Letters to the Editor
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Too urbane for words
So Miss Burleigh was in France for two years writing a book. Sounds like she is quite accomplished. I wonder, as successful as she is, if she found it necessary to avail herself of the wonderful French social system. Cheap drugs and cheap child care;hopefully she left that for the less fortunate of her adopted countrymen and paid her own way. I'm sure Miss Burleigh is much too socially conscious to bathe in Gallic Socialism when back here, in the Republican nightmare called America, she has two homes, one, in the most expensive city in the world.
Oh well, she's back, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that such an urbane wit as herself is back in New York, where she belongs. France's loss is our gain...or something like that.
I would like to know if she saw any French flags flying over the schools there? I would like to know if any of the French children wore their country's colors to school on Bastille Day?
Of course, the children know to be careful of what to wear to school in France. Just ask the Muslim students.
Although she had to come back to this right-wing, Christian, intolerant , racist, homophobic, only-for-the-rich, Third Reich version of America,(Have I left out any of the liberal cliche mantra?)I hope her son will now get a proper education. Imagine those Gestapo teachers in upstate New York making those little innocents belt out the Pledge of Allegiance! Thank God she got him out of there in time. I am sure he will get as broad and well-rounded an education as his mom obviously did, back in the safety of the Upper West Side.
I grew up in Westchester and lived in New York City before moving to New Jersey to raise my family. The United States flag flies above my childrens' school. The recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is not a daily occurance, but there aren't many parents in our town who find it the blasphemy Miss Burleigh thinks it is. My advice for her is to rest easy, in two years Democrats will most probably be back in power, and I'm sure all will be right(or left!) in Miss Burleigh's America again.
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Response to LeCastor
LeCastor wrote:
"Mike,
No one asked you to pray for them. This is typical of the fundies we were just discussing 10 posts ago and how you want to butt into our nihilist lives. We don't need you to pray to the bogeyman for us. we're doing fine. in fact, it's not the fundies who write monumental pieces of literature, write beautiful music, work in the biolabs to cure cancer, work on math and physics problems. "
I know no one asked me to. It's consistent with the Christian faith to do things for others without being asked. I was really moved by her piece and I cared about Nina and her family. While I disagree with her politics, I still can feel grief for her situation and it sounds like she has some doubts within herself as well.
And I expect C.S. Lewis, Bach, Pascal, Newton, Schweitzer and others would disagree about the contributions Christians have made in literature, music, mathematics, physics, and paleontology.
BTW, I strongly recommend reading a modern English translation of the gospels of Matthew and John like the New International Version (NIV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), or New King James Version (NKJV). Maybe in your case Russian would be better, don't know which language you prefer reading. If you want to know Christ and understand the perspective of 'fundies,' these are short, dynamite readings.
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i hate to be an asshole but...
1) in the most expensive city in the world.
New York isn't the most expensive city in the world. And Paris is more expensive than New york
http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/21/pf/costliest_cities/
2) I would like to know if she saw any French flags flying over the schools there? I would like to know if any of the French children wore their country's colors to school on Bastille Day?
Of course, the children know to be careful of what to wear to school in France. Just ask the Muslim students.
Yes, the french are very nationalistic, but since Bastille Day is on July 14th, French children aren't in school on that day, they are on summer vacation.
There are French flags everywhere in France. on July 14th, the eiffel tower was all red white and blue for 30 minutes. but, they have a system of laicite -- complete separation of church and state, so there is no way anything religious could be tied to the public school system there. and definitely no pledge of allegiance including "under God" in france. No praying in the Senate, and no praying at graduation ceremonies -- wait, there are no hoopla Halloween-like dressup graduation ceremonies. :) No national leaders talking about their faith on national TV -- the french have already had a Jewish prime minister and a female one too!!! But i digress...
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Why?
Nina,
Why do you live in a place that you hate?
~ADM
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A Broad Brush
I can't quite describe how I felt as I read 'Burly's' article...sick to my stomach a bit I guess. I live in the same America, My first son is due in Oct. and the fact that there will still be socialists,and communists,- in this country, born here!, that hate on the level you do-,when he's a grown man.....saddens me.
The hate I'm trying to describe seeing in you comes from the characterization of your neighbor's in Narrowsburg. Your condecension, and disdain for them and their beliefs, their sacrifices and, basically all the things they hold dear. balanced on the otherside by a special trip to the city to give clothes to kids in Iraq, when sure they need them, but so do many children here in this country. your NEIGHBOR'S children.
the seperation in your mind and heart here between fellow country-men, and foreign suffering is illustrative of your own myopic, bigoted, emotionally tempestous hate filled life.....12 WHITE children in your son's class...."Upper-West Side" school probably never had a flag....all the little Badges of liberalism, so paper thin and twisted, but since it's Bush you hate, and Conservatives you despise, and the country boy's you be-little, all people and beliefs you can armor yourself against in the city, you've mistakenly concluded that this Country must be hated as a whole. You've forgotten that a country is it's people, the government of our country is one we've elected, again and again over centuries, and it has become a slovenly Giant I agree, but, it will change as the people change it over the time we're afforded to keep the sovereignty our country, and our right to vote. With the Vote, we will choose our leaders again and again, If you really beleive that the eight years under President Bush has been so catastrophic as to have caused Hurricanes and Tsunamis and Wars, and Global Warming to Spiral out of control,then please, Move Back to France....and Take your son with you.
mrs. burleigh, you don't deserve the freedom those "Country Boys" and others, are protecting for us in Iraq right now.
I love My Country, I love my neigbors, even if they vote democrat, and I love myself. your character is the only thing I need to gauge to judge you, not the color of your skin, or the diety that you worship, etc. and so, while you'll prattle on about 'patriot-ization' and "innocence", the people worth defending in this country, will be defending it. In Iraq and in the voting booth, and they'll keep your "metropolitan experience" and "weekend house", safe from A.Q. shoot, maybe your son can feel safe in tall buildings in another ten or fifteen years, you know when he's grown, and maybe learned a little more about how to cope with reality than mommy and daddy did. I wish him luck. you i'm afraid will always carry around that infantile emotional mechanism that enables you to be so.......liberal.