Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 173 Editor's Choice: 38
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Deja Vu Tet
[Read the article: Couldn't call it unexpected]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The bombing in the Green Zone is like the Tet Offensive in January 1968 when the Viet Cong attacked in all the provinces of South Vietnam, just a few months after General William Westmoreland said there was a light at the end of the Vietnam tunnel.
Cartoonists had a field day showing that light being a train or LBJ with his own flashlight looking for a way out.
If we cannot even protect the Iraqi parliament from suicide bombers, what good are we doing there?
Ask McCain how he feels about some of the merchants he visited during his photo op being kidnapped, tortured and murdered the next day.
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Hello, Imus Be Going
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree that getting rid of Imus (clear some room on the satellite, Howard) won't help the greater problem of not being able to have a reasoned and honest national discussion about race and gender issues, but ignoring such blowhards is not the answer.
I never listened to Imus and had no idea he had such a long history of racial and sexual insensitivity. But several million people did listen to him and had their ideas shaped by his racism and sexism. It may be naive, but the airwaves belong to the public or so the Federal Communications Act of 1934 says. Such offensive speech does not belong on our airwaves. We should be informed and elevated by the discourse we hear on the public airwaves, not debased by it.
If Mr. Imus wants to stand on a soapbox or write a blog to vent his rantings, he is protected by the First Amendment and more power to him. But on the radio he should be made to advance our thinking about who we are as a nation and as people. I hope Rev. Sharpton and everyone else who advocated tossing Imus will now turn their attention to Rush Limbaugh and the other radio blowhards who poison any national discourse with their lies and insults. I hope these advocates will also take on the hip hop lyrics that demean women. I don't advocate censorship; everyone can buy the CDs or download the songs from the Internet, but that doesn't mean these songs have to be carried on the public airwaves.
We cannot prevent racist, sexist and just plain stupidity from being thrown at us by non-broadcast media. There's whole cable channel devoted to it (you know who you are, Fox). But the broadcast media (radio and TV) are supposed to give us unbiased and reliable information so we can make informed debate and decisions about where we are going as a nation. Imus was hindering that cause.
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Neat and tidy
[Read the article: He didn't mean to leak Plame's identity, either]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Karl Rove deleted 4 million emails to keep his in box clean?
I guess he missed the class on folders and archiving.
But maybe he's the smartest guy in the building. Pat Nixon kept telling Dick to burn the tapes.
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What we don't know
[Read the article: Compassionate conservatism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We don't know that no one tried to stop this guy. Maybe they did and they all died trying. We don't know the layout of the rooms or where everyone was sitting. We don't know if he killed those closest to him first so anyone trying to reach him had to climb over bodies. We don't know. I hope we will find out from the forensic investigation that is going on now.
Before we condemn the dead and wounded who can't defend themselves let's simply mourn them. And try to to think of ways to stop the violence we perpetrate on ourselves.
This is a violent country with a history based on violence against others and ourselves. Besides what to do about the easy availability of guns, we must figure out how to cleanse this violent streak from our national psyche.