THE BEST NAME EVER!
Re: Jerry Carter’s The Nickname Hall of Fame:
Where’s Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell??
— unsigned:

SELFLESS PROTECTION
Re: Dave Shiflett’s Sister Heat:
Hurrah for you! Thanks for the article. I do not currently own a gun, but I did previously. And I am all for women packing one! Liberal men constantly argue that women shouldn’t have guns because they are too soft hearted and wouldn’t use them. That is a myth. Women ARE the protectors…
— L. Wolfe

CELIBACY ROUNDUP
Re: Reid Collins’s Right From Wrong:
Another wonderful piece from Reid Collins. Of course getting married does not cure pedophilia.
— Amy & David Lyons

MS. EINSTEIN
Re: Ryan H. Sager’s Dollars for Diplomats:
Ryan Sager made reference in his article today to Britney Spears and astrophysics. Actually, Ms. Spears is associated with solid state physics, not astrophysics, as you will see if you visit her website:
— Steve Black
Charlotte, NC

YOU HAD TO ASK?
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s Never Ending Race:
To attempt an answer to Mr. Tyrrell’s rhetorical question, “Why is race still the liberals’ burning issue?” we must consider that the people to whom the term “liberal” is being applied today, are not the people to whom it used to be applied. Today it means what I call the “self-styled liberals,” who are, in actuality, the antithesis of liberal. They are people who want bigger and more powerful Central Government, of which they mean to be a part, with essentially unlimited power to order the lives and behavior of people of “lesser intellect” than they, which is to say everyone who disagrees with them in even the slightest detail. To achieve this end that mean to eradicate all vestiges of individualism and personal responsibility, replacing it with group identity politics, and entitlements for preferred minorities and “victim groups,” who will, of course, keep voting these “liberals” into positions of more and more power. This is a sobering, not to say frightening prospect.
— W. B. Heffernan, Jr.

MORE ON THE O’HARE PROJECT
Re: The Prowler’s Pickering Your Fights:
Illinois Governor George Ryan and Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley recently appeared before House and Senate committees to seek federal approval of their scheme to expand Chicago’s airport capacity. The Daley-Ryan plan bypasses the Illinois legislature and the will of the people of Illinois in order to enrich the insiders of both administrations. The only people in favor of the multi-billion dollar airport enhancement are a handful of contractors, lawyers, insurance buddies and family and friends of Daley and Ryan. The opponents are everyone else. George Ryan is so unpopular with Illinoisians that he has made two trips to Cuba — the local joke is that he’s planning his retirement to a state with no extradition agreement with the United States. Mayor Daley is looking more and more like Elmer Fudd. Chicagoans shuddered observing hizzoner stutter and stammer and look pathetically ineffective for three days following a scaffolding accident at the John Hancock building. Any comparison of Daley and Giuliani has been forever dismissed. (Al Hunt recently called Daley the best mayor in America.) If the Senate gets smitten by Daley and Ryan, they become Enemy of the Week
— Jack Hughes
Chicago, IL

PETER ON VIDEO
Re: Wlady Pleszczynski Thank You, Linda:
Peter Jennings and Linda Douglass’s anticlimactic reporting of their campaign finance victory wasn’t even the most offensive thing on ABC News that evening. A few minutes later, Jennings introduced a no-holds-barred report on a white supremacist group based in West Virginia. What really disgusted PJ was that this group is distributing a computer game in which the player attempts to hunt down & shoot a Jew, a black, an Asian, etc. The bearded, Hassidic-looking Jew spins around as he is shot and cries ,”Oy, vey.” The grand prize is to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The language used by Jennings left no doubt as to his horror and revulsion at this game. No journalistic dispassion here! So why was I laughing almost through the entire report?

Because for his entire journalistic career, Jennings has been a leading apologist for those who hunted down and murdered Jews — in reality, not in a computer game.

We all know that, years ago, Jennings used to date Hannan Ashrawi, the long-time Arafat spokeswoman. Perhaps as a result, he has never made any condemnation of the PLO or its allies, neither in their objectives nor tactics. But compare what he found so offensive in this stupid computer game to the propaganda organs of the Palestinians (and arguably, the public discourse throughout the Arab world):

VIDEO GAME: incites violence against Jews
PALESTINIAN BROADCASTS/PUBLICATIONS: incite violence against Jews

VIDEO GAME: perpetuates crude, primitive ethnic stereotypes of Jews
PALESTINIAN BROADCASTS/PUBLICATIONS: perpetuate crude, primitive ethnic stereotypes of Jews

VIDEO GAME: glorifies violence against Jews
PALESTINIAN BROADCASTS/PUBLICATIONS: glorify violence against Jews

Of course, the video makes the VIRTUAL killing of Sharon its grand prize — while the Palestinians only managed to ACTUALLY MURDER Israel’ s Tourism minister in October. And what was Jennings reaction to that murder of Rehavam Ze’evi? Oh, he called the dead victim “an extremist” (not the Palestinians who gunned him down outside his hotel room). So I guess he deserved to be murdered, right, Pete?

When you boil it right down, Peter Jennings & those of his ilk seem to have a simple concept: Killing Jews is BAD in theory, on a computer game — but ACCEPTABLE (if not laudable) in reality.

I will start to change my mind the day I see ABC News describe the killers of real UNARMED Jewish human beings, in the real world, with the same language Jennings applied to those who merely pretend to kill Jews, in cyberspace.

I’m not holding my breath.
— Philip Averbuck
Lakeland, FL

REPEAT PERFORMANCES
Thanks for bringing the “Spectator” — errr — “Prowler” back.
— Michael Moynihan

I’m glad the political “TAS” has a successor! “TAS” was always striking and interesting. The idea of using humorous and wry elements throughout been a lesson well learned by some other American conservatives and has, perhaps, contributed more the advance of conservatism in the U.S. than, let us hope, the liberals will allow themselves to understand.
— Benjamin Udell

I am so glad to see James Bowman’s movie reviews back on the Internet. I also used to rely on TAS for book reviews. Hope you will have frequent, high quality book reviews. Good luck. Will there be a hard copy version?
— Christine Edwards