Letters to the Editor
Jeff Bowles
Published Letters: 111 Editor's Choice: 12
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waiters with dreadlocks...
[Read the article: The joys of home fries and wine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry, folks. You can be as p.c. as you want, but in the cities I've been in, half of the people with dreadlocks have stuff in their hair that looks gross.
It is almost as if "dreadlocks" means "no shampoo zone."
It is EXACTLY the same sort of thing as a bachelor who wears the same shirt for a month, until it has the right "feel" and can stand in the corner on its own. In fact, perhaps the same guys.
Is it racist to say so? No.
It is, however, probably racist to assume that someone wearing dreadlocks is black. Chris did not say that, but the p.c. types complaining sure seem to be assuming that.
Who's racist, again?
J'accuse, indeed.
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Why just Imus?
[Read the article: Firing Imus was the right thing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If anyone would care to explain why Imus should be fired for racism and sexism, and rap artists denigrating niggers-and-whores should be given our esteem, I'd love to hear it.
[And don't give me this "you said the N-word" crap. There's a term for deciding what actions someone should be allowed, based on the color of their skin. It's not a one-way street.]
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Mayberry?
[Read the article: Upending the Mayberry Machiavellis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's interesting watching people write that they don't understand the "Mayberry" comment. They seem like they are trying to be polite... but want to find a way to say that it's an un-p.c. putdown.
"Mayberry Machiavellis" is a reference to the country bumkins, the hicks, the fools who slept through 8th-grade civics and are now trying to reorganize the structure of the federal government.
Is the term "Mayberry" a bit of a slam against small-town folks? Sure it is. (And that's probably not nice.)
But imagine if Gomer and Goober, the two stupidest people in Mayberry, decided that they'd found God and wanted to make the US into a theocracy...
... or that they wanted to tell everyone that they were making it into a theocracy, when they really were being manipulated by power brokers who wanted a fascist state.
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The lesson of the Nazis...
[Read the article: Upending the Mayberry Machiavellis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There were less than 20, some put it as less than 10 people directly responsible for Nazi Germany's rise to power and the awful stuff that came from it. Many were shot or eventually tried (and killed) after they lost power.
The neocons rank in that number, and they seem to be as destructive and caustic. (They will, at least some of them, retire as billionaires or very wealthy millionaires.)
What's the lesson that they seem to have learned from the Nazis?
"Have the person who has the most power, be the least visible. Let the people take their 'pot shots', if they care to, at someone who does not matter to 'the big plans'."
Note that the neocons found a likeable stooge (if you call Dubya's "aw, shucks, I was a C-student at Yale like you might've been" likeable) to install into the visible seat of power.
There are undoubtedly some fine examples from the monarchies of the past, and from Roman times, that follow this model. Installing a three-year-old as "king" and then running the country as his regent? It was always "good work if you can find it." (Occasionally such a regent was responsible and decent, but .... certainly not always.)
Is that what Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld found, in the Bush family? A three-year-old (including occasional tantrums and profound intellectual laziness) they could talk into, well, anything?
Might be. But it strikes me as being "too clean" an explanation. Even a teenage-mind would eventually do something decent, something striking, just to show that he was capable of doing something on his own.
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It is all about the Saudis, isn't it?
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't this about the Saudis, who seem to be in bed with the Bushies, getting *US* to expend our national assets to destablize Iraq instead of the Saudis spending their money for the same goal?
I'd love to see the neocons meet the same fate as the organizers of the Nazi party.
They're cut from the same fabric, and (alas) the public is just as dumbfounded about how to cope with them as the Germans in the 1930's.
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Kelly Q has a good idea. No bullets.
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps "Kelly Q" has it right.
If you wanna own a gun, and are very responsible about keeping it away from thieves and children, for whatever reason... go ahead.
But buy the bullets immediately before going to a shooting range, and leave the excess / unused ones there. Same for hunting. Same for anything else.
It's like alcohol or various so-called recreational drugs or bags of cheetos (when you're trying to lose weight) -- get what you need for a specific event / moment, but no more. (Don't tell me that you'll let a giant Cosco-size bag of cheetos sit half-used on the shelf for a year.)
Interesting that a 21-year-old is writing about wanting guns, "because dad had them," at the same time that a nut-job student tears into a Virginia campus.