Letters to the Editor
Anonymust
Published Letters: 2031 Editor's Choice: 74
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We're all becoming refugees...
[Read the article: Politicizing the terrorist plot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I really don't think most people pay attention to the whittling away of our constitutional rights. They seem so abstract... unless something is happening to you. People do pay attention, though, to being inconvenienced themselves while traveling, and when hearing other travelers' tales of woe. Perhaps those inconveniences (are meant to) have the effect of making the public say, "Okay, go ahead, and do whatever you have to do to catch these guys?"
For the forseeable future, a lot of anxious people will be traveling without the few comforts that were still left to us, e.g., a carry-on bag with a change of clothes & immediate necessities, including whatever solutions are needed for contact lenses, for example, and maybe the books and knitting that many find relaxing (we don't really know yet). Barefeet on dirty concrete airport floors. Groping body searches. (Maybe women should just consider traveling braless?) Bags that now MUST be checked, AND left unlocked, and that may or may not arrive when we do, given the massive delays. Who knows if the contents will be intact? The reasons why I usually travel carry-on.
What will we still be allowed? Our travel papers (must have that photo ID!) and any medications. Oh, and breast milk or formula for babies (which must be tasted during security check!). No water, or any other liquids.
Sounds like a possible silent public health crisis in the making to me. A lot of possibly dehydrated people, exhausted from standing in security lines for hours, on perhaps more medications than they were already taking, just so they don't have a meltdown.
Ironically, travel used to be one of the privileges of the haves, and the burden of the have-nots who were seeking a future, before it became something the rest of us did, too. Now, travel is just one more area in which the Bush Administration has led the way in further widening the gap between us and them-- by wiping out the middle ground. At least as far as our experience of travelling goes...
I can't help but notice that if/when plots/terrorists are discovered, it happens either before they are even in the airport (from intelligence), or after they have boarded and are ready to take action (oops! too late). Are there ever any terrorists who are actually discovered during the Security Check? Just wondering...
(I'm getting ready to take a work-related trip overseas in less than two weeks... can you tell how much I'm looking forward to it? No lenses, only one prescription, but definite dietary intolerances, for which I've always carried my own food.)
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Still, it's been an interesting discussion
[Read the article: Did Lieberman violate Jewish law?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but I say that as a non-Jew, who knows only a very little about Judaism, and more of that is cultural than religious.
I sympathize with those writers who took offense at what seemed to them an over-simplification of their religion to the point of altering meanings. If it makes you feel any better, though, some of us have learned something, if not from the original piece, then from the letters/discussion that followed.
(Not fair to tar this writer with the brush of Farhad Manjoo. In the past, readers might have appreciated a dialogue with an author more than not, and in this case, it seems especially appropriate, given some of what I understand about Jewish tradition. And it isn't his fault that Manjoo has abused the practice so often and so recently.)
As for whether or not it's right to call Lieberman on his religious practices... I think he opened the door on that himself. He does wear his religion on his sleeve, while trying to pretend he does not. Frankly, I would prefer less religion in the public square, too, but if it's going to be forced upon us, than these anti-dotes, however awkward they may be, are welcome, and maybe necessary, in spite of the paradoxes they bring up regarding their own practices.
One of the paradoxes that Lieberman constantly manages to bring up is how one can have one's cake and eat it, too. It really was significant, 8 yrs ago, when he ran for two public offices-- including VEEP!-- at the same time, and, in fact, potentially endangering the Democratic majority of the Senate, in the process. So, when he originally threatened to run as an independent, if he lost the primary, I was not surprised. Talk about cherry-picking! "Think I'll run in a primary, but if that doesn't work out, I'll run as an independent." Independents, as a rule, start out that way, they don't run in primaries first, thus fouling the waters.
Thanks, Joan, for changing the title. Salon readers really don't come here for sensationalism. If we wanted that, we'd be tuned into... well, you know.
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GWB is reading Camus?
[Read the article: Now, if he could just tell us why the president's reading Camus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My guess is that it's all about Suicide... GWB still doesn't comprehend why anyone would choose to become a "suicider," and he keeps asking that question, if only rhetorically.
Perhaps someone-- his daughter, Barbara? Condi? Laura?-- suggested that he read Camus.
Maybe mentioning his reading The Stranger is meant to be a clue to us that he's finally trying to have a clue. Too late.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_views_of_suicide
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Videotaping the race card being played... is definitely better than playing it
[Read the article: Stepping in "macaca"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Would that there were dozens more progressives of color willing to follow around a GOP (or GOP-lite) candidate and videotape their appearances. And their constitutents, too, where appropriate.
It's a little bit too much to ask, of course-- who could have the stomach for it, day in and day out-- but it would surely have an impact. And it would reveal Mehlman's GOP diversity plan as the shell game it really is.
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Agreed...
[Read the article: The real rank and file of the "mommy wars"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...so then, why doesn't Salon and/or Broadsheet do some original interviews/reporting... on ordinary women and men and the (ir)relevance of the so-called mommy wars to their lives? Maybe even some videos? Think Studs Terkel.