Letters to the Editor
dwg
Published Letters: 140 Editor's Choice: 18
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Hold your applause
[Read the article: "The first time I was back since the storm ... drugs were everywhere"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Busiest port in the country. 4th busiest in the world. Founded at an extremely providential point on the largest river system in the northern hemisphere. Main urban center of southern Louisiana, which holds 11% of the nation's petroleum reserves and a fifth of the natural gas reserves. Chief prize for the largest land acquisition in the history of our country. It's called the Louisiana Purchase, and it's synonymous with the historical importance of New Orleans. If you're anywhere from Montana to Oklahoma, Minneapolis to Little Rock, there but for us go you.
The city was founded on a natural levee of the Mississippi as it turned towards the Gulf. It was never below sea level until parts of the surrounding swamps were converted to housing in the 40's. It is sinking (not unlike many coastlines), in part because of hardcore engineering to keep the river in place, and in part because of the wholesale national sucking out of oil and resources from the coastal environment. It has variously been the 3rd or 4th largest city in the country, a pestilent stew of recurring diseases and the center of a virulent and profitable slave trade. French, Spanish, Indian, African, Caribbean, Anglo-Saxon, German, Italian, Irish, Jewish, Vietnamese; it has a polyglot culture like no other on the planet. It is ground zero to the only indigenous American art form - jazz. One of the pressure points of the New World.
In 1722, four years after being founded, a hurricane nearly destroyed it. Here we are again.
Cruel drugs and debris aside - it could be saved for the cost of a month of Bush's war, the cost of the Marshall Plan. If Clinton were here, the lifeline would have been thrown long ago. Its inhabitants are plunging back into work to save their homes - completely grass roots - with unfailing hope and utter uncertainty. It's a coalition of the willing: no one has to move back, including baby thugs. So much for the blameless.
This resourceful city, which is running out of resources, will recover on its own, or it won't. But it won't be for lack of sympathy from so many good Americans touched by its plight, nor for lack of vitriol from armchair urbanists who would see a great city go down without missing a beat. It is defenseless and media-less, unlike New York, and so everyone's free to take pot shots.
Do your worst..........to some of us, it is still buried treasure.
And remember - when oil and temperatures are through the roof; when tornadoes increase, breadbaskets dry up; the north freezes and southwest burns; when Florida sinks or a city shakes, by earth or dirty bomb - We Were There First. First great American city to die of incompetence and neglect and man-skewed nature - with no infrastructure funds, or federal (or local) leadership of any sort, in sight.
Wow - we're the avant garde. If we make it, we'll tell you how.
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and then we can all go live at brian's house
[Read the article: "The first time I was back since the storm ... drugs were everywhere"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]sorry for the double posting
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From the Doubt-Driven
[Read the article: The anti-Crichton]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What if global warming is caused by whales?
But whatever, I've driven by Michael Crichton's house. He has the weirdest garden around - it's filled with plants from every different climate zone on the planet, all set cheek by jowl like there's no such thing as water management. Funny how those things work out.
Thanks for any post that mentions that World Bank guys are evil. Gotta be the Wolf Whammy.
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alice in extreme-wonderland
[Read the article: The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not curiouser and curiouser, insaner and insaner.
My blood boiled when I read that headline. Please Salon, follow up on this thoroughly and quickly. If this is indeed a trend (or even a large incident) I will personally lead a column of last-strawed Americans to Washington to kick these two maniacs out: Cheney with his Halliburton thumbprint on Walter Reed Hospital, and new corporate offices in Iraq/Iran-adjacent Dubai; W sniffing his butt.
Take care of these soldiers - take care of us! We need leadership, desperately. Get rid of those that would make a soldier, or a nation, suffer for their private profit and criminal malfeasance. I don't care if the damned dog ends up president - what the hell's the difference at this point?! Gloves off, now.
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Anger where anger is due
[Read the article: The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's not a single poster on this board who doesn't want this nightmare to end and get the troops back home. These young kids are not just voters - they are our country's future, and our shield against true threats, not engineered ones. There's been enough subterfuge from this nasty regime to screw with anybody's head.
Nobody here is running policy - the supreme assholes at the top are. They deserve every bit of our anger and united opposition. They thrive when we can't get it together. This one requires it - let's act, call, anything. I can't wait to see Jim Webb take on this one.
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Dear Salon:
[Read the article: Hillary vs. Obama: It's a drawl!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am astonished - what breathless horseshit. I know you think it's cutting edge, and media-savvy, and that Ms. Paglia has her fans - but it's so awful, so completely shameless and intellectually dishonest, and I don't think you have a clue. It's one of the worst things I've read in Salon, right up there with Ms. Dickinson urging OJ to die.
You have so many good writers; good lord - why?
The utterly dismissive Hillary-bashing (potentially our first woman president, I've heard), hard up against the bizarre appeal for Coulter's feminist standing, is insane.
Fox, Drudge, Limbaugh, faggot-baiting: Ms. Paglia is a true expert in praising with faint damnation. And Dear Editors - you don't seem to notice how many legitimate, horrific actions pass by her fickle gaze, unexamined, as she spews.
Good luck with that.
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Thanks Mark Benjamin
[Read the article: Army pledges to investigate injured troop charge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for the initial story and extraordinary follow-through. Nice that you caught the army with its pants down.