Letters to the Editor
Thelma Ritter
Published Letters: 94 Editor's Choice: 10
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Offensive, how?
[Read the article: Selective defenders of free expression]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I honestly don't see how Kathy Griffin's comments were blasphemous. Yes, she told Jesus to suck it, but to me it sounded as if she was lampooning people who gushed about Jesus in response to winning awards. If it is offensive to mention Jesus or God in any context, we're really in trouble.
I would think these people would take more offense at saying Jesus is responsible for Grammies and touchdowns. I think Jesus would agree with me, too.
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Proof
[Read the article: The Mormons are coming]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Amazing! Yesterday I was visited by an angel who swept in from the sky in the form of Talullah Bankhead with the body of a giant panda!!
I imagine it's too late now for Andrew O'Hehir to prove that didn't happen.
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Huh
[Read the article: The Mormons are coming]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, when Christians say that because of the sins of atheists, feminists, and abortionists there's going to be hell to pay and we're all going to die painful wretched deaths, should I be reporting this to the FBI? Maybe I should warn Richard Dawkins and NOW, too. Sounds like a threat to me.
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Embarrassing
[Read the article: Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The complete breakdown of any semblance of diplomatic restraint being voiced in the media and by presidential candidates towards the president of Iran seems embarrassing. The fact that he is an anti-semitic nutjob leading a despotic theocratic state is beside the point. Would there be a similar outcry if Prince Bandar were to request a visit to Ground Zero? No doubt he has some nutty views, too, and his country produced quite a few hijackers who took part in that attack.
The US is supposed to be strong enough enough to withstand the posturing and frothing of a despicable foreign leader. As a nation that touts itself as a bastion of freedom and liberty, it leaves itself open to criticism when it bars people from visiting Ground Zero, no matter how repugnant those people seem.
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puzzling and chilling
[Read the article: Lee Bollinger's big moment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How is it possible that the nominal leader of a thuggish repressive theocracy, a man who holds repugnant views up and down the line, visits the US, and somehow the US ends up looking and sounding like a pack of crazy Yahoos?
The public wave of hatred seems a little chilling, and not just because the crowds' "Go to Hell" signs remind me a little of the intemperate signs you see people waving in the Middle East from time to time. It's because everyone seems to be accepting the label of this man as the new Hitler. He's the new Public Enemy #1. We hung our old new Hitler, but the mess we created for the pleasure of doing so will be with us for years. With the public being whipped into a new froth of hatred, what will we be willing to do to get rid of this Hitler?
Does no one with a mouthpiece in the entire country understand the meaning of diplomacy? Or restraint?
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Democrats, prepare to lose
[Read the article: The presidential Hillary Clinton?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Presidential? What kind of distinction is that? Given what is in the White House right now, presidential could be synonymous with "moronic."
I'm sure any day now we'll start hearing the word electable, too. As in, "John Kerry is the most electable." As in, "This chunk of Styrofoam is electable." Take the person who is giving the blandest, most evasive answers in debates, the one who spends time pandering to people who wouldn't vote for him/her if the only other person on the ballot was Pol Pot, and annoint this person with the words "presidential." Oh, and belittle the other candidates until they really wouldn't be electable.
This was really the sort of piece I would expect to see in Time magazine, not War Room.
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Hitler
[Read the article: "Nazis" and "Hitler" -- the Right's casual, trivializing political insults]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For decades Limbaugh has referred to any woman who disagreed with him as a femi-nazi. I don't recall anyone ever raising a peep in protest. I guess because it's just so hilarious.
That said (or maybe because of that) haven't the terms Hitler and Nazi have become fairly meaningless in public discourse? No one seems to understand the Nazi era or WWII anymore anyway, least of all the right-wing bobbleheads. Listening to pundits, you would think America jumped into war the minute Hitler came to power and whupped him single-handed. Or that we jumped in to save a thankless population of French people from occupation.
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Whatever his color
[Read the article: Clarence Thomas casts himself in "Native Son"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thomas is not exceptional enough to sit on the Supreme Court. Even if Anita Hill had never appeared, he should never have been confirmed. He was put there as the ultimate case of affirmative action--a black justice died, and they needed to find a conservative black man to replace him.
But his behavior on the court (never asking questions) and his written opinions with their skewed logic show that he should never have been confirmed. Shame on the Senate. Thomas is the George W. Bush of the Supreme Court.