Letters to the Editor
Ballsee
Published Letters: 233 Editor's Choice: 19
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Cry Me A River
[Read the article: The tears of Snow]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We're supposed to be moved because a shill for this criminal Adminstration, on his debut, cries about his personal bout with cancer? Until I see him cry for the people that the cabal of criminals he works for have killed and maimed, the 2,400 young American service men and women whose lives have been wasted, blown away, and their friends and family, who must somehow find a way to live with the hole left in their lives. Until I hear him sob, uncontrollably, for the misery and loss inflicted upon the 13,000 who must find a way to live out their lives with their arms and legs gone, their eyes blown out, their skin burned off. Until I see him weep for the 30,000 Iraqis who've been destroyed because of the criminal behavior of the U.S. government, then I haven't got a single tear for Mr. Snow. I don't care how many self-pitying tears he cries for himself and his mother. All my tears are used up.
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The Code
[Read the article: "Disclaimer" uproar]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jesus, married? Anyone with half a brain knows that Jesus was gay.
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Fine writing, clear thinking
[Read the article: The billion-dollar gravestone]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is one of the best pieces I've ever read on Salon.com. Well written, finely tuned, spot on.
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I Remember Moma
[Read the article: My son, the stranger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My mother never slapped any of us in the face, never. She made a big point about that when we were all kids. She did however beat the crap out of my sister and I once for breaking a lamp that had belonged to her mother after she told us over and over to get out of the house because in our fighting and frolicing we were going to break something. We were 12 and 14. My father, from time to time, also disciplined us physically. My parents were not the spare-the-rod type. However, my father never whipped us quite as harshly, quite as uncontrollably as my mother did when we broke that lamp. She brought blood with an apple branch. I didn't like her very much for a long time after that but I came to forgive her for it years later. My father had died after a long illness about a year before, leaving my mother with five children at home. Considering the real life pressures she was under, no narcissim here, along with the grief and pain she must have been in, it's a wonder she didn't kill us. But she never, ever slapped any of us in the face. That's just beyond the pale.
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Our strange, crazy, wonky, unsexy, hysterical, phony press
[Read the article: Hurricane Al]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Right, even now that the press is discovering there is something significant to Al Gore, they can't avoid repeating the same nonsense about him they've peddled for years. Why did the crazy, hysterical press decide to hate him so much in 2000? The lazy, dull, shilling, shiftless press repeated as fact in every story the distortions about his internet statements, the lies about his Love Canal statements, his wooden personality (another case of too many DC consultants), his wonkiness (My god for a little wonkiness these days!) his privileged upbringing (like Bush didn't have one of those.) and his "put-on" Tennesse accent without even the appearance of effort to determine if any of it was actually true. You would expect this kind of lazy "reporting" from the strange, hysterical, unsexy, Fauxy news people, but not O'Hehir.
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Gore's Accent
[Read the article: Hurricane Al]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't care if Gore was raised on the moon surrounded by interplanetary linguists in tights, this is who his parents were:
Al Gore, Sr was born on December 26, 1907, in the mountain community of Granville, and moved to the Carthage area (that would be Tennessee, not Tunisia) when he was 2. He received an early education in the one-room Possum Hollow school and later became a teacher in the one-room school himself.
Pauline Gore was born Pauline LaFon in Palmersville, Tenn., and spent her childhood in Jackson, Tenn., before enrolling at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She was one of the first southern women to practice law.
These were his parents, whom I presume spent a great deal of time with Al as he was growing up, talking to him. It would be freakin' weird as hell if he didn't end up sounding somewhat like his parents. Please note that his parents were not from California or New York or Paris, France. He also spent time in Tennessee as a child surrounded, one can safely presume, by people from Tennessee. This "put-on Tennessee accent" smear against Gore springs from the tiresome prejudices and ignorances of non-Southerners who can't tell the difference between an educated southern accent and the Beverly Hillbillies.
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Respect
[Read the article: My son, the stranger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My mother believed slapping someone in the face was disrespectful even though god knows she whipped us, as I have described. I think my mother was right. Anne, I think you owe your son an apology, not for being angry with him (you're entitled to your feelings the same as he is) but for slapping him in the face. It's disrespectful, an unloving way to discipline a "child". Hopefully by this time you've already offered him the apology. He owes you one too, but you're the adult, right?, so you get to go first.