The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Mind Games

7.17.02 @ 12:01AM

PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE
Re: Lawrence Henry's The Middle East War Nobody Knows:

Just read your article on Palestinian Resistance. I've been posting and commenting on it every time I come across a story on it. The estimates, by Palestinian Human Rights Groups, is that over 800 (or was it 1,800?) deaths in the First Intifada were collaborators killed by Palestinians. Of course the UN, EU and every other Israel-hating group with a soap-box to stand on include those in the numbers of Palestinians dead by the Israelis.
-- Zach Barbera
http://zbarbera.blogspot.com

THE ART OF LYING
Re: Bill Croke's Why Do 'Liberals' Lie? and Reader Mail's Misery and Missoula:

I have found it useful to adopt the perspective of the political scientist Hans Morgenthau, who in Politics Among Nations, stated that people could be categorized as realists, or idealists. He then explained that, whilst both types wish to improve our lot in this vale of tears, the realist accepts the reality that exists, and understands that, given human nature, which has never changed, and never will, improvements, changes, can be accomplished incrementally, and require both persuasion and compromise. The idealist, on the other hand, believes that man is "perfectible," that "education" is the answer to all problems, that we can attain "paradise" here on earth, and, most important, having envisioned the world as he thinks it should be, proceeds to act as if it already conformed to that vision.

"Liberals," and I place that term in quotation marks, because my experience is that those who style themselves "liberal" are virulently narrow-minded and intolerant of any dissent from their viewpoints, lie, Sir, because they are compelled to lie. These are people who attempt to deal with the world as if it were the way that they believe it should be, rather than the way that it is. Every time they are faced with what is to them an unpleasant fact, they deny the reality of that fact, which means that they lie. They lie, they quibble, they fantasize, and they condemn any and all of us who try to deal with the world as it actually is. They lie, because reality simply does not suit them.
-- W. B. Heffernan, Jr.

In reference to Mr. Croke's comment that "[a memoir] is not Art, therefore it should tell the truth," I would refer him to Florence King's Lump It Or Leave It, and her response to critics of Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady. To summarize, a memoir is an art form (though whether deserving of capitalization is another question), and therefore strict attention to factual matters can be a hindrance.
-- W. Picou

BACK, BACK, BACK
Re: Peter Hannaford's Strike Out:

Mr. Hannaford's column re baseball takes me way back to 1947. I remember a baseball reporter's column about Joe DiMaggio in which he told how he came upon Joe sitting at his locker after a hard fought game. He asked Joe why he looked "down" and the Clipper said he was thinking about his failure to help win the game. The reporter pointed to some younger players who appeared contented as they avidly read the stock reports of the Wall Street Journal and remarked that they did not show his concern. And Joe ruefully noted their activity with a sad concern for baseball's future if the players forgot what the game was about. -- at least the game Joe so proudly played. I remember sitting in the $1.25 center field bleachers of Yankee Stadium and watching a hurting Joe DiMaggio wincing from pain as he played his position. He felt that if he could throw one powerful ball back to the infield at the beginning of the game, he could fake out the opposition from trying to run on him during the rest of the game.

In my 72nd year, I have come to the sad conclusion that
baseball has forgotten the game it once was.
-- Ken Wyman
Huntsville, AL

U.C. IS WHAT YOU GET
Re: George Neumayr's A Liberal Fantasy Camp:

I am an alumnus of UC Berkeley. I got in in 1970, when the hot campus to attend was UC Santa Cruz. My how times have changed. Unless the situation has dramatically changed, if it is so important to have "Berkeley" on the diploma, then I suggest that one can go to Santa Cruz, Riverside, Davis, or Irvine for a year, get good grades and then transfer to Berkeley or UCLA, after the "life challenged" have flunked out, or otherwise left.
-- Roger Thompson
Hilliard, OH
(born and raised in the SF Bay Area).

In reporting about California admissions into the state's university system, Mr. Neumayr writes:

"Meanwhile, Susana Pena is UCLA-bound with an anemic 940 on the SAT. 'Once in a while, they should give us a little break so we can catch up to them,' she said to the Journal. "

Maybe Ms. Pena should have spent the last 12 years keeping up with the other students. I doubt 4 or 5 more years of "higher education", that these days spend almost the first 2 years in remedial courses because of the horrible quality of high schools, will be enough time for Ms. Pena to catch up to anything beyond "see spot run."

And I would sure like to know how being "poor" automatically means you can't learn. Are school libraries closed to the poor? Are these people so "poor" they can't afford electricity to read by at home? Are "poor" students denied the use of school materials? Are the "poor" taught in separate classrooms with teachers worse than the average (inner cities notwithstanding)?

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Law, Israel, Immigration