Letters to the Editor
matttroke
Published Letters: 19 Editor's Choice: 7
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there are other holidays
[Read the article: A "loss of will" and capitulation "to the worst elements in our culture"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Newsflash: some recipients of Christmas cards celebrate other holidays. Perhaps "Happy Holidays" is simply more polite than wishing a non-Christian "Merry Christmas" or more efficient than figuring out what holiday everyone on the White House Christmas card list celebrates and making sure they get the right one.
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more and more like aaron burr every day
[Read the article: Cheney shoots a man in Texas, but you don't need to know]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Has any other sitting VP shot a man? Or attempted a coup? Ok, neither attempted a coup, but Burr did try to start his own country in the southwest, and Cheney is behind the biggest power grab of the era of the imperial presidency.
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taking an oath
[Read the article: Gonzales: I didn't mean what I said when I said what I said]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]FYI: I know that a lot of hay has been made over the failure to get Gonzales to take an oath. But I'm pretty sure that lying to Congress is a crime whether you take the oath or not. I believe its called the False Statements Act. Other than the photo-op and some really bad PR, I'm not sure what the legal significance of that oath is. Can anyone shed some light on this?
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knowing your rights
[Read the article: Hopeless]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Its kind of an interesting poll, but does it mean anything? It would be more interesting to know how many people know that they have the right to free speech, and a free press, and to assemble, and to worship. As far as I can tell, this poll only asks if people know where in a particular document they can find these rights. Its like asking people what the 8th Commandment is instead of asking what the Commandments are. Knowing your rights seems an awful lot more important than naming the Amendment they're in. I suspect, though, that the responses to a poll asking people to list rights that they have would also be more than a bit disappointing.
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unfair use
[Read the article: Ann Coulter and plagiarism by the numbers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Crown's comments are predictable, but wrong. Of course, they'll deny that its plagiarism, because if it is, they are liable along with Coulter should any of the unattributed actual writers of the words Coulter stole decide to sue her. Someone with more experience than I with copyright law should correct me if I'm wrong, but the number of words only matters if its attributed to the author. At a certain length, even the attribution becomes problematic if permission to use the quote is not obtained.
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court stripping
[Read the article: The "option" of checks and balances]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The debate over the warrantless spying (if there's even been a debate?) tends to miss an important side issue. While Congress has the power to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts such that only certain courts, or no courts at all, have the power to hear certain cases, Congress generally does NOT have the power to eliminate jurisdiction for constitutional issues. So, while Congress can say that only FISA can issue warrants under this spying program, Congress can NOT say that the Supreme Court can't review the constitutionality of any aspect of the program.
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it pains me to say it, but maybe chris hitchens was right
[Read the article: Bush on 9/11: Come together -- behind me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, not about Saddam's attempts to get yellowcake from Nigeria. He's still a crackpot on that one. I mean about Ari Fleischer. Yesterday, Hitch wrote a piece for Slate defending Fleischer's "watch what you say" comment. He made the point that if you read the whole transcript, Fleischer appears to be commenting both on what Bill Maher said and on a racist comment made by a Republican congressman. It really does appear that Fleischer's choice of words were poor. Instead of an ominous and intimidating message, it ironically looks more like a call to people to be more politically correct in their own choice of rhetoric given the heightened sensitivity of the times. Maybe, as Hitch suggests, it's time the left drops the bashing of Fleischer on this particular point. There are plenty of other legitimately ominous, intimidating and un-American rhetoric to bash the Bush gang on.
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what's this strange feeling?
[Read the article: White House won't condemn Saddam spectacle]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It feels kind of like I agree with Tony Snow? How could that possibly be? Well, I don't agree with all of what he said, but he's on to one thing. The hullabaloo over what happened at Hussein's hanging is incomprehensible to me. With the amount of ink (and electrons) spilled over the filming and taunting at the hanging, some truly important stories could have been written. Sure, the story may drive home a couple of points about how the Iraqi and U.S. governments are inept/callous, but I'm pretty sure we had enough evidence of this already. News it's not.
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the catch 22
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]King,
You've caught on to the basic contradictory nature of today's sports fan. We think our sports are awesome. And we want our sports to be clean. But we'd much rather talk about our sports awesomeness than talk about how unclean it is. Somehow we'd like it to be clean without the talking about its uncleanliness getting in the way of the talking about its awesomeness.
Unfortunately, the only way its ever going to get clean is if the media pays a lot of attention, ongoing attention, no punches pulled attention, to how dirty it is.
Oh, and also, we like to complain.
Carry on.
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not an easy poll to read
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a little late to the game in commenting on this article, but I didn't really see my take on it reflected in the comments. I apologize if someone else made these points and I missed it. Here goes...
I don't know what this poll means and neither do any of you. Its not a very good poll. On the surface it says almost nothing about whether racism exists or not. What it does say is that black people think there's more racism than white people think there is. So there you have it: blacks and whites have different views on how much racism exists. This is not a surprising or useful result.
I'd like to see a poll that asks the same question of Jews and Latin-Americans and Catholics and Asians and any other minority religious or ethnic group that may have suffered the effects of some kind of -ism. I don't know, but I think there's a possibility that these groups would also give the racism exists answer at a higher rate than whites.
Does racism exist? Probably. Does this poll ask or answer that question? No.