Letters to the Editor
Scott Bodenheimer
Published Letters: 35 Editor's Choice: 5
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Caesar's Wife
[Read the article: Democrats ruining America's future]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I couldn't care less how tenuous the connections between the UAE and the company overseeing US ports happens to be. Perhaps the UAE is the most businesslike and secular of Islamic monarchies. Perhaps their port company's top management is all American. That's not good enough, and it's not safe enough, because their security concerns are based upon cost benefit analysis, and mininum compliance to laws and regulations. They don't have a stake in protecting their home ports from terrorism, and they don't have a political responsability to insure that the port remains safe and open. And yes of course I understand how our economy and our security interconnect with all sorts of corporations and governments, some of which are inimical to our liberty, if not downright belligerent. The point is, whether it's just a political point or not, is that many transactions with particular countries or businesses are detrimental to our own society, and we should be very careful about entangling ourselves any more than we must, with despotic governments, or any government that has doctinaire approaches to basic human rights. As it is, we have enough trouble coordinating our domestic security concerns with companies chartered by democratically elected governments, than to invite in even the slightest possiblity of danger from a corporation owned be the UAE.
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The Charms of Palpable Evil
[Read the article: Destination: Venice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've been to Venice twice, when I was 20, and again when I was 37. The last time was in April, a good time of the year to go, avoid summer like the plague. Venice is truly beautiful, but as in many European cities, the beauty was bought and paid for by war, slavery, and outright genocide and theft. That's what makes Venice so special, because you can get a sense of that just walking around town. Venice is an wonderfully evil place, populated by particularly venomous and avaricious people, who hate tourists, in only the way people who are wholly dependent on tourism can be. Che maleducato! You can sense centuries of treachery and debauchery in every little alley, and you can smell the decay in every jade green canal. Go to the Ghetto, and visit the Synogogues. Stay on Dorsoduro, which is higher than the rest of Venice, and then you can sleep soundly when the aqua alta sirens go off in the middle of the night. One of the best things about Venice is its airport, it's fun for the "bus" to town to be a boat. All the books on Venice are invaluable, but see the movies as well - Visconti's "Death in Venice", "Don't Look Now", Fellini's "Casanova", "The Comfort of Strangers (particularly nasty), "Eva" with Jeanne Moreau, the recent "Merchant of Venice" with Al Pacino, "Summertime" with Katherine Hepburn. The best revenge on rude Venetians is to rent an apartment and cook for yourself, especially if you're comfortable preparing seafood. Buy a bottle of Fragolino, strawberry flavored sparkling wine, and sit over by the Dogana and watch the sun set. Don't stay in the city all the time, take a boat to another island like Torcello for the day, you'll enjoy so much the leavetaking, and then Venice will charm you like a Sorceress again when you return.
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Hysterical
[Read the article: Putin's boy troubles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hey what actually is the rate of child molestation from presidents with huge entourages who are being videotaped nowadays? I'm no fan of Putin, but do you understand what subtext you're implying? - that any sort of non-sexual affection from a man to a child is molestation. Weird maybe, silly surely, but molestation? That's just paranoid and hysterical thinking. If a woman president had kissed a kid on the belly, would you have been concerned? would that have been news? Probably not. I think that kid has a better chance of being scarred for life by people like you actually, that can't discern the difference between sexual and non-sexual touch, and then need to be a drama queen about it. You'd give that kid a complex over something that was just a strange moment. What do you think happens to a kid whose only frame of reference for physical touch comes from people like you?
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Ibanez - Los Cuatros Jinetes
[Read the article: Destination: Argentina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - A fascinating novel that was made into a couple of terrible movies, about a French Argentine clan with German relatives, in the years surrounding World War I, when Argentineans were intoxicated with their prosperity.
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Tim Grieve is a Pussy, and so are the Dems that agree with him
[Read the article: New Jersey Supreme Court: State must allow same-sex unions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why should Americans trust government to Democrats if they can't stand up and fight for what's right? The Dems have had victory in this mid term election virtually handed to them on a silver platter, due to the solid record of Republican incompetence. If they lose any races at all in this coming election then they're not worth voting for.