Letters to the Editor
gradysu
Published Letters: 158 Editor's Choice: 40
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What is this "we"?
[Read the article: Bush on the lesson of Vietnam: Stay longer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know he's talking about America, but still, just the use of the word "we" coming from Bush when talking about Vietnam is obscene. He and Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney did everything short of sawing off a limb to avoid Vietnam -- Bush couldn't even fulfill his obligation to what was known as the "Champagne Corps" of the National Guard -- and now Bush is going to preach to us about the lessons learned there?
And even as a Monday-morning armchair quarterback, he mangles the war's history and cause-and-effect chronology so badly it's a wonder he wasn't struck by lightning where he stood.
As for bin Laden (who Bush has said he never thinks about and doesn't consider important), he and his ilk also believe that America is offensive for allowing women to walk the streets uncloaked, to drive cars, etc. By Bush's reasoning -- and boy, do I use that word loosely -- we should turn ourselves into a radical right-wing Muslim theocracy just so we don't piss them off. They also attack the West for its materialism -- and yet Bush didn't seem to think we needed to worry about their opinion of us when his sole exhortation of "sacrifice" after 9/11 was to go shopping.
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I was in Weekly World News!!
[Read the article: Farewell, Bat Boy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Way back in 1987, I saved my cat, who had broken into a bag of garbage and was choking on a Cornish hen bone, by using the Heimlich maneuver. Over lunch that week, I told the story to a friend of mine, who worked at the NY Post. I was just telling it to him the way I'd told it to all my friends, but he suddenly got this glazed, almost hypnotized look on his face, which I soon realized meant "This would be a great New York Post story!!" So he wrote it up and I appeared on what he informed me was the "bimbo spread," on page 7, opposite the fabled Page Six column (imagine how flattering that is!!). Then I had to endure the taunts of friends calling me saying, "So, you saved your cat with the Heimlich maneuver -- and then you called ... the New York Post?!?" Normally this would have involved lots of explanation on my part to get out of it, but I pretty much had them cold when I said, "...and, um, how did you happen to SEE it in the New York Post?!?"
Several weeks later, he came by my office, seriously pissed, with a copy of Weekly World News. It had lifted the story -- including the photo -- and simply slapped on a new byline and lead. It wasn't humiliating enough to be in the Post -- now I was in the Weekly World News!! But of course I still have a copy of it...
So there you go -- not everything in there was made up!!
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He "apologized" after lying for months and committing crimes for years
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Vick's "apology" -- which he recited in a flatline voice reminiscent of hostages reading propaganda -- seemed to me to be directed at the judge and at anyone in the audience who may be thinking about writing to the judge. It didn't seem to contain any real emotion or remorse.
I wasn't much moved by his "finding Jesus," either; I would have been more impressed if he became the first high-profile criminal in history not to find Him.
Vick said he was "immature" -- as if his offenses consisted of making fart noises with his hands. He said he made "bad decisions." Sorry, Mike -- ordering day-old sushi is a bad decision. Torturing and killing animals -- over the course of years, so it was essentially a lifestyle -- is an obscenity and a crime.
I appreciate the point that other athletes, who have abused women or even been complicit in killing people, have gotten outrageously insufficient sentences and have incited little, if any, public outrage. But granting leniency to Michael Vick wouldn't right any of those terrible wrongs.
This man and his friends set up a business venture whose sole objective was to force dogs to fight until one was killed or had "underperformed," at which point the dog was electrocuted, drowned, shot, or slammed repeatedly into the ground. The deliberateness of these atrocities, the level of premeditation involved, and the length of time the operation persisted is disturbing and downright chilling.
I adopted my dog from a shelter; he had been so badly abused that he would recoil in fear when anyone tried to pet him. It took a lot of love and reassurance to get him to the point where he didn't view the world and everyone in it as a potential source of pain and terror. We hold these animals' lives in our hands, for good or for ill. When I look at my dog, and I think about what the dogs in Vick's kennels went through, it breaks my heart. And I'm guessing that every pet owner who called or emailed the NFL or Nike asking them to dump Vick felt the same way. They looked at their dogs, and they couldn't imagine how sick anyone would have to be to want to hurt or kill them. This man does not deserve to be back in uniform. And the fact that athletes who committed even more serious crimes continue to play is certainly infuriating, but it does not change Vick's complete unsuitability for a return trip to the NFL.
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Double standards, anyone?
[Read the article: Craig gives up committee assignments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't remember any Republican calling for David Vitter to resign when he admitted to frequenting prostitutes, which is also a sex-related crime, and which goes even further than what Larry Craig did in merely soliciting sex. Gee, I wonder why that is... oops! I forgot! Vitter's state has a Democratic governor, who would appoint his successor.
The moral of the story if you're a Republican? Commit as much depravity as you like, as long as the governor's mansion is in the hands of the opposition party.