The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Sagebrush Is In

3.5.03 @ 12:01AM

PRICELESS
Re: Bill Croke's America Comes to Town:

Someone recently commented that most of Wyoming was "worthless sagebrush," which smacked me upside my head when I read it. I suppose I needed a cold dose of reality as I had been sitting here in Upstate NY daydreaming about fleeing to Wyoming. CODE ORANGE!, the coming war, will Turkey or won't they?, a flatline local economy, not to mention a dead-end retail job waiting on yuppies, can do that to a girl. Through it all, Bill Croke's columns on the wonders of Wyoming and its residents had been fueling some powerful fantasies ... that is until the "worthless sagebrush" comment. Worthless? Say it ain't so!

So I began checking out the webcams around the state on major thoroughfares which the Wyoming Dept. of Transportation had installed in order to monitor road conditions. Okay, so maybe Wyoming appears to be desolate and dry. But worthless?

I was thinking about re-evaluating my daydream destination when I read BC's column today about seeing Michael Martin Murphey in concert. "This got an exuberant round of applause from the cowboy-hatted Wyoming audience. I sat there and thought about all those rabid anti-American, pro-Saddam 'antiwar' rallies of late, the clapping driving home the point that there are indeed two Americas." I read that and realized that it wasn't the state per se as much as it was its people which are the attraction for me, tumbling tumbleweeds and all. Now that's priceless.

Thank you once again, Bill Croke.
-- Kitty Myers
Upstate New York

THE TRUTH WILL OUT
I must apologize.

Some time ago, James Bowman reviewed the movie The Four Feathers, and was rather scathing in his disappointment. At the time, I had recently read the novel by A.E.W. Mason, and sent in an email that TAP posted in its Reader Mail section, with a few minor crits of Mister Bowman's review.

I believe I said the following:

"So, at least in the lack of grand battles and historical filigree, there is nothing wrong about this newest film version of The Four Feathers at all."

I now wish to add: but in every other respect, there was -- from the miscasting of Kate Hudson as Ethne, to Jack's blinding by rifle misfire instead of exposure, and the complete lack of the "homefront" storyline between Jack and Ethne that took up half the book. Oh, and the omission of the key scene from Harry's youth that occurs as a preface to the book, and tells us all we truly need to know about the man he will become....

What is my point?

I will never doubt Mister Bowman again. And neither, dear reader, should you.
-- Alexander Craghead
Portland, Oregon, USA
(Where the Ninth Circuit says our kids can't say "under God" in the pledge anymore....)

ABOVE THE BLUE AND WINDY SEA
Re: George Neumayr's The San Francisco Creep:

And true to the hearts and actions of the inhabitants of the land of fruits and nuts the good (albeit not bright) citizens of San Francisco will re-elect Terence Hallinan just as they did Gray Davis.
-- Marilyn Jameson
Pittsburgh, PA

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
Re: The Washington Prowler's No Losing With Estrada:

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Transportation, Foreign Policy, Constitution, Founding Fathers, Military, Iraq, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, United Nations, North Korea, Oil, Unions