black bourgeoisie," in D.C.
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The Enlightenment Myth
[Read the article: The troublesome priest]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I deplore the archbishop's statement but not because I suspect he is trying to sneak religion back into the public square by some sort of alliance with the Muslims. Rather it further undermines the influence of Christianity by equating it with Islam. IAC, I am mused when the writer speaks of "myths" without acknowledging that secularism has its own myth with an attendent faith. An important part of this myth is the delusion that society is composed of autonomous individuals who lives their lives without any permanent relationships except that of subject of an all powerful state. Secularists seek to dissolve all intermediate bodies with claims on the loyalty of the person: church, family, business. In their universe only the polis, or maybe only the cosmopolis matters.
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Hussein
[Read the article: Obama should be proud to be named Hussein]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cole can't be serious. Having the name Hussein today is a bit like having the name Adolf in 1946.
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Did I see the same press conference as Koppleman?
[Read the article: Bush, reluctant to give up the spotlight, endorses McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]a strange report ends with a silly comment:
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Wright makes black.
[Read the article: Moving beyond Obama and race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama is a "typical" mullato, or like what they called in the old West, A half-breed. He has to decide in which world he belongs, and often he suffers from discrimination from the denizens of each. In large part this is determined by his appearance. If he looks "white," he can
"pass" into that world. If not, then he can only be "black." The question then becomes how black he will be, and THAT will be determined by who he chooses as mentors. Obama choose Wright. The problem is we don't know just how "Wright" he is.
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All things in moderation
[Read the article: Of condoms, Clinton, Obama and McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having taught high school students for forty years,having been one once upon a time, I can only marvel at the naivte of those who think that sexuality can be taught with any expectation of success. Morals, like religion, is best caught rather than taught. Students may claim to want to be individuals but most desperately want to conform, and they will conform most closely to what their peers do, to what they see the rest of society doing, than to the demands of any curriculum. Well, during the past forty years ago, society has decided that women can have sex freely, as freely as men--that sexual restraint is somehow unnatural. Only nature has its own standards: it says that too much of a goodthing is bad for the human body: too much sex is like too much food and drink. Excess, by the most pragmatic of tests is not good. Drink bad water, and you get typhoid; have sex with the wrong people, and you get AIDS. Abstractly kids kno this stuff, and the majority can take care of themselves, sex ed or no sex ed. But there is always that minority that rushes in where angels fear to tread. Nothing the school can do.